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GULF OF MAINE RESEARCH INSTITUTE

Backed by NSF - GMRI and partners expanded Maine’s tide-gauge network and engaged residents and students to support translation of data for local decision-making and intergenerational community engagement.

"Any amount of data is going to be helpful and building those models and those models ultimately are going to help to save lives and property.​

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- Sarah Long, Meteorologist, WMTW NEWS 8 

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▶ Watch this moment (01:40)

The Story

The Gulf of Maine Research Institute led a coast-wide effort to bring hyper-local, real-time flood visibility to Maine’s working waterfronts and smaller communities that lacked tide gauges. Together with Hohonu and local partners, the team installed affordable water-level sensors and developed open dashboards so residents, students, and emergency communicators could see real-time conditions, build ground-truth models, and translate risk into clear actions. For more project information, click here.

Problem

  • Sea-level rise is driving more frequent, widespread coastal flooding along Maine’s ~5,400 miles of tidally influenced coastline—communities need to adapt.

  • Sparse tide-gauge coverage and a lack of observation-based flood thresholds leave big blind spots.

  • No ready network of researchers, civic leaders, engaged community members (especially youth), and resilience practitioners to leverage data for planning.

Stakeholders

  • Gulf of Maine Research Institute - coordinating the social + technological infrastructure.

  • Four coastal communities - Portland, Boothbay Harbor, St. George, Machias (diverse demographics and capacities).

  • NERACOOS - All data was integrated into NERACOOS's publicly-available dashboard

Solution

Outcomes

  • Hyper-local visibility + shared source of truth: minute-level water levels and impact reports inform models, thresholds, and public messaging.

  • Faster time-to-value for GMRI: the easy-to-use API let GMRI stand up their own dashboards quickly and maintain control of presentation.

  • Regional reach through NERACOOS: integration strengthened relationships and extended data access across the Northeast observing community.

Solution

  • Install Hohonu tide gauges at priority sites and launch community science to collect geo- and time-referenced flood impacts.

  • Publish to open, real-time dashboards and integrate via Hohonu’s API (GMRI reported it was “super easy to use”) to feed GMRI’s own platform.

  • Partner with NERACOOS for regional data integration, aligning local gauges with broader Northeast observing systems.

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