Together with the City of Bayou La Batre, the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Mobile County, and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, The Nature Conservancy implemented a large scale restoration project committed to protecting and preserving the coastal community of Bayou La Batre from future storms and coastal hazards as well as revitalizing the locally important waterfront area by restoring, enhancing, and protecting the shoreline habitats and providing improved community access for recreation and fishing opportunities. Designed with Moffatt & Nichol, the Lightning Point Restoration project included about 1 mile of overlapping breakwaters, 40 acres of marsh, tidal creeks and scrub shrub habitats, and more than 240,000 cubic yards of repurposed dredged material to create the new habitats and storm buffer along the community’s waterfront. This restoration project began in Fall 2019 and was completed in less than 10 months in Summer 2020. The implementation of Lightning Point Restoration project was successful due to the project team addressing various potential barriers before construction began. These barriers involved community acceptance, technical feasibility, funding limitations, political support, legal concerns, cost and benefit of actions, and consistence with community and regional environmental goals. By understanding the logistics and the impact of the Lightning Point Restoration project on the local coastal community of Bayou La Batre, The Nature Conservancy and Moffatt & Nichol were able to translate these concerns to the contractor to ensure that the project was constructed with integrity and set the stage for future complex restoration projects.

In 2017, 25% of all US counties received at least one major presidential disaster declaration. In 2020, this trend continues with devastating wildfires, stronger hurricanes, extreme flooding, intense tornadoes, and other natural disasters. Since 2004, Santa Rosa County (SRC) has been included in 13 declared disasters. In addition, increased population and infrastructure has led SRC to begin to address resiliency issues. In 2018, SRC received $12,000 from the Florida Beverage Association’s Community Environmental Sustainability Award to begin the SRC Green Infrastructure (GI) Stormwater Management and Educational Outreach Program. Also, in 2018, SRC staff were admitted to NACo’s Strengthening Coastal Counties Resilience Technical Assistance Program. This program began discussions of the County’s existing resilience assets, needs, and how the team can use the program resources to accomplish resilience-building goals. These initiatives have resulted in SRC receiving a NOAA Northern Gulf of Mexico Resilience to Future Flooding grant to conduct a county-wide vulnerability assessment. Results from this assessment will help the team find the intersections between the environmental and socio-economic factors that make communities most vulnerable to flooding disasters. The county has partnered with the University of Florida for an EPA-funded Resiliency to Coastal Flooding Project, in which the project team will work with local communities to determine storm-water impacts and recommend GI practices that mitigate diminished water quality and flooding. SRC received a $120,000 Resilient Coastlines Program grant to assess and determine the most suitable type of nature-based living shoreline for Floridatown park. SRC will work with community stakeholders to determine the type of nature-based structure for this location. These projects have resulted in a greater understanding of resiliency issues and needs within the county by stakeholders and community leaders. The team continues to initiate projects that promote resiliency in Santa Rosa County, FL.

Africatown, located in Mobile, Alabama, represents a community settled by captives brought to the United States from Africa by slave ship Clotilda, known as the last slave ship to arrive in the USA. Africatown is unique in that it represents a group of Africans who were forcefully removed from their homeland, sold into slavery, and then formed their own, largely self-governing community, all the while maintaining a strong sense of African cultural heritage. By establishing the Africatown Connections Blueway, descendants of the original founders of Africatown, seek to re-connect their neighbors to the surrounding waterways from which they have been separated. Of primary importance is to preserve and make available the international historical significance of Africatown to communities across Alabama, the United States and the entire world in hopes of contributing to the healing process from the sadness that stems from long lost ties to Africa. The Africatown Story inspires hope and resilience, which are both much needed in today’s current affairs. Once a self-sustained community nourished from the bounty of the surrounding waters, native wildlife, fruits and nuts Africatown is now a community reclaiming its connection to the waterways of the Mobile, AL metro area and its ties to African heritage. The story is challenging to tell and at times uncomfortable for both decedents of slaves and decedents of slave holding families. In order to tell the story, community members see the waterways as the common element for healing and renewal for all connected to the history whether in the Mobile Metro area or in numerous nations of Africa.

The 8-county Gulf-Houston Regional Conservation Plan (RCP) is a long-term collaborative of environmental, business, and governmental entities working together to implement an ecosystem resilience plan for the large Gulf-Houston region through 3 Key Goals: 1) Increasing the current 14.7% in protected/preserved land in the eight-county region to 24% of land coverage by 2040; 2) Increasing and supporting the region-wide land management efforts to install nature-based stabilization (NBS) techniques, such as low-impact development, living shorelines, and bioswales, to 50% of land coverage by 2040; and 3) Providing research and advocacy for an increase of 4% annually in air quality offsets through carbon absorption in native soils, plants, trees, and oyster reefs throughout the eight county region. The Gulf-Houston RCP prioritizes the environmental projects in the region that are in need of full or partial funding (called the Working List of Projects), and tracks the funded projects bi-annually. By doing so, HW is able to measure the progress being made in the region toward achieving the 3 key goals. The Gulf-Houston RCP creates a road map for resilience against major storm events and other stressors across the 8-county region now and for years to come. For projects funded over the last 5 years, more than 39,000 acres of protected/preserved land has been acquired or is under conservation easements and more than 39, 000 acres are under restorative enhancements with various funds received. Over 731,000 acres of additional land acquisition and conservation easements are possible if targeted projects become funded. The 4% annual increase in organic carbon sequestration will occur mainly through large-scale targeted native tree plantings and will assist in reducing the CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere, which for the Gulf-Houston region is a substantial stressor.

Nearly 40% of all U.S. citizens now live within 100 miles of our nation’s coastlines. Human encroachment into coastal environments, and the reliance on the food, water, and services they provide, have triggered dramatic changes in the structure and productivity of many estuarine ecosystems signaling the fact that water policy is closely coupled with human socioeconomic systems. As such, resilient coastal communities will need to initiate new efforts in water policy to develop data-driven conservation plans that provide for the wise stewardship of our coastal resources for future generations. The Mobile delta, Mobile Bay estuary, and coastal Alabama are major state assets, and include many environmentally important and biologically productive areas, as well as natural resources such as timber, fisheries, and oil and gas. Application of water law and policy to the coastal area’s natural resources and future management of this socio-ecologic complex will require in-depth knowledge of the region’s hydrology, geology, biology, geomorphology, topography, and ongoing natural processes. Emerging law and policy issues include, but are not limited to, saltwater encroachment, contamination of water resources from more frequent and intense tropical storms and hurricanes, flows into the Mobile delta and Mobile Bay, shoreline erosion, and sea level changes. Most cases currently applicable to surface water law in Alabama were decided in the 1800s, but case law controlling groundwater use in the state is generally from 20th century decisions. The collection of legal and policy instruments demonstrates the interfaces among science, policy, and law in water resources policymaking, promotes the goals of the state by illustrating the importance of continued water investigations, and informs the ongoing statewide surface water and groundwater assessments in Alabama.