Now available! The five-part documentary, Building a Resilient Coast: Maine Confronts Climate Change.

Hear and see what your neighbors, town officials, and scientists have to say about sea-level rise, coastal flooding, and erosion; what it means to you; and what you can do about it.

Click here to view online or contact our office for a free copy.

This documentary video was produced by Oregon Sea Grant as part of a larger project titled

Climate Variability and Coastal Community Resilience: Testing a National Model of State-based Outreach

Maine Sea Grant, in partnership with Oregon Sea Grant, is conducting a two-year NOAA-funded research project to assess the resilience of coastal communities in the two states. The project has several objectives:

• to explore how climate variability and coastal hazards may be affecting the Maine coast and how these relate to coastal development;
• to encourage and facilitate collaboration among and between decision-makers and coastal property owners to determine and implement appropriate responses to climate variability on short and longer timescales;
• to discover the barriers to taking action to prepare for or mitigate the effects of climate variability;

The ultimate goal of the project is to move behavior toward decisive action that results in coastal communities that are more resilient to climate variability at all scales.

With concerns about climate change and its effects on sea-level rise, shoreline erosion, and coastal flooding, Maine residents and towns alike are struggling to find strategies on how to prepare for and adapt to these changes. The Maine part of this project is focused on two target audiences: coastal property owners and municipal officials. In the past year, we conducted six focus groups (70 participants), and developed and sent out surveys to 6,967 coastal property owners (CPOs) and 250 town officials to identify their information needs and attitudes regarding climate change and its impacts on the coast, and to understand the barriers to action faced by these groups. Of those surveyed, 548 property owners responded and 55 town officials. 

Partners include Maine Geological Survey, University of Maine Cooperative Extension, Climate Change Institute, Maine Coastal Program, and the Center for Research and Evaluation.

Several reports were produced that summarized the results of the focus groups, analyzed the data obtained from the surveys, and compared the results of the focus groups with those of the surveys.

For a summary of the survey data, see the technical report. 365 KB

Sea Grant Focus Group Analysis 2.78 MB
Sea Grant Focus Group & Survey Comparative Analysis 1.1 MB

DVD Segments in High and Low Resolutions