The North Carolina Division of Coastal Management has received nearly $546 thousand dollars as one of 49 new grants awarded by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s Emergency Coastal Resilience Fund 2021 grant cycle. The funds will be used to enhance the resilience of North Carolina’s coastal communities and natural resources by supporting local planning and pre-construction activities.
The award will be used to expand and build local capacity with the North Carolina Resilient Coastal Communities Program through risk and vulnerability assessments, community engagement, project identification and prioritization, and the inclusion of more communities within the state’s coastal zone into the program. The project will build a resilience strategy for each community, including a vision, map of critical assets and natural infrastructure, risk and vulnerability assessment, and portfolio of prioritized projects.
"The Division of Coastal Management is continuing to make progress in supporting coastal communities with infrastructure planning and projects that address the impacts of coastal storms and flooding," said Division Director Braxton Davis. "Continued investments in this program will assist local governments in advancing to shovel-ready projects and leveraging additional federal and state funding opportunities."
The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s Emergency Coastal Resilience Fund supports projects that build coastal resilience by addressing barriers as well as restoration and enhancement programs. The division’s award will be matched with $616,000 in state funding (S.L. 2019-224) that will provide grants to local governments for resiliency planning, engineering, and permitting activities to develop shovel-ready projects.
The Division of Coastal Management also received $1.15 million dollars in the recently passed state budget to be used to provide community resilience planning, design, and project implementation grants for the Resilient Coastal Communities Program.
Additional details about the local government grants, including eligibility, funding levels, allowable activities, and match requirements, will be published to the division website in early 2022, followed by a request for proposals.
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