FY 2015 Regional Coastal Resilience Grants Program

The purpose of this notice is to announce the policies and application procedures for the FY 2015 Regional Coastal Resilience Grants Program. Awards made under this program will support eligible entities as they develop or implement activities that build resilience of coastal regions, communities, and economic sectors to the negative impacts from extreme weather events, climate hazards, and changing ocean conditions. Funds will be available to support activities that: (1) Identify and address priority data, information, and capacity gaps; (2) develop tools, as needed, to inform sound, science-based decisions, which support regional efforts to plan for a resilient ocean and coastal economy; (3) acquire and integrate socioeconomic information with physical and biological information to improve the assessment of risk and vulnerability for planning and decision making; (4) understand how hazards and changing ocean conditions affect coastal economies, including existing and emerging sectors that depend on the ocean and coasts; (5) develop the information and approaches needed for improved risk communication, and the necessary tools, technical assistance and training tailored toward enhanced resilience to weather events, climate hazards, and changing ocean conditions; (6) evaluate the costs, benefits, and tradeoffs of systems-based development or redevelopment approaches that incorporate both natural defenses and hard structural solutions; or (7) support the development of sustainable recovery, redevelopment, and adaptation plans and implement programs and projects that incentivize rebuilding and development approaches which reduce risk and increase resilience. See the full FY 2015 Regional Coastal Resilience Grants Federal Funding Opportunity (FFO), located on Grants.gov, as described in the ADDRESSES section, for a complete description of program goals and how applications will be evaluated. Note that this funding opportunity is one of two competitions being administered by NOAA to build coastal resilience. The companion competition, the Coastal Ecosystem Resiliency Grants program, is being administered by NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service to implement projects that use a proactive approach to improve or restore coastal habitat to strengthen the resilience of communities, protected resources and fisheries.