Project Overview

Building resilience to natural hazards is vital for communities to help maintain quality of life, healthy growth, durable systems, and conservation of resources for present and future generations; however, several barriers to developing resilience to coastal risks exist, including economic and capacity constraints that have been exacerbated in recent times. Resiliency refers to not only the ability of a community to anticipate, prepare for, respond to, and recover from threats, but to thrive amidst changing conditions or challenges.

A risk and vulnerability assessment is a key component to building resilience in a coastal community. Risks are assessed as multi-hazard threats to communities such as flooding, storm surge, or sea level rise that may occur amidst storms and a changing climate. Vulnerabilities are assessed as the degree of exposure to these risks, and the means to cope with stressors or disasters that arise from them.

Building a more resilient City of Wilmington requires careful, thorough planning efforts using sound, locally relevant data. City of Wilmington has been awarded financial assistance in the form of technical resources on behalf of the N.C. Division of Coastal Management’s (DCM) Resilient Coastal Communities Program (RCCP). The RCCP will advance coastal resilience efforts throughout the 20 coastal communities in North Carolina. The objectives of this program include:

  • Address barriers to coastal resilience in North Carolina at the local level, such as limited capacity, economic constraints, and social inequities;
  • Assist communities with risk and vulnerability assessments;
  • Help communities develop a portfolio of well-planned and prioritized projects;
  • Advance priority projects to shovel-readiness, or ready for implementation; and
  • Link communities to funding streams for project implementation.

DCM has partnered with Moffatt & Nichol, our selected contractor, and the City to conduct a Risk & Vulnerability Assessment and develop a portfolio of projects. This website will function as a repository of all project-related information and a means for you to contribute in a meaningful way.

Question title

How will City of Wilmington become more resilient to natural hazards? What assets do we need to protect? What areas concern you? Where are the areas for improvement? We'd love to "see" your thoughts on the interactive map, to further explain your thoughts.

City Boundary = red outline
County Boundary = orange outline

Program Sponsor

Thank you to N.C. Division of Coastal Management (DCM)’s North Carolina Resilient Coastal Communities Program (RCCP) for providing technical and financial assistance to advance coastal resilience efforts for the City of Wilmington. This program is funded in collaboration with NC Division of Coastal Management (DCM), State of North Carolina, and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF). 

 

Additional Resources

For more information about relevant data sources and other tools for understanding flood risk, including the effects of storm surge, coastal flooding, and sea level rise, please visit the following state and national websites:

Available Presentations and Downloads

We will continue to add to this archive as materials are prepared, refined, and released. Planning resources, such as CAT meeting slides, FEMA documents, and the RCCP Handbook are available for download.