FINAL REPORT Insights into Coastal Management Needs: Results from the NOAA Coastal Services Center and Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management Customer Survey April 2014 Eastern Research Group, Inc. Lexington, Massachusetts Written under contract for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Coastal Services Center NOAA Coastal Services Center (843) 740-1200 www.csc.noaa.gov This report was prepared by Eastern Research Group, Inc. (ERG) for the NOAA Coastal Services Center under contract EA133C-09-CQ-0034, task order 32. CONTENTS CONTENTS ..................................................................................................................................................... ii LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................................................. iii LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................................................... iii Executive Summary: 2013 Coastal Resource Management Survey ............................................................. iv 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 1 2 Data Collection Methodology and Response Rate .............................................................................. 2 2.1 Additional Data Collection ............................................................................................................ 3 3 Results ................................................................................................................................................. 4 3.1 Demographics ............................................................................................................................... 4 3.2 Coastal Resource Management Priorities .................................................................................... 7 3.3 Tools and Information Resources ............................................................................................... 13 3.4 Partnerships and Collaboration .................................................................................................. 22 3.5 Additional Insights from Follow-up Discussions and Corrobation with the CSC-ERG Needs Assessment for Training in Climate and Hazards Adaptation Planning and Implementation ... 25 4 Trends ................................................................................................................................................ 29 4.1 Survey Respondent Demographics ............................................................................................. 29 4.2 Trends in Respondent Priorities ................................................................................................. 30 4.3 Data Needs ................................................................................................................................. 31 4.4 Preferred Learning Methods ...................................................................................................... 31 Appendix A: Survey Instrument Appendix B: Sequential presentation of responses to each survey question ii LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Response rate by partner organization ........................................................................................... 3 Table 2: Respondent characterization of primary job duties (more than one could have been selected) .. 6 Table 3: Is your organization affiliated with one of the following organizations listed below that make up the Digital Coast Partnership? ...................................................................................................................... 6 Table 4: Please identify the products or services your organization most needs ...................................... 14 Table 5. Summary of top five training tasks by desired proficiency level. ................................................. 15 Table 6: Please rank the top five tasks for which you most need training or technical assistance ............ 17 Table 7: Frequency of use of CSC/OCRM data products............................................................................. 18 Table 8: Percentage of frequent data users whose needs are met with currently available data ............. 19 Table 9: Types of information coastal managers want from CSC/OCRM ................................................... 21 Table 10. Most valuable partners by priority issue..................................................................................... 22 Table 11: Summary of priority issues, information and service needs by digital coast partners ............... 24 Table 12: Trends among respondents of last three surveys related to priorities ...................................... 30 LIST OF FIGURES Figure ES-1: Distribution of responses regarding coastal management topics most important to one’s work ............................................................................................................................................................. iv Figure ES-2: Respondents’ professional affiliation ...................................................................................... vi Figure 1: NOAA CSC/OCRM regions .............................................................................................................. 5 Figure 2: Coastal region representation (respondents could check more than one location) ..................... 5 Figure 3: Respondents’ current professional affiliation ............................................................................... 6 Figure 4: Distribution of responses to the question: Please indicate the topics most important to your work (select up to four). ............................................................................................................................... 7 Figure 5: Coastal resource management priority issues in the Great Lakes, Northeast, and Mid-Atlantic regions........................................................................................................................................................... 8 Figure 6: Coastal resource management priority Issues in the Gulf of Mexico, Southeast, and Caribbean regions........................................................................................................................................................... 9 Figure 7: Coastal resource management priority issues in the Pacific and Western regions..................... 10 Figure 8: Coastal resource management priority issues for managers whose work is nationally or internationally focused ............................................................................................................................... 11 Figure 9. Visual representation of emerging issues for survey respondents ............................................. 13 Figure 10. Desired proficiency with various tasks ...................................................................................... 16 Figure 12. Poster presentation at Social Coast Forum................................................................................ 25 Figure 13. Job duty demographics of survey respondents ......................................................................... 29 iii EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: 2013 COASTAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT SURVEY The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Coastal Services Center (CSC) and the Office of Ocean and Coastal Resources Management (OCRM) are working together on strategies that improve the understanding of, as well as the ability to manage, protect, and utilize valuable coastal resources. In order to assess the needs of CSC/OCRMs partners and customers in the coastal resource management community (e.g., program administrators, educators, coastal planners) and to guide strategic planning, professional development, and delivery of future products and services, CSC/OCRM conducted a Coastal Resources Management (CRM) Customer Survey. The results are highlighted below. PRIORITY ISSUES CSC/OCRM asked coastal resource managers to indicate up to four of their most important priorities. The results are shown in Figure ES-1. Additionally, respondents were asked about their most important sub-issues in those topics. The results for the top priorities are as follows:*1 Coastal planning and development o Climate change impacts (70 percent) o Habitat loss/fragmentation (48 percent) o Comprehensive land use planning (48 percent) Conservation o Habitat restoration and monitoring (54 percent) o Climate change impacts (51 percent) o Habitat loss/fragmentation (41 percent) Hazards o Climate change impacts (78 percent) o Flooding/inundation (70 percent) o Hurricanes/coastal storms (69 percent) o Shoreline change and erosion 65 percent) 71 percent of respondents indicated that climate Figure ES-1: Distribution of responses changes and impacts are a priority for at least one of regarding coastal management topics most the topic areas most important to their work. important to one’s work The survey asked respondents to list the issues that would require the most attention in the future and respondents most frequently chose the following terms to describe those issues: Climate change Sea level rise Resilience Other common words included “hazards,” “spatial planning,” “adaptation,” “restoration,” and “management.” 1 CSC/OCRM did not identify any sub-issues under water quality. iv REQUESTED