Coastal Resilience: Practitioner Training Series
PEERS is offering an interactive online training series for US-based practitioners working on coastal resilience.
PEERS is the first global community of practice led by practitioners working across boundaries to proactively address the risks of sea level rise and related coastal hazards. In a 2026 report, Global Leading Practices for Coastal Resilience PEERS synthesized input from over 200 practitioners in 43 countries across seven global regions to develop an integrated understanding of (1) how coastal communities are innovating and (2) how those innovations can help practitioners and coastal communities advance practical adaptation planning. This training series will build on the report to share leading practices, examples of success, and actionable strategies that are effective to overcome barriers to adaptation.
The curriculum is centered around cross-cutting topics related to adaptive climate risk management and emerging adaptation practices. Effective resilience-building is not a linear planning exercise but an adaptive, cyclical process in which decision‑makers act on risk-informed knowledge, monitor outcomes, learn from experience, and iteratively adjust actions. This training, designed collaboratively by a team of experts, emphasizes use of that cyclical process to advance meaningful resilience on the ground.
The training will provide approaches, tools, and knowledge that advance the practice concretely in communities facing pressing coastal threats. The course is deliberately practical, providing participants with useful links to resources such as templates, checklists, toolkits, case studies, and assessments. The program is designed for a seasoned practitioner audience and emphasizes peer exchange as one of its most valuable and enduring outcomes.
WHO: The course will be most useful to U.S. professionals working in coastal adaptation who already have some experience in the field.
WHEN: The training series will be offered as live-online modules on 8 consecutive Thursdays from September 17 – November 5, 2026. Each session will be four hours long, from noon-4pm ET (9am-1pm PT). See the detailed schedule and expert instructors here.
REGISTRATION: Please submit a simple application at this link. If we can accommodate your application, we will confirm within two weeks and follow up to request payment. The registration fee for the entire course is $250. (If the fee will prohibit your participation, please indicate so on the application.)
CREDIT: Completion certificates will be provided. Participants will be eligible for up to 32 hours of continuing education credit from the American Institute of Certified Planners, or 12 hours from the Association of State Floodplain Managers.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: This training was designed by a Curriculum Advisory Committee composed of professionals with extensive experience in coastal climate adaptation. We are incredibly grateful for their in-kind contribution of time, expertise, and wisdom.
- Lisa Auermuller – Rutgers University
- Bilal Ayyub – University of Maryland
- David Behar (Chair) – San Francisco Public Utilities Commission
- Brad Benson – Port of San Francisco
- Lara Whiteley Binder – King County
- CJ Bodnar – City of Portsmouth, Virginia
- Alan Cohn – City of New York
- Katherine Hagemann – City of San Rafael
- Jack Liebster – Retired (Marin County)
- Glynis Lough – PEERS
- Jayantha Obeysekera – Florida International University
- Chris Osgood – City of Boston
- Abby Sullivan – City of Philadelphia
- Jessica Whitehead – Old Dominion University
- Tiffany Wise-West – City of Santa Cruz
We wish to acknowledge generous support from the NOAA Adaptation Science program and the Water Utility Climate Alliance. Staff support was provided by Adam Parris, Cassie Bhat, and Sneha Balakrishnan from ICF.
