Virginia Coastal Resilience Master Plan

Phase One, December 2021

Virginia Coastal Resilience Master Plan document cover

The Commonwealth of Virginia released The Virginia Coastal Resilience Master Plan (CRMP) Phase I in December 2021.

This first phase of Virginia Coastal Resilience Master Plan is a call to action for the Commonwealth. From growing cities to migrating coastal wetlands, Virginia’s coast faces a new reality. This Plan shows that without action, rising sea levels and increasingly severe weather from climate change threaten our cherished coastal regions’ economic, cultural, and environmental resources.

The Master Plan builds on the 2020 Virginia Coastal Resilience Master Planning Framework, which outlined the goals and principles of the Commonwealth’s statewide coastal resilience strategy. Recognizing the urgent challenge flooding already poses, the Commonwealth developed Phase One of the Master Plan on an accelerated timeline and focused this first assessment on the impacts of tidal and storm surge coastal flooding on coastal Virginia.

Download the Master Plan document

What We’ve Done

The Master Plan leveraged the combined efforts of more than two thousand stakeholders, subject matter experts, and government personnel. We centered the development of this plan around three core components:

A Technical Study compiled essential data, research, processes, products, and resilience efforts in the Coastal Resilience Database, which forms much of basis of this plan and the Coastal Resilience Web Explorer;
A Technical Advisory Committee supported coordination across key stakeholders and ensured the incorporation of the best available subject matter knowledge, data, and methods into this plan; and
Stakeholder Engagement captured diverse resilience perspectives from residents, local and regional officials, and other stakeholders across Virginia’s coastal communities to drive regionally specific resilience priorities.

Key accomplishments of this first phase of the Master Plan include the following:

Determined current and future land exposure to coastal flooding hazards, and identified anticipated changes in future coastal flood frequency across the Commonwealth.
Assessed the estimated impacts to social, natural, and built assets based on modeled coastal flood exposure.
Used the modeled the coastal flood hazard information to estimate impacts to Community Resources, Critical Sectors, and Natural Infrastructure.
Identified areas with both high social vulnerability and coastal flood hazard exposure to determine areas with the greatest potential needs and risks.
Conducted workshops with Planning District and Regional Commissions, localities, and communities to refine the assessment of impacts due to coastal flooding with local knowledge and understanding.
Established an inventory of locally-driven coastal resilience projects that address regional and statewide needs, and a process for understanding, tracking, and collecting data on ongoing and future proposed resilience projects.
Developed an initial data-driven approach to evaluate and prioritize projects based on how well efforts align with the guiding principles of the Commonwealth’s coastal resilience strategy outlined in the Framework, and developed an initial mechanism to align identified coastal resilience projects with potential funding sources.
Leveraged and augmented previous work supported by the Virginia Coastal Zone Management Program to establish an inventory of grant and loan programs relevant to resilience efforts to assist regions and localities with securing financial resources.
Created the Coastal Resilience Database and Web Explorer which makes data on coastal flood hazards, impacts, ongoing and proposed projects and initiatives, funding programs, and other relevant information publicly available to support resilience efforts at the state, regional, and local levels.
Collected information on proposed and ongoing capacity-building and planning initiatives related to resilience, and identified the needs of localities and regions across coastal Virginia to advance their resilience efforts.
Initiated a public planning process and established a baseline understanding of public perspectives and on-the-ground knowledge of coastal flood hazards and preferred strategies to adapt and protect coastal Virginia through workshops with regions, localities, and members of the public.

What We Learned

The Technical Study examines nine coastal flood events representing varying magnitudes that can be compared over time horizons: 2020 (baseline conditions), 2040, 2060 and 2080. Due to the time available to complete Phase One, the Technical Study does not examine existing or future flood hazards for riverine, stormwater, and compound flooding as affected by sea level rise, nor does it consider how climate change may affect precipitation trends and flooding hazards.

As sea levels rise, flood hazards grow worse in two important ways: floodplains will expand, and floodwaters will deepen. The area of land exposed to coastal flooding will gradually grow in response to sea level rise, and the types of coastal flood impacts that are considered “rare” and “extreme” today will become more frequent and even commonplace in the future.

Projected impacts due to coastal flooding were mapped to identify geographic hotspots that face acute flood risks. Identifying these hotspots allows the Commonwealth to highlight areas that may require additional support to plan for resilience or implement resilience projects.

Notable Findings Between 2020 and 2080:

The number of residents living in homes exposed to major coastal flooding is projected to grow from approximately 360,000 to 943,000, an increase of 160%.
The number of residential, public, and commercial buildings exposed to an extreme coastal flood is projected to increase from by almost 150% from 140,000 to 340,000, while annualized flood damages increase by 1,300% from $0.4 to $5.1 billion.
The number of miles of roadways exposed to chronic coastal flooding is projected to increase from 500 to nearly 2,800 miles, an increase of nearly 460%.
An estimated 170,000 acres or 89% of existing tidal wetlands and 3,800 acres or 38% of existing dunes and beaches may be permanently inundated, effectively lost to open water.

Over the course of the plan’s development, we learned how essential this work is and how much more there is to do.

Moving forward, we must go beyond determining how flood hazards will change. We must use this information to start honest and productive conversations on how to reduce impacts to communities, critical infrastructure, and natural systems through adaptation, protection, and relocation measures at the community, locality and regional scales.

What We’re Doing About It

The Commonwealth, in cooperation with the regional and local entities, compiled an inventory of more than 500 projects and initiatives employing a range of strategies to increase resilience. Of these, 140 resilience projects related specifically to coastal flood hazards, but these projects are just a small portion of the overall needs for the Commonwealth.

Achieving a resilient coastal Virginia will require more resources than currently exist. We know the total cost for making coastal Virginia resilient to sea level rise and other coastal hazards has yet to be quantified, but we do know it is well into the billions of dollars. Yet, the cost of doing nothing is increasingly expensive and not an option to protect and adapt coastal Virginia's social, economic and natural assets.

The Commonwealth has established the Community Flood Preparedness Fund (CFPF) as the primary state-level funding mechanism for coastal resilience project development. Managed by the Department of Conservation and Recreation, this statewide program fills pressing needs by prioritizing low-income communities and provides a permanent and dedicated funding stream to finance flood resilience project development, related studies and capacity building initiatives. Learn more about the CFPF.

What's Next

With so much at stake and finite resources, we must work to prioritize resilience projects that advance pragmatic coastal resilience in alignment with the Commonwealth’s vision. The Commonwealth developed a preliminary evaluation approach to assess projects against standardized criteria that aligns with the goals and principles of the statewide coastal resilience strategy identified in the Framework. This process will allow the Commonwealth to establish a transparent, repeatable process, so jurisdictions can plan or revise projects that align with criteria. Future phases of the Master Plan will aim to refine and implement the evaluation approach to prioritize resilience projects and identify potential funding or technical needs to support implementation.

The first phase of the Master Plan is a call to action for the Commonwealth, its regions, localities, communities, and many other stakeholders to continue this work.

Phase One of this Coastal Resilience Master Plan is a foundational first step towards a resilient coastal Virginia.

We are planning for a supplemental update of the plan through the Coastal Resilience Master Plan Phase Two. Successive updates of the Master Plan are anticipated on a five-year cycle, managed by the Department of Conservation and Recreation in consultation with the Technical Advisory Committee. What we have learned during Phase One drives the need to continue this work and complete Phase Two in a shorter cycle to fully develop a Coastal Resilience Master Plan for Virginia. Continuous maintenance and enhancements will be essential to incorporate new data, analysis, projects, and funding opportunities between iterations of the Master Plan for the Commonwealth.

We anticipate the completion of Phase Two of the Master Plan by the end of calendar year 2024.