Session Details

Building the Town of Bluffton’s Resilience Toolbox
Speakers: Beth Lewis (Town of Bluffton); Andrea Moreno (Town of Bluffton); Kimberly Sitta (McCormick Taylor, Inc.)
In 2024, the Town of Bluffton, a rapidly growing coastal community in Beaufort County, SC, partnered with McCormick Taylor, Inc. and the Center for Watershed Protection to enhance wetland protections and develop a comprehensive set of resilience strategies. This effort delivered a series of recommendations to enhance floodplain management, mapped the Town’s stormwater conveyance systems, and established a functional stream order classification system with associated riparian buffer recommendations to protect water quality and aquatic resources. The consultant team also identified and mapped “Resilience Zones” within the Town’s jurisdiction using three different approaches and developed ordinance recommendations to support long-term resilience. Recommendations include updates to the Town’s existing development regulations, elevation-based zoning, and implementation of a resilience ordinance and resilience site plan review process. Together, these efforts have equipped the Town of Bluffton with a toolbox of strategies to address future environmental challenges.

Port Royal Sound Science: Monitoring Change in the Port Royal Sound Watershed
Speakers: Chris Kehrer (Port Royal Sound Foundation)
The Port Royal Sound Foundation’s PRSound Science initiative is monitoring for four key indicators of change in the watershed—water quality, land cover, marsh dynamics, and habitat & biodiversity—to inform resilience and adaptation decisions. This data is being curated in our PRSound Science portal and is informing the development of helpful decision-making tools.

Waste Sustainability Efforts in Beaufort County
Speakers: Libby Bergmann (Beaufort County Public Works—Solid Waste and Recycling)
The session will be presenting the efforts made by the solid waste and recycling team since January. We have updated our recycling and composting program significantly, and I would love to share about the outreach and success of it.

From Tidewater to Lowcountry: Lessons in Resilient Stormwater Management
Speakers: Ginny Snead (A. Morton Thomas and Associates, Inc.)
Coastal communities face unique stormwater management challenges as changing coastal conditions compound the effects of flat topography, high groundwater, tidal influence, sea level rise, and increasingly frequent and prolonged storms. This session will highlight AMT’s work with a Planning District Commission in the Tidewater region of Virginia that identified innovative approaches for improving stormwater quality treatment and quantity control under these changing conditions. Our presenter will discuss the project’s background and funding, methodology and evaluation framework, key findings, and development of our technical white paper recommending best practices and design considerations for coastal stormwater management. The session will translate lessons learned from Virginia’s Tidewater region to the South Carolina Lowcountry, where communities face many of the same physical and climate-driven constraints. Attendees will gain practical insight into evaluating stormwater practices and developing more resilient design approaches for coastal environments.

Seas to Trees: TNC’s Multi-Scale Approach to Coastal Restoration, Forest Conservation, and Land Protection in the Southern Lowcountry
Speakers: Susanna Hopkins (The Nature Conservancy)
The Nature Conservancy is advancing coastal resilience across the Southern Lowcountry region through a connected portfolio of nature-based conservation strategies. Drawing from on-the-ground restoration and large-scale land protection, the presentation will highlight TNC’s work advancing living shorelines, forestry through prescribed fire, and strategic land protection to continue to protect and restore habitats and communities within this rapidly developing landscape. Rather than treating resilience as a single solution, this session will demonstrate how protecting and restoring connected natural systems can create lasting benefits for both people and nature.

Site Visit to Beaufort County Compost Facility
Speakers: Not specified in the program or proposal responses.
A behind-the-scenes tour of Beaufort County’s community food-waste composting program.

Dale T. Morris Ecological Drainage Park: Nature-Based Flood Management Advancing Public Safety, Ecology, and Community Resilience
Speakers: Marc Horstman (Ardurra); Jordyn Mallett (City of Charleston)
Dale Morris Ecological Park is the City of Charleston’s largest ecological infrastructure project and a model for proactive flood management on Johns Island. The design integrates wetland creation, floodplain storage, and stream enhancement to reduce chronic flooding and improve public safety, environmental health, and neighborhood connectivity. As the system matures, its flood-mitigation performance increases, reinforcing long-term community and economic resilience. The project also demonstrates how nature-based and green infrastructure solutions can be woven into existing neighborhoods while addressing regulatory policy, funding, and community expectations. Implementation challenges—such as complex permitting communication, property encroachment, and varied public acceptance—highlight the need for clear outreach, early coordination, and transparent discussion of benefits. This presentation will share lessons on technical design, community engagement, and the practical steps needed to advance nature-based flood solutions in Southeast communities.

From Flood Data to Resilient Planning: SCOR’s BridgeBox and Planning Guidance
Speakers: Bradley Craig (South Carolina Office of Resilience); Kristopher Covington (South Carolina Office of Resilience)
This session will highlight two complementary efforts by the South Carolina Office of Resilience to support communities in understanding and addressing flood risk and resilient priorities. First, SCOR will introduce BridgeBox™, a compact, internet-connected water-level monitoring system designed to supplement existing USGS gauges and provide more localized information on stream and water-level conditions. BridgeBox deployment is supported by SCOR’s Watershed Coordination program to identify locations that are informed by local knowledge, community input, and flood modeling to strengthen understanding of flood response and support future planning. Second, we will introduce SCOR’s Resiliency Element in Comprehensive Planning Integration Guidance, which is intended to help communities meet the statutory requirement for a resiliency element in the Comprehensive Planning Enabling Act. Guidance covers topics such as integrating resilience across planning elements of the comprehensive plan and the importance of cross-jurisdictional coordination in developing actionable recommendations to address current and future natural hazards and conditions. These topics, presented together, demonstrate how improved data and practical planning guidance can support more informed, locally responsive resilience decisions.

Southbridge Wilmington Wetland Park: Resilient Urban Wetland Restoration
Speakers: Justin Reel (RK&K)
The Southbridge Wilmington Wetland Park Project highlights the challenges of urban wetland restoration. Located within degraded brownfields, the site sits well below the mean high water and is surrounded by development, limiting allowable tidal flooding to levels below mid-tide. Automated tidal control was necessary to establish vegetated tidal wetlands and improve resilience to initial sea-level rise. Restoration includes an emergent freshwater tidal wetland system with minor shrub and forest components, bordered by upland shrub, forest, and meadow habitats. Site grading provides stormwater storage capacity while reducing contaminated soil disposal costs. The design includes stormwater forebays, passive park amenities, and powerline access. Despite significant constraints, the project delivers ecological uplift, stormwater storage, recreation, and education opportunities. Key lessons include early regulatory collaboration, hydrology establishment before planting, and adaptive management. The project demonstrates how resilient, data-driven design can transform underused urban land into climate-adaptive green infrastructure that protects people and ecosystems.

RICE in the Lowcountry: Tools to Engage Communities Around Flooding
Speakers: Aubrey Anthony (South Carolina Aquarium)
The South Carolina Aquarium’s Resilience Initiative for Community Engagement (RICE) program employs art and citizen science to educate residents & visitors alike about local flooding while empowering them to improve resilience to flood hazards. Working with municipalities and businesses, the Aquarium installs Blue Line projects throughout the Lowcountry, combining art and science to depict sea-level rise through the lens of storm surge inundation caused by Hurricane Hugo. The Aquarium’s SeaRise citizen science project empowers the public to collect data on flooding simply by snapping a photo. To raise awareness of flooding and encourage the submission of flooding observations, the Aquarium has deployed over 30 “Flooded” signs throughout the Lowcountry while also hosting SeaRise “strolls” during king tides to empower & train residents to better collect flooding data. The Aquarium also provides toolkits for residents to “foster-a-flood” via collecting longitudinal flooding data in one locatio

The Parris Island Experimental Living Shoreline Initiative: Beneficial Use of Surplus Concrete Transportation Barriers Supporting Estuarine Erosion Reduction, “Bio-Rock” Growth Enhancement, and Coastal Observing Systems
Speakers: Dr. Paul Gayes (Coastal Carolina University)
Session description needed.

From Projects to Systems: Building a Practical Model for Community Resilience
Speakers: David E. Vaughn (Clemson University); Kevin Autry (Clemson University)
This session traces the evolution of a practical, system-of-systems approach to community resilience developed through more than a decade of applied work in South Carolina. Beginning with Clemson Engineers for Developing Communities (CEDC), the presentation will follow lessons learned from community resilience efforts in Laurens, SCEMD work in the Pee Dee, USACE planning in the Savannah River watershed, SCOR road-flood vulnerability analysis, and the current ACOG/Pickens County resilience pilot. These experiences revealed recurring gaps between hazard information, infrastructure planning, community capacity, and implementation. The session will introduce the emerging ResilientSC methodology, including Critical Infrastructure Performance Standards (CIPS), community interviews, infrastructure interdependencies, FEMA Community Lifelines, and scenario-based planning. Particular attention will be given to lessons from the Pickens County pilot and how this approach can be adapted to Lowcountry communities facing flooding, hurricanes, transportation constraints, infrastructure dependencies, and other cascading risks.

Community-Driven Nature-Based Solutions for Flood Resilience in the Salkehatchie Watershed
Speakers: Kim Morganello (Weston & Sampson); Karen Hardison (South Carolina Office of Resilience)
Nature-based solutions can deliver flood reduction benefits while simultaneously improving water quality, wildlife habitat, and community well-being. However, successful implementation requires balancing technical suitability with community preferences. Through the South Carolina Resilient Coastal Communities Collaborative Program, a collaborative planning effort was undertaken in the Salkehatchie Watershed to identify and prioritize nature-based resilience projects across nine communities. The project combined community engagement, multi-scale vulnerability assessment, GIS-based opportunity screening, field verification, and project prioritization. Residents, local officials, and stakeholders participated in Community Action Teams that identified flooding concerns, mapped vulnerable locations, evaluated adaptation strategies, and helped prioritize potential projects. This presentation demonstrates how integrating community-defined values with technical resilience assessments can improve project acceptance, implementation readiness, and long-term resilience outcomes for communities facing increasing climate-related flood risks.

Developing a Resiliency Toolkit to Support Community Education and Resilient Infrastructure Management
Speakers: Steve Hirsch (Seabrook Island POA)
Seabrook Island is a barrier island community in Charleston County that is working to develop sea level rise adaptation strategies much like other SC coastal communities. Seabrook Island POA has implemented many resiliency related programs in recent years including tidal flood prevention, stormwater outfall management, shoreline habitat monitoring, wildlife management, native planting guidelines, living shorelines, tide gauges, and tidal flood viewers. These programs serve to guide decision-making for infrastructure management and capital improvement projects. To help educate the community on these efforts, an online toolkit was developed that outlines the details of each program and serves as a resource for residents. This presentation will review this toolkit and provide guidance for community leaders on how to implement their own resiliency programs.

From Streets to Shores: Resilient Stormwater Management on Folly Beach
Speakers: Chris Pyman (Weston & Sampson); Kim Morganello (Weston & Sampson)
The City of Folly Beach initiated a comprehensive stormwater infrastructure improvement project focused on its popular Center Street business district. The project, which was completed in September 2026, seeks to reduce flooding, improve drainage system performance, enhance water quality, and create a replicable model for resilient coastal infrastructure. Funded through the South Carolina Infrastructure Investment Program, the project employs a combined grey-green stormwater management approach. Grey improvements include the installation of larger stormwater conveyance infrastructure, more than doubling the system storage capacity. Green stormwater infrastructure elements include permeable pavement parking spaces, bioretention cells, and enhanced street tree plantings. Because the project is located within Folly Beach’s primary commercial corridor, stakeholder engagement played a critical role in project development and implementation. This presentation highlights design considerations, hydrologic benefits, construction challenges, and lessons learned from implementing an integrated grey-green infrastructure strategy in a highly constrained environment. The project demonstrates how coastal communities can modernize aging infrastructure while improving resilience, water quality, and community aesthetics in the face of changing climatic conditions.

Applying Nature-Based Solutions to a Dynamic Tidal Creek: Planning, Design, and Lessons Learned from the Scotts Creek Shoreline Restoration Project
Speakers: Chris Mack (JMT)
Session description needed.

Protecting Natural Areas Amid Development Pressure in Jasper County: The Euhaw Broad River Planning Area
Speakers: Denise Grabowski (Symbioscity); Eric Larson (Jasper County)
In recognition of the valuable natural, historic, and cultural resources within the Port Royal Watershed, the Broad River Task Force was assembled in Jasper County to address increasing development pressures and foster a proactive approach to promote conservation strategies and advocate for updates to land development regulations. To address natural resource and growth concerns for this area, the Jasper County Council established a development moratorium for the Euhaw/Broad River planning area, located generally east of I-95, in 2023. After a process spanning more than two years, Jasper County enacted updates to portions of the zoning ordinance, including a new zoning district, updated development standards, and modifications to the zoning map. This session will provide an overview of the process and the regulatory updates, including how input from area stakeholders, residents, and decision-makers influenced the process along the way.

SCDNR’s Urban Outreach Program
Speakers: Anna Huckabee Smith (South Carolina Department of Natural Resources)
The SCDNR has a new initiative to engage local governments, assisting with green growth planning including land protection measures. This presentation will introduce this program to conference participants and aligns with the Land Use Planning and Community Resilience session topic.

South Atlantic Salt Marsh Initiative—Regional Collaboration for Coastal Resilience
Speakers: Michelle Covi (University of Georgia Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant)
The South Atlantic Salt Marsh Initiative (SASMI) is a regional coalition that brings South Carolina together with North Carolina, Georgia and Florida to conserve and restore the expanse of one million acres of salt marsh that protects communities, filters water, supports fisheries and sequesters carbon. SASMI is a partnership closely connected to military, Sentinel Landscapes, local, state, and federal government, as well as conservation NGOs that lead state-based teams. SASMI is working regionally to advance nature-based solutions to sustain salt marsh including leveraging the latest science and policy innovations through working groups. This session will feature highlights from the recently released impact report reflecting recent successes as well as key challenges to coastal resilience.

Five Levels of Energy Management: A Practical Framework for Designers and Facilities Managers
Speakers: Billy Blackburn (Harris Integrated Solutions); Tony Holcomb (Harris Integrated Solutions)
Session description needed.

Thursday, October 29

Friday, October 30

Muted Tide Gates in Lowcountry Resilience Projects
Speakers: Richard Karkowski (Thomas & Hutton); Rachel Sill (Sherwood Design Engineers)
Coastal communities face an increasingly difficult challenge: protecting low-lying areas from tidal flooding while maintaining the tidal exchange necessary to support healthy wetlands, drainage systems, and coastal ecosystems. Muted tide gates allow controlled tidal exchange under normal conditions while limiting higher tidal elevations that could increase flood risk. Their successful application requires balancing drainage and flood-protection objectives with desired upstream hydrologic and ecological conditions. This presentation will examine how muted tide gates can be planned, designed, permitted, and operated as components of broader coastal resiliency systems. Case studies will include the completed Mossy Oak Drainage Improvements (Beaufort County) and Central Park Road Drainage Improvements (Charleston County), as well as the planned Shell Point Interchange Resiliency Improvements (Beaufort County) and Newmarket Creek Restoration (City of Charleston). Together, these projects will illustrate practical considerations and lessons learned in using controlled tidal exchange to balance flood risk, drainage performance, and coastal resilience.

Alljoy Community Drainage Planning for a Changing Lowcountry Waterfront
Speakers: Ryne Phillips (Seamon, Whiteside & Associates, Inc.)
This presentation will demonstrate how community-scale drainage planning can be used to connect technical analysis with actionable resilience initiatives. Discussion will focus on evaluating existing drainage systems, incorporating stakeholder priorities, understanding interactions between neighborhood flooding and adjacent receiving waters, and developing recommendations that balance technical feasibility, cost, and community acceptance. Attendees will gain insight into how drainage studies can help communities move beyond reactive flood response and toward proactive, data-driven resilience planning that supports long-term adaptation to changing environmental conditions.

The Right Fit: Using Green and Gray Solutions to Store and Channel Stormwater
Speakers: Jason Hetrick (McCormick Taylor); Pam Kendrick (South Carolina Office of Resilience)
SCOR and McCormick Taylor collaborate on stormwater infrastructure improvements across the state. Depending on existing conditions, community needs, and the level of flood risk reduction required, engineers and planners must weigh the benefits and trade-offs of both natural and grey stormwater infrastructure. This presentation will compare the design approaches, functionality, and outcomes of two infrastructure projects funded by American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) grants for infrastructure improvements in South Carolina. The largely nature-based Tommesenia Floyd Memorial Park in Nichols, SC will showcase the environmental and community benefits of incorporating green infrastructure into stormwater management. In contrast, the City of Beaufort’s Charles/Craven Street Drainage Improvement Project will highlight the substantial storage capacity provided by a traditional grey infrastructure concrete pipe system in a highly urbanized environment. Together these projects illustrate how green and grey infrastructure can each provide effective solutions and how combining approaches can improve long-term resiliency and maximize the impact the project has on the community.

Exploring the Feasibility of Marsh Elevation Enhancement in South Carolina
Speakers: Matt Slagel (S.C. Sea Grant Consortium)
Marsh elevation enhancement, also sometimes referred to as thin layer placement (TLP), is a beneficial use of dredged materials (BUDM) approach that enhances marsh elevation by placing thin sediment layers to counter sea level rise. This project, led by the SC Sea Grant Consortium, SC Department of Natural Resources, Louisiana State University, and the College of Charleston, aims to develop a framework to guide decision-making for potential marsh elevation enhancement sites. The goal of this project was to create a model-assisted decision support tool to guide the potential application of marsh elevation enhancement in South Carolina. This tool was made with the following end users in mind: 1) US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) staff involved in planning, dredging, and navigation; 2) South Carolina state agencies involved in natural resource management and coastal zone management; and 3) marine dredging contractors. Project development was guided by a project advisory council consisting of these end users.

Charleston County Comprehensive Stormwater Master Plan
Speakers: John Prorock (Charleston County Public Works); Jared Bramblett (Moffatt & Nichol)
The purpose of the stormwater master plan is to establish a standardized objective criteria ranking system to identify and prioritize drainage capital improvement projects throughout the County. In addition, the master plan will define standard operating procedures and methodologies for watershed-based drainage studies (using hybrid and compound flood modeling approaches) and create an initial ranked list of drainage improvement projects. The master plan begins with a pilot watershed study to optimize the procedures before progressing to study additional watersheds throughout the County. All watersheds throughout the County will be objectively ranked to prioritize which will be studied next. These on-going drainage studies will be used to continuously identify and prioritize new drainage improvement projects.

Future-Proofing Transportation Infrastructure
Speakers: Giovanni Cosentino (CDM Smith)
As extreme weather events become more frequent and severe, transportation infrastructure faces growing challenges and risks. This presentation highlights three case studies that demonstrate how climate resilience can be integrated from planning through design to deliver practical, implementable solutions. Together, these case studies illustrate a data-driven, multi-hazard approach to delivering climate-resilient transportation infrastructure through proactive planning, stakeholder engagement, and phased implementation to ensure infrastructure remains safe, reliable, and adaptive in the face of a changing climate.

Cleaner Water, Stronger Communities: The Go2Sewer Initiative
Speakers: Michael Hansen (Beaufort-Jasper Water & Sewer Authority); Charlie Stone (Beaufort-Jasper Water & Sewer Authority)
BJWSA launched the Go2Sewer Program in 2024 to help underserved communities transition from aging septic systems to public wastewater service. The initiative focuses on protecting environmentally sensitive areas, reducing the risk of water contamination, and improving public health and environmental sustainability. To date, the program has advanced two major septic-to-sewer projects serving approximately 250 parcels. The $10 million Stoney Creek project is scheduled for completion in fall 2026, while the $7 million Alljoy Phase 1 project is expected to be completed in December 2026. Recent funding successes include a $2 million SRF grant and additional state appropriations to support an expanded Alljoy project. Strong partnerships with Beaufort County and the Town of Bluffton have been essential in securing grant funding and local matching resources. The Board of Directors has further demonstrated its commitment by dedicating $5 million annually to support the program’s continued growth and impact.

Rosemont Flood Action Plan: Community Strength and Climate Adaptation
Speakers: Kasey Henneman (Black & Veatch)
This presentation, delivered in partnership with the City of Charleston, highlights how the Rosemont community is advancing resilience while preserving its cultural heritage. Building on the City’s Comprehensive Water Plan and Basin Flood Action Plan, the Rosemont Flood Action Plan addresses challenges including sea-level rise, increased rainfall, high tides, development pressures, and compound flooding. A key factor in the project’s success was Rosemont’s strong community organization, which enabled meaningful engagement and collaboration. Through technical analysis and community input, five primary resilience strategies were identified: home elevations, flood protection measures, stormwater infrastructure improvements, nature-based solutions, and enhanced access to water. Working with the City and the Lowcountry Alliance for Model Communities, the team developed a unified Rosemont Resilience Framework to align multiple ongoing initiatives. The project demonstrates how underserved coastal communities can leverage local strengths and data-driven planning to create actionable, community-based solutions to climate challenges.

Building Resilient Communities
Speakers: Kristi Sturtz (Sturtz Public Management Group, LLC)
This session frames local government resilience planning through the lens of sustainable development—development that meets present needs without compromising future generations. Sustainability is organized into three pillars (social, economic, environmental) and nine focus areas from health and wellbeing to resilient infrastructure and housing. Local governments are already doing this work through comprehensive plans, hazard mitigation plans, and capital improvement plans, they just haven’t named the connection. Real world case studies ground the framework into practice and a roadmap will be provided to give attendees concrete next steps.