Sec. 402. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration coastal resilience research grants
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The Administrator shall annually carry out a competitively awarded grant program (referred to in this section as the Program ) focused on interdisciplinary coastal resilience and sustainability. The objective of the Program shall be to develop scalable, best practices— to prepare more resilient, sustainable coastal communities; and to reduce disaster recovery costs. The Administrator shall conduct the Program in collaboration with business and industry, government agencies, academic institutions, and coastal community stakeholders.
To be eligible for a grant under the Program, an applicant shall be an institution of higher education, nonprofit organization, State, local, or Tribal government, for-profit organization, United States territory, or Federal agency that has statutory authority to receive transfers of funds. In awarding grants under the Program, the Administrator shall give priority to coastal resilience research projects that focus on— protecting life and critical infrastructure; developing decision-support tools useful to coastal communities; determining societal, ecological, and resiliency benefits of coastal restoration and natural, nature-based, and man-made infrastructure, and how those benefits affect the sustainability of coastal ecosystems; volunteer and community-science monitoring of coastal and marine resources as part of efforts to protect coastal communities from sea level rise; monitoring and developing ecosystem-based approaches to managing coastal ecosystems to promote sustainability; assessing and enhancing the capacity of human communities to adapt to coastal natural disasters; assessing coastal vulnerability and risk; evaluating adaptation and restoration approaches to reduce risk, including through the use of natural, nature-based, and man-made features; minimizing costs associated with damages incurred from natural disasters, flooding, and sea level rise; and developing curriculum for new programs in coastal restoration at public community colleges and within college Sea Grant programs to train the new coastal restoration workforce.
The Administrator may accept and use donations of funds to implement this section. In this section: The term critical infrastructure means infrastructure, including natural or nature-based infrastructure, the destruction or damaging of which would have a debilitating impact on national security or economic security, undermine community resiliency and adaptation, or threaten public health or safety. The term natural or nature-based features means coastal wetlands, beaches, dunes, marshes, mangrove forests, municipal green infrastructure, and living shorelines.