Coastal counties in the United States are home to nearly half the nation's total population, and contributed more than 8 trillion dollars to the nation's economy in 2010. As the weather events of the past six months have made evident, coastal communities are increasingly vulnerable to the forces of nature.
A new report, Coastal Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerabilities: a technical input to the 2013 National Climate Assessment, concludes that intensive development has left U.S. coastlines vulnerable, and that impacts to coastlines and communities they support are among the most costly and most certain effects of a warming climate.