Our ocean and coasts affect us — and we affect them. Almost 40 percent of the country’s population lives in coastal shoreline counties. And these counties contribute more than 9 trillion dollars to the U.S. economy. But there are many challenges facing our coasts, like climate change, sea level rise, more intense storms, and population growth. So we need to make good decisions today to help our coasts continue to thrive tomorrow. This is the second podcast in a three-part series from the U.S. Global Change Research Program that explores how we make these decisions. In this episode, we explore what the latest behavioral science research can tell us about how we make conservation and environmental decisions.

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Our ocean and coasts affect us — and we affect them. Almost 40 percent of the country’s population lives in coastal shoreline counties. And these counties contribute more than 9 trillion dollars to the U.S. economy. But there are many challenges facing our coasts, like climate change, sea level rise, more intense storms, and population growth. So we need to make good decisions today to help our coasts continue to thrive tomorrow. This is the first podcast in a three-part series from the U.S. Global Change Research Program that explores how we make these decisions. In this episode, hear an interview with coastal consultant Adam Parris on the topic of equity and justice in coastal planning.

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The NOAA Voices Oral History Archive is a collection of more than 2300 oral histories. In this episode, we explore how this valuable resource helps us better understand the impact of weather events, coastal changes and climate change.

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For over six decades, the National Geodetic Survey has partnered with the U.S. Census Bureau to calculate the U.S. center of population — the precise location where an imaginary, flat, weightless, and rigid map of the United States would balance perfectly if all Americans were of identical weight. Tune in to the latest episode of the NOAA Ocean podcast to learn about the center of population, and how capturing snapshots of the U.S. population reveals long-term migration patterns and even helps us use maps on our smartphones.

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In this episode, an expert from NOAA’s Coral Reef Conservation Program discusses a disease affecting long-spined sea urchin populations in the Caribbean. We explore how disease has impacted these organisms in the past, their important role in keeping coral reef systems healthy, and how you can help save them.

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Keeping our marine transportation system moving safely and efficiently through our busy national waterways depends upon hydrography — the science that measures and describes the physical features of bodies of water through a process called surveying. In this episode, hear how and why this work is done from two NOAA experts who talk about ongoing hydrographic survey missions within the Great Lakes.

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In this episode, we present a podcast from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers called Engineering with Nature. Host Sarah Thorne and Todd Bridges, Senior Research Scientist for Environmental Science with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the National Lead of the Engineering With Nature® program, are joined by Steve Thur, Director of NOAA's National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science. Sarah, Todd, and Steve discuss how the practice of Engineering With Nature and the application of nature-based solutions are evolving and the importance of protecting critical coastal ecosystems. They also tell the story of the collaboration and partnership between the Army Corps of Engineers and NOAA.

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Tsunamis pose a threat to our nation’s coastal communities and can have devastating impacts to lives and property. These powerful forces of nature can be caused by events like earthquakes, landslides, and even volcanic activity like the January 2022 eruption in the Tonga Islands region. Although they can’t be stopped, detecting and monitoring these waves when they occur can help warn the public of possible danger. In this episode, we speak with Paul Fanelli, Lead Oceanographer for NOAA’s National Ocean Service, Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services to learn how water level stations provide critical data to help issue alerts, and about the unique wave caused by the Tonga eruption.

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In this episode, we speak with Erica Seiden, manager for NOAA’s Ecosystems Program and the National Estuarine Research Reserve System; and Nelle D'Aversa, a NOAA coastal management specialist, to learn why this site was chosen and what this valuable ecosystem can teach us.

In this episode, we talk with two members of the Federal Sea Level Rise Task Force about the new Sea Level Rise Technical Report, released in 2022. This landmark interagency report provides updated sea level rise projections based upon global warming amounts for the U.S. coastlines by decade to 2150, and provides data to assess current and changes in minor-to-major flood probabilities out to year 2050. The information is intended to inform coastal communities and others about the effects of current and future sea level rise to aid in decision making.