Sec. 2. Findings
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Congress makes the following findings: The Digital Coast is a model approach for effective Federal partnerships with State and local government, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector. Access to current, accurate, uniform, and standards-based geospatial information, tools, and training to characterize the United States coastal region is critical for public safety and for the environment, infrastructure, and economy of the United States. More than half of all people of the United States (153,000,000) currently live on or near a coast and an additional 12,000,000 are expected in the next decade.
Coastal counties in the United States average 300 persons per square mile, compared with the national average of 98. On a typical day, more than 1,540 permits for construction of single-family homes are issued in coastal counties, combined with other commercial, retail, and institutional construction to support this population. Over half of the economic productivity of the United States is located within coastal regions. Highly accurate, high-resolution remote sensing and other geospatial data play an increasingly important role in decision making and management of the coastal zone and economy, including for— flood and coastal storm surge prediction; hazard risk and vulnerability assessment; emergency response and recovery planning; community resilience to longer range coastal change; local planning and permitting; habitat and ecosystem health assessments; and landscape change detection.