How can coastal Lake Erie communities prepare for future impacts from increased precipitation and more extreme storms?

This is the question that Ohio Sea Grant has sought to tackle in recent years through its coastal resilience and storm preparedness efforts. Extension specialists Dr. Scott Hardy and Sarah Orlando are helping to strengthen coastal communities through information gathering, focus groups, outreach events, educational tools, and more.

Backed by decades of data, scientists know that in the U.S. Great Lakes region, average temperatures, precipitation levels, and the frequency of severe weather events have increased over the last 50 years or so. Models from the Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Assessments Center (GLISA) indicate that these trends will continue in future decades.

“What that means is a lot more flooding, erosion, and combined sewer overflow, plus a lot more transport of pollutants from land to the Great Lakes and coastal marinas,” said Hardy. “Flooded homes and businesses, shut-down public transportation routes, exposed utilities – these are all coastal storm hazards that at-risk populations will be exposed to.”

Keeping these risks in mind, people can take steps increase resilience, or the ability of communities to “bounce back” after a disaster. Ohio Sea Grant’s job, then, is to share tools with communities to help them prepare for environmental disturbances, Hardy explained.

“Unfortunately, there’s often a disconnect between the people who are most vulnerable and the people who affect change. Getting information, tools, and recommendations into the hands of people who could really use it the most doesn’t always happen. So we’re trying to bridge that gap.”
Dr. Scott Hardy

“These practices are things that people often think about as an afterthought, but it is imperative that we start putting them at the forefront,” said Orlando, who serves as program manager for the Ohio Clean Marinas Program.

One such practice is green infrastructure, or systems that use natural processes to reduce runoff, minimizing water pollution and reducing flooding and erosion. Examples include rain gardens, constructed wetlands, and permeable pavement.

In collaboration with other Sea Grant programs and researchers from The Ohio State University, Hardy and Orlando worked on a project to improve stormwater management on the Great Lakes using green infrastructure – with a focus on coastal marinas, which can release their own unique mix of pollutants.

Thanks to funding from the Great Lakes Protection Fund, the team produced the Clean Marina Stormwater Toolkit, an educational website to help marinas learn, visualize, and feel more comfortable about incorporating green infrastructure as a form of stormwater management. The project also had practical impacts: the team implemented four green infrastructure pilot projects across Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio using best practices designed by Ohio State’s Stormwater Management Program.

“Marinas are often the last chance to deal with water pollution issues before all that runoff carrying pollution from land ends up in the water,” Hardy said. “It’s your last opportunity to clean the water before it gets into the Great Lakes.”

The project resulted in greater awareness about opportunities to improve stormwater management in Great Lakes communities, also yielding outreach materials and permanent educational signage at demonstration sites.

In another effort to raise awareness about coastal storms, Hardy worked to create a storm hazards vulnerability index for communities within the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District, including the city of Cleveland and many of its suburbs. The project’s goal was to identify communities that are most vulnerable to hazards from worsening coastal storms.

With funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Coastal Storms Program, Hardy worked to rank communities based on a social vulnerability index –a mapping and database tool that identifies communities most likely to need support before, during, and after hazardous events. Results were published in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction.

“I was able to put this resource together to help decision-makers use limited existing resources to help vulnerable communities build resistance,” Hardy said. “This can help prioritize where to spend those resources.”

In another project funded by NOAA Coastal Storms, Orlando conducted focus groups with marinas to assess why owners did or did not prepare for natural disaster hazards. Significantly, the program was able to convey tools and best practices from NOAA directly to boaters and waterfront property owners. Using social science to study behavior, the project yielded insights that have informed continued disaster preparedness efforts by Ohio Clean Marinas.

With help from partners at the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Orlando and her team developed a natural disaster and emergency hazard plan as part of their checklist for sustainable marina operators.

“We encourage our marinas to have a plan, and they get credit for it,” Orlando explained. “We want businesses to incorporate hazard emergency preparedness into planning, design, and active implementation of routine tasks. That could look like sharing information during monthly meetings or working ahead to plan for flooding.”

Further, Ohio Clean Marinas held a Natural Disaster and Emergency Preparedness Workshop in September of 2025 to help marina owners and lake professionals learn how to handle disaster events.

At the event, attendees experienced hands-on training with natural disaster plans, fire extinguishers, boat tie-downs, and boom deployment. Over the course of more than six hours, the group discussed lessons learned from the 2024 Indian Lake tornado, emergency management and disaster planning, spill response, and the Red Cross’s Ready Rating Program.

“It is so important to get in the habit of thinking about preparedness,” said Tracey Coe, Ohio River Basin Program Coordinator with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and the Ohio Clean Marinas Program. “You can ask a junior employee where the emergency fuel shutoff is, you can check your spill kit, you can make sure the kitchen staff know where the fire extinguishers are. A minute a day could be all it takes to prevent disaster or to know how to quickly recover.”

People can make a difference at the individual level as well, Orlando and Hardy emphasized. Adopting green infrastructure techniques at home can look like building a rain garden, landscaping an area with native plants, or investing in permeable pavement – making a big difference to reduce the flow of water after storms.

Moving forward, the team aims to keep raising awareness about this topic to help make Ohio’s coastal communities more resilient.

“Unfortunately, there’s often a disconnect between the people who are most vulnerable and the people who affect change,” Hardy said. “Getting information, tools, and recommendations into the hands of people who could really use it the most doesn’t always happen. So we’re trying to bridge that gap.”

For more information about Ohio Sea Grant’s coastal resilience efforts, contact Hardy at hardy.116@osu.edu and Orlando at orlando.42@osu.edu.

Ohio Sea Grant is supported by The Ohio State University College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences (CFAES) School of Environment and Natural Resources, Ohio State University Extension, and NOAA Sea Grant, a network of 34 Sea Grant programs nation-wide dedicated to the protection and sustainable use of marine and Great Lakes resources. Stone Laboratory is Ohio State’s island campus on Lake Erie and is the research, education, and outreach facility of Ohio Sea Grant and part of CFAES School of Environment and Natural Resources.