This week, we celebrate the outstanding accomplishments across NOS in the newly released Fiscal Year 2020 Year in Review. Reading these accomplishments fills me with pride, and reminds me how privileged I am to lead such an incredible group of professionals. I look forward to building upon our accomplishments in 2021. This week’s Web Highlight features just a few of the activities you can read about in the report.

Also of note, on December 18, 2020, a major piece of legislation revising NOS's Digital Coast program was enacted after being signed by the President. The Digital Coast Act will fill data needs and gaps for critical coastal management issues and improve the integration of key data needs, and is a cause for celebration throughout NOS.

Digital Coast is a website that serves up data, tools, and training for the nation’s coastal management community. The site is managed by our Office for Coastal Management, and the content comes from an array of authoritative sources. With this approach users get easy access to curated resources, and through Digital Coast Partners — a group of eight non-government organizations — our content is exposed to a much broader audience than would otherwise be possible.

With this legislation, Congress put their stamp of approval on this approach and the future of the Digital Coast. Future plans include expanding the content; an increased focus on underserved communities, particularly those found in Alaska and the Arctic; adding additional training programs that offer certification credits; developing more online courses, particularly those that involve economics and risk communications; and ramping up the high-resolution data available for coastal communities.

Congratulations to all who had a hand in the development and implementation of the Digital Coast. We can all be excited regarding the future for this information power house and the people that we serve.

Steady as we go,
Nicole