Building a Resilient Community: NOAA's Hazard Exposure and Risk Exploration (HERE) Tool

Helping the public understand the importance of climate resilience and the increasing risks of hazards to human life is crucial for climate adaptation and mitigation. While several hazard and risk exploration tools exist, there is no interactive tool that assesses the intersection of environmental and human risks. For example, there are no resources that explore how chemical exposure issues relate to environmental hazards such as sea level rise. With the Hazard Exposure and Risk Exploration (HERE) Tool, users can interact with various categorized maps that provide information on how environmental and human hazards can interact in their community. This ESRI story map uses geospatial strategies to integrate various datasets that can provide new details when combined. NOAA’s Storm Event Database, the Environmental Response Management Application (ERMA), and several other resources are integrated to bring the user information on their direct risks. From these maps and the accompanying narrative, users can gauge their relative risk of chemical exposure and other hazards in their area that may increase as a result of climate change. Integrating natural and human hazards for the purpose of expanding the “big picture” provides transparency for the population to understand their community vulnerability. By allowing the general public to explore the interaction between environmental and man-made hazards in their community and their expected future impacts, one can assume that climate resilience solutions and further disaster preparedness will be supported by a more educated population.