Every three years, Virginia CZM Program staff, with input from the interagency Coastal Policy Team, identify an issue, resource or special geographic region on which to focus about $400,000 of the program’s annual grant funds. These funds are dedicated for a three-year period and enable the program to more effectively focus its financial and policy efforts.

Since 1999, these “Focal Areas” have included the Oyster Heritage Program, Seaside Heritage Program, blue-green infrastructure, climate adaptation and promotion of sustainable industries such as shellfish aquaculture and ecotourism.

Virginia CZM Program’s current three-year Focal Area is coastal resilience.  Focal Area projects promote sustainable coastal industries and build natural and community resilience.

October 2023 - September 2026 Focal Area: Coastal Resiliency 

Coastal resiliency was selected by the Coastal Policy Team as the current Focal Area topic to help meet the goals and needs in the Virginia Coastal Resilience Master Plan.

Virginia CZM Program grant projects address increasing technical capacity through the use of tools like the Resilience Adaptation Feasibility Tool (RAFT) and The Community Rating System (CRS). Focal Area projects also promote ecotourism as a way to derive economic benefit from conserved lands that provide coastal resiliency, and on the development of project designed to restore or create climate resilient habitats and identification of high priority habitats.

Additionally, coastal PDCs are using focal area supplemental funds in their annual technical assistance grants from Virginia CZM to identify regional resilience priorities, contribute to the development of the Virginia Coastal Resilience Master Plan, and leverage other resilience work in their regions.

The October 2023 - September 2026 Coastal Resiliency Focal Area leverages progress being made under the Virginia CZM Program's five-year Coastal Hazards strategy that began in October 2021 and continues through September 2026.

Contacts for More Information:

RAFT - Will Isenberg, (804) 350-0903
CRS - Elise.M.Frazier, (804) 317-5907
Ecotourism Resiliency - Ryan Green, (804) 698-4258