Digital Coast

The Digital Coast provides the information needed by those who want to conserve and protect coastal communities and natural resources.

While the need for good geospatial data forms the foundation of the Digital Coast, the basic premise of the siteis the understanding that data alone are not enough. People need the associated tools, training, and information that turn data into information capable of making a difference. And people want this information in one connected package that is easy to use. Digital Coast does just that.

http://www.csc.noaa.gov/digitalcoast/

NOAA Economics and Social Sciences

NOAA provides the science, services, and stewardship that allow commerce and government to be effective and competitive in an ever-changing natural environment. Our unique focus is on monitoring, predicting, and managing the Earth’s dynamic natural environment including weather, space weather, natural hazards, and ocean ecosystems and marine conditions. Not surprisingly, economic thinking, research, and analysis play a part in nearly all we do at NOAA.

http://www.ppi.noaa.gov/economics/

Economic Resources:

Hazard Observations and Forecasting

Ocean/Coastal Observations and Forecasting

Weather Observations and Forecasting

nowCOAST

nowCOAST is a GIS-based web mapping portal providing integrated, one-stop access to real-time coastal environmental observations and NOAA forecasts for any region in the coastal United States.

http://nowcoast.noaa.gov/

NowCOAST provides users with displays of the latest surface weather and ocean observations, satellite cloud imagery, weather radar reflectivity mosaics, sea surface temperature analyses and gridded forecasts. It also supplies geo-referenced hyperlinks to thousands of web sites providing current observations from meteorological, oceanographic, river, and water quality observing networks and NOAA forecast products from the top of the watershed to the high seas. NowCOAST is designed to be a planning aid to assist recreational and commercial mariners, coastal managers, HAZMAT responders, coastal ocean modelers and marine educators to discover and display real-time information for their particular needs and geographic area of interest. Thus, nowCOAST supports the NOAA Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) Program’s vision “to provide continuous, integrated data on our open oceans, coastal waters, and Great Lakes…to support the information needs of government, environmental managers, scientists, business and the public.”

NOAAWatch Daily Briefing

NOAAWatch offers information about ongoing environmental events and explains the role of NOAA in prediction, monitoring, and recovery from environmental hazards. It provides public access to current information on a number of environmental threats ranging from oil spills, to hurricanes and tsunamis, to space weather.

http://www.noaawatch.gov/briefing.php

NOAAWatch consists of a few permanent features such as the present weather outlook and warnings, satellite image of the day, educational pages, and a link to the NOAA Weather Radio. The site’s main feature is the listing of detailed, current information on high-risk hazards as they occur.

Overview pages describing NOAA’s roles in environmental hazrds are available for Tropical Weather (hurricanes), Fire Weather, Tsunamis, Severe Weather, Flooding, Droughts, Volcanoes, Earthquakes, Harmful Algal Blooms(HABs), Coral Bleaching, Oil Spills, Rip Currents, and Air Quality, Excessive Heat, and Space Weather.

NOAAWatch integrates NOAA data, products, observations, satellite images, and other information pertaining to environmental hazards. It pulls many of NOAA’s web offerings together so that web visitors can get all NOAA information related to a storm or event on one site.