Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Here’s how you know

Dot gov

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

HTTPS

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( Lock A locked padlock ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

  • Environmental Topics
  • Laws & Regulations
  • Report a Violation
  • About EPA
Risk Assessment
Contact Us

Adaptation Design Tool: Corals & Climate Adaptation Planning

On this page:

  • Overview
  • Downloads
The Adaptation Design Tool of the Corals & Climate Adaptation Planning project has been developed to help coral reef managers incorporate climate-smart design into their plans, programs, and projects at any stage of planning and implementation. It can be used to incorporate climate change adaptation into programs using existing planned actions as a starting point, and also to consider development of additional climate-smart strategies as needed. The Design Tool provides a systematic approach to help managers: (1) integrate climate-smart design considerations into their existing management actions; and (2) build out an expanded set of actions based on options found under general adaptation strategies from the literature. Use of the Design Tool also yields valuable supplementary information on data gaps and research needs, and on potential interactions among actions (synergies, sequencing issues) that are relevant for evaluating logical groupings of actions for implementation. Finally, the Design Tool can be applied in greater depth once priority actions have been selected, in order to develop designs to the level of specificity needed for actual implementation.

Impact/Purpose

This document provides background information, instructions and guidance for using the Adaptation Design Tool that has been developed as part of the Corals & Climate Adaptation Planning project (CIVA-2.9). This guidance has been internally reviewed by David Cuevas (EPA Region 2) and Susan Yee (EPA ORD/NHEERL/Gulf Breeze), who were unanimously positive about the content and offered only minor edits in the form of small wording changes and formatting suggestions (which have been incorporated). This document will next be put through external review by NOAA and will be published as a NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program Technical Memo. This document is also being used as the basis for an online learning module and instructor-led training being developed by The Nature Conservancy for their Reef Resilience website.

Citation

Parker, B., J. West, A. Hamilton, C. Courtney, P. MacGowan, K. Koltes, D. Gibbs, AND P. Bradley. Adaptation Design Tool: Corals & Climate Adaptation Planning. NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program, Silver Spring, MD, 2017. [DOI: 10.7289/V51N7Z5F]

Download(s)

  • https://www.coris.noaa.gov/activities/CCAP_design/
DOI: Adaptation Design Tool: Corals & Climate Adaptation Planning
  • Risk Assessment Home
  • About Risk Assessment
  • Risk Recent Additions
  • Human Health Risk Assessment
  • Ecological Risk Assessment
  • Risk Advanced Search
    • Risk Publications
  • Risk Assessment Guidance
  • Risk Tools and Databases
  • Superfund Risk Assessment
  • Where you live
Contact Us to ask a question, provide feedback, or report a problem.
Last updated on June 09, 2025
United States Environmental Protection Agency

Discover.

  • Accessibility Statement
  • Budget & Performance
  • Contracting
  • EPA www Web Snapshots
  • Grants
  • No FEAR Act Data
  • Privacy
  • Privacy and Security Notice

Connect.

  • Data
  • Inspector General
  • Jobs
  • Newsroom
  • Open Government
  • Regulations.gov
  • Subscribe
  • USA.gov
  • White House

Ask.

  • Contact EPA
  • EPA Disclaimers
  • Hotlines
  • FOIA Requests
  • Frequent Questions

Follow.