September 30, 2026

Coastal Flood Resilience News

Twice a month, CFRP recaps the latest science, federal policy, and state and local news related to coastal flood resilience and sea level rise. Prior issues can be viewed on our website.

Science

Consensus Ice Loss Estimates Published

New research published in Science Data provides a consensus assessment of the ice lost contributing to sea level rise from Greenland and Antarctica, providing a foundation for estimates of future sea level rise.

The Associated Press summary of the research stated that “about 12.5 trillion tons (11.3 trillion metric tons) of ice from glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica have melted since 1979, which is enough frozen water to stack ice 5 feet (1.5 meters) deep across the continental United States.” The summary also noted that ice loss is accelerating: “It showed that in the 1970s, 1980s and into the 1990s, the ice sheets were relatively stable, but then melt started happening and it really kicked in during the 2010s.”

Gizmodo offers some additional interesting quotes.

Climate Research Agenda Released

A diverse team of scientists has released an agenda for research into climate assessment challenges as an initial step toward developing a National Climate Assessment to replace the one cancelled by the Trump administration, including a chapter on research related to coasts (i.e., Chapter 3.2).

The Coastal chapter identifies several key research needs:

• improve understanding of compound flooding events (i.e., coastal and river);

• evaluate local adaptation strategies, including nature based strategies; and

• characterize coastal impacts that have systemic economic risks beyond the coast, noting that “systemic economic risk arising from growing coastal climate risk, and potential solutions, would benefit from synthesis, as would the sequencing and scaling‐up of equitable strategies for community‐led relocation, considering effects on both sending and receiving communities.”

The AGU press release provides more information.

House Science Committee Holds Hearing on Disaster Innovation

The House Committee on Science, Space and Technology held a hearing on September 15 to consider innovations in disaster preparedness. Melissa Roberts, Executive Director of the American Flood Coalition, testified on the role of floods in major disasters and proposed the creation a federal center for disaster resilience research.

Such a center could sit at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), be a new Advanced Research Project Agency, or serve as a special project within a national lab. It should have the authority to bring together partner agencies and outside organizations to build smart, region-wide approaches to tackling multiple types of hazards at once, figuring out where a well-placed project could make the biggest difference for disaster preparation.

10 Reasons Why Hurricanes May Get Worse

Jeff Masters writes in Yale Climate Connections describing ten ways that hurricanes may become more damaging in years ahead. In addition to pointing out reasons for stronger storms, Masters explains why stronger storms pose significant economic risks:

A 2025 study that has not yet undergone peer review, Stress testing insurance market stability under climate risk, found that there is about a 4% chance per year – or 34% chance over 10 years – that an extreme hurricane season in Florida could cause multi-billion-dollar losses to the government, not covered by insurance, that would exceed 1% of the state’s GDP.

Such an occurrence could well trigger a regional collapse of the coastal property market. Science writer Eugene Linden wrote in 2023, “as we saw in 2008, a housing crisis can quickly morph into a systemic financial crisis because banks own most of the value, and thus the risk, in housing and commercial real estate.”

MIT Research Offers Beach Protection System

A company called Coastal Assembly has developed technology that predicts and monitors coastal losses, and has the potential to aid communities in adapting to climate change by reducing the time and cost of complex coastline modeling, and predicting the areas most vulnerable to erosion. They are also creating submerged structures to build shorelines back.

A shore protection project in the Maldives is designed to break up eroding waves while allowing the flow of currents that accumulate sand and sediment. It involves 54 structures cast from marine concrete blended with sand and crushed shells, arranged in a row of hexagons. According to reporting from The New York Times, “the company has 10 more installations set for the Maldives and more projects planned in the Bahamas, Boston Harbor and Miami.”

Federal Policy

US Supports United Nations Declaration on Sea Level Rise

The United Nations adopted on September 24 by consensus a Declaration on Sea Level Rise promoted by Pacific Island Nations. The United States did not object to approval of the declaration.

Grist explains that the declaration is intended to protect the sovereignty of island nations who loose their land to rising seas:

It had never been clear what would happen to those sovereign nations. Under the agreement, those states will continue to exist as political actors even if their landmass disappears. They’ll also retain control over their old maritime borders, the stretch of sea extending from the coastline over which a country has exclusive control for fishing, energy development, and other military and economic activity. 

Thriving Economy Project Offers Resilience Policies

The Thriving Economy Project, developed through the Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition Institute, has published a report outlining policy options in diverse areas, including community resilience. The report is the work of Democratic Members of Congress and a range of policy experts. Some of the key recommendations in Chapter 3 of the report relate to community resilience and climate adaptation and include:

• Establish a coordinated federal climate-migration framework, anchored by a designated lead agency and a permanent community-led relocation program;

• Reduce barriers to the planned transition from areas of greatest risk to safer areas by deploying federal funding and technical assistance;

• Support origin communities in planning for property conversion to open space, restoration, or risk-reducing uses; and

• Standardize federal data, risk disclosures, and a single point of entry for buyout and relocation program applicants to reduce administrative burden.

Recommendations in other chapters relate to risk communication, protection of disadvantaged communities, infrastructure development based on future conditions, and ecosystem protection.

Racial Inequities Plague FEMA Buyout Program

A new report from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that the Federal Emergency Management Agency Hazard Mitigation Program buyouts concluding:

We find that the buyout compensation received by households of color is at least 6 percent lower than that received by white households. White participants relocate to higher quality neighborhoods and are better off than white nonparticipants. Black participants, on the other hand, move to worse neighborhoods and are worse off than Black non-participants

The New York Times provides background information and quoted a study author: “Policymakers have considered expanding buyout programs and purchasing homes before disaster hits. If they don’t fix the payment gap, ‘these unequal impacts are going to be magnified,’ Dr. Ma said.”

Climate Impacts Drive Affordability Crisis

This new report from Rebuild by Design, a project of New York University, describes how extreme weather is a “hidden cost” that drives the affordability crisis, noting:

The financial impacts of extreme weather events on households strain savings, disrupt livelihoods, and deepen inequalities, adding to an already critical affordability crisis. Despite these events increasing in frequency, severity, and public visibility, households/individuals across the country are not financially prepared for the long term effects of weather such as sea level rise, nor the next weather disaster.

Flood insurance and property insurance rate increases, storm recovery costs, and displacement as a result of flooding all contribute to extreme weather costs.

House Passes WRDA 2026

On September 16, the U.S. House of Representatives approved the 2026 Water Resources Development Act by a vote of 415 - 9. This press release from Committee Chair Rep. Sam Graves explains:

WRDA 2026 makes significant improvements across the country to our inland waterways, ports and harbors, flood protection, and other critical water infrastructure. This bill also makes common-sense reforms to the Army Corps of Engineers’ policies, empowers local communities, and expedites project delivery…

A key section of the bill addresses coastal storm risk management studies (i.e., Section 132) and includes sea level rise among other factors to be considered and calls for equal consideration of structural and nonstructural measures.

For the legislative text of the House passed WRDA 2026, click here. For a summary of WRDA 2026, click here.

The Senate Environment Committee reported a WRDA bill in July.

State Authority Under Coastal Zone Management at Risk

The Department of Commerce has reopened a near final review of the Coastal Zone Management Program in California, citing “multiple unfounded objections to spaceport-related proposals by the U.S. Air Force.”

Christine Todd Whitman, served as governor of New Jersey from 1994 to 2001 and administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from 2001 to 2003, wrote in The Hill newspaper raising concerns about possible loss of state authority to object to federal actions that the states finds to be inconsistent with an adopted state CZMA plan.

This formula for success falls apart if Washington can supplant California’s priorities with its own, especially if the Trump administration’s rush for new offshore drilling results in oil spills. We’ve seen time and again that such spills close fisheries, beaches and harbors, and transform vibrant coastal communities into ghost towns overnight.

The Moral Hazards of Minimum Standards

In this reflection on choices communities must make in managing flooding, Chad Berginnis, Director of the Association of State Floodplain Managers (ASFPM), outlines the moral hazards that officials confront when they opt for minimum standards. He outlines some of the issues with failing to choose safer, more protective standards, including:

Lower Costs, Higher Danger: buildings are cheaper to build initially but risks and costs pass to others (“After the house is built and sold, most builders are off to build the next subdivision, unburdened by the legacy risk that they may have left behind.”);

False Security: the idea that a property is safer, and more valuable than it is, often leading to unexpected future costs or losses; and

Transfer of Recovery Cost to the Public: this occurs both as conventional disaster assistance but includes many, smaller costs and disruptions that are rarely assessed.

FEMA’s “Perverse Incentives” Drive Loss of Homes and Beach Debris Hazards

Colorado Public Radio reports on the growing number of homes lost to flood hazards and the public health risks that result from debris generated when homes are destroyed, explaining:

FEMA provides most residential flood insurance in the United States. The agency will pay homeowners after a house collapses, but not before. That means owners stand to lose tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars by tearing down a doomed house before the ocean takes it.

"The homeowner is incentivized to wait for collapse and get a payout," says John Ryan-Henry, a policy analyst at the Coastal States Organization, a nonprofit that advocates on behalf of coastal state governments, including those along the Great Lakes.

And when homes collapse, they pollute the water and leave wreckage on the shore.

"People should not have to wait for their home to collapse into the water before they can get help," says Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine. "That is just not a smart way to deal with the reality of climate change."

This video from NPR shows loss of homes to the sea.

Coastal Debris Poses Health Hazards

NPR reported on the environmental and health risks resulting from the loss of homes along beaches as debris is spread for miles along beaches.

You're talking about very large and, in some case, hazardous building debris - pilings, washers, dryers, jacuzzis. In many cases, within, let's just say, 24 hours of the house collapsing, we can have debris that's already spread 10 miles or more.

Coastal management experts point out it's possible to prevent a lot of this pollution. It's pretty clear which houses are threatened. They could be removed before they wash away, which most people can't afford to do, and new houses would need to be built in places that are safe from rising seas.

State and Local

Hawaii’s “Brutal” Disasters Prompt Calls for Resilience

The State of Hawaii is managing diverse disaster risks. This article in Civil Beat describes these challenges and the state response.

This year’s supercharged, historic El Niño has already surpassed the scientists’ predictions, and experts are bracing for yet more hurricanes or tropical storms, as well as an elevated risk of wildfires after the wet season passes. 

David Lopez, the administrator of the Hawaiʻi Emergency Management Agency who took on the role in July, said the sheer number of concurrent operations has required the agency to hire more personnel and improve its training to handle multiple rolling recovery efforts at once.

Betting the House: Reporting on Coastal Flood Loss

Covering Climate Now is supporting a new series of reports from places along the U.S. coast facing flooding and loss of homes. Reports come from:

• Miami; on how realtors understate flood risks of coastal condos;

• New Orleans; on how rising insurance costs make some places uninsurable;

• Hawaii; on how homeowners are fighting erosion on Oahu’s north shore are fighting erosion; and

• North Carolina/Connecticut; on how home elevation and relocation are saving beach property for those able to pay the costs.

California Sea Wall Fight

This article in The Washington Post describes how residents of Dana Point on the coast of California want to build a seawall to protect their properties, but the California Coastal Commission is pushing back:

Residents want to make the rock wall permanent, but “coastal armoring” is so controversial that the California Coastal Commission generally bans it in new developments. “It’s important to note that while seawalls can provide temporary relief for homes, they can also increase erosion and destroy the public beaches that help protect those same structures,” Joshua Smith, a spokesperson for the Coastal Commission, said in a statement.

The article quotes Charles Lester, a former Coastal Commission director who now directs the Marine Science Institute at UC Santa Barbara:

“Once the rock goes on the beach it’s very hard to bring it back up.” One long-term option for vulnerable communities, Lester said, may be retreat. “At what point do we start to recognize that maybe it’s not a good idea to have the development there?” Lester said. “If we get to that point, the question is not, ‘Okay, leave,’ it’s more like — ‘Okay, how do we facilitate a community transition?’”

This article in The Atlantic provides another interesting view of coastal erosion issues in California.

Florida Coast Storm Driven Gentrification

This article in Inside Climate News describes how coastal storm damage to properties along the Florida coast have resulted in rebuilding by new owners of homes that are often larger and more costly than those they replace, noting:

…up and down the state’s coastlines, populations of communities that were recently thrashed by more frequent and intense storms have been remade economically and socially in what has been dubbed “post-disaster gentrification.” Beachside neighborhoods that were once home to working-class or middle-class people are being replaced by younger, wealthier residents who can afford the higher costs of rebuilding and through-the-roof homeowners’ insurance.

“It went from a middle-class neighborhood to now a lot of multimillion-dollar investment properties,” Jaques Sebastiao said recently. “None of the people who said they were going to move back here, moved here.”

Maine Town on a Path to Coastal Resilience

The Town of Machias, Maine has suffered repeated storm flooding and is making progress toward adapting to emerging flood risks. This well-written article in Atmos describes the the challenges and mixed success:

If you ask locals, Machias has seen some dark times recently. Sure, storms have always raged here. But by February of 2024, nine 100-year floods—severe weather events with a 1% likelihood of occurring in any given year—had slammed into the coastal community of 2,000 people in just six and a half years. It started to look like the sun might actually go down on Machias.

Despite agreements to proceed with a set of high priority adaptation actions, the author notes:

I’m still struck by how insanely unromantic this all seems. I came to Machias looking for a story about a community that set differences aside to rally around shared concerns in the aftermath of major disasters. Instead, I found a community that, in many ways, is still divided—mostly along partisan lines—over what exactly happened, how bad things actually got, and what the future holds. 

New York State Climate Resilience Costs Predicted

This new assessment of climate adaptation costs in New York State finds total costs of $519 billion, of which about $400 billion are in New York City and Long Island. Many of these costs are for coastal resilience.

Here is a press release from the study authors, Rebuild by Design, a project of New York University. The report offers eight recommendations including:

• a statewide climate resilience plan;

• expanded long-term funding streams for adaptation;

• expanded technical assistance; and

• improved flood mapping.