Coral reefs are natural coastal barriers that can substantially reduce coastal flooding and erosion. Over the past several decades, many reefs have been lost to global and local stressors. USGS-led research shows that healthy and restored reefs provide critical coastal storm flood risk reduction benefits—and this research is used by stakeholders to make risk-informed decisions about protecting and restoring these vital habitats.

Through funding from the USGS Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, the U.S. Office of Insular Affairs, and the 2018 Additional Supplemental Appropriations for Disaster Relief Requirements Act, the USGS and partners at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) developed an integrated modeling system to rigorously quantify the coastal hazard risk reduction provided by US coral reefs in socioeconomic terms. Recently, they further demonstrated that coral reef restoration could provide coastal flood reduction benefits greater than costs and thus have positive returns on investment.

The Department of Defense’s (DoD) Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency used these results to justify the \$100 million Reefense Program to protect DoD coastal infrastructure and personnel by mitigating damage related to coastal flooding and erosion.

The USGS and UCSC were then directed by the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force (USCRTF) to work with NOAA, FEMA, and USACE to provide a guidance document on how the states and territories could use the coral reef hazard risk reduction data to support proposals to FEMA and USACE to get pre-disaster hazard mitigation and post-disaster recovery funding for coral reef restoration. The team was then directed to develop a USCRTF resolution declaring U.S. coral reefs as national, natural infrastructure to support the states’ and territories’ efforts to secure federal funding for coral reef restoration to make their infrastructure, communities, and economy more resilient to hazards.