Santa Rosa County to host virtual coastal resiliency workshop Thurs., Oct. 29

Santa Rosa County will host a virtual coastal resiliency workshop to present a vulnerability to future flooding assessment via Zoom Thurs., Oct. 29 beginning at 6 p.m. Participants are asked to register in advance at https://bit.ly/3d69V28.

“The Resilience to Future Flooding presentation webinar is an opportunity for the project team to engage with the public and thoroughly explain the factors and weightings that went into creating the flood vulnerability model," said GIS Coordinator Tanya Gallagher, Ph.D. "One of the great things about the model we have created is that it can be easily changed and updated. So, when new data becomes available we can rerun the analysis to reflect the most current information. The idea is that this tool will be used by both citizens and county staff alike to make informed decisions about areas in the county that are most susceptible to flooding. ”Santa Rosa County was awarded a NOAA Resilience to Future Flooding small grants for their project, "Building Flood Resilience in Santa Rosa County."

In partnership with the University of Florida IFAS Sea Grant, the University of West Florida and the Emerald Coast Regional Council, Santa Rosa County has been developing a vulnerability assessment web application to inform residents of future flood risk.
Santa Rosa County, one of the fastest growing counties in the state, is heavily affected by extreme weather and climate-related hazards. With over 81 miles of rivers and streams and 100 miles of tidally affected shoreline, the county has a high probability of experiencing at least one incidence of localized flooding annually.

The assessment builds off a National Association of Counties (NACo) led effort which helped to establish a Coastal Resilience Team in Santa Rosa County with a focus on strengthening the county’s resilience to coastal hazards. Going through this process, the county was able to start a dialogue on resilience and identify the next steps needed for increasing countywide resilience to future flooding.

Over the last year, county staff and partners have completed a needs assessment focused on coastal resilience as well as a full vulnerability assessment that will take environmental, climate change and socio-ecological factors into consideration. The Santa Rosa County vulnerability assessment will be made available as a web application and a story map on the county website. With this information, Santa Rosa County can further their knowledge, resources, and capacity to improve their resilience to sea-level rise and associated hazards now and in the future.

The Resilience to Future Flooding project, funded by a NOAA Regional Coastal Resilience Grant, is focused on addressing communication and financial barriers to increase sea-level rise resilience in the northern Gulf of Mexico and is led by the Northern Gulf of Mexico Sentinel Site Cooperative, UF IFAS Extension, Gulf of Mexico Alliance, NOAA, Climate and Resilience Community of Practice, Dauphin Island Sea Lab, Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant, Mississippi Department of Marine Resources, Mississippi State University, and Louisiana Sea Grant.