Digital Coast Act of 2016

This bill authorizes the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Office for Coastal Management to establish a Digital Coast program for the sharing of digital information to help coastal communities better prepare for storms, plan for long-term coastal resilience, and manage coastal resources. The program launches the next phase of development at NOAA for the use of coastal mapping. In order for coastal communities to effectively use coastal mapping to solve coastal problems there must be coordination and information sharing among federal, state, local, and private participants in each coastal area.

NOAA's Office for Coastal Management should optimize the development and use of coastal mapping data by:

• integrating the data to make it readily accessible via the internet,
• developing visualization and predictive tools that makes the data easier to find and use,
• providing training on how to decipher and use the data to make accurate decisions,
• making sure the data meets federal standards, and
• archiving the data at the NOAA data center.

In addition, the Digital Coast program requires NOAA's Office for Coastal Management to prioritize the collection of coastal mapping data in critical coastal areas, and support existing efforts to improve the acquisition of the key data sets necessary for coastal communities to effectively solve coastal problems.