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UF/IFAS presents county vulnerability and adaptation plan; identifies Phillippi Creek among six geographic focus areas
Summary
UF/IFAS presented a county-funded vulnerability and adaptation plan that ranks county-owned and critical community assets for flood risk, prioritizes six focus areas (including Phillippi Creek) and provides a prioritized project list and funding pathways to inform grant applications.
UF/IFAS Extension and Sustainability presented the Sarasota County Vulnerability Assessment and Adaptation Plan on March 12, a grant-funded, multi-year assessment of county-owned and critical community assets that ranks flood risk and recommends prioritized adaptation projects.
Process and scope The project was funded by a Resilient Florida Planning Grant awarded in 2022 and updates previous analyses; it covered unincorporated county assets and focused on four flood hazards: tidal/coastal surge, storm surge, rainfall-induced flooding and sea-level rise. UF/IFAS staff and county teams compiled GIS inventories, ran exposure and sensitivity analyses for county assets, and modeled impacts at current levels and in future scenarios (2040 and 2070).
Focus areas and example projects The cross-department team selected six geographic focus areas with clusters of high-risk assets: Phillippi Creek, Siesta Key/Casey Key and Manasota Key, Nokomis, and the South Myakka River area. The adaptation plan lists a range of candidate projects, chosen and ranked to align with grant criteria. Examples cited in the presentation included vacuum-sewer rehabilitation and stormwater restoration in the Phillippi Creek area, force-main upgrades on barrier keys, coastal restoration in Nokomis and generator and park improvements in the South Myakka region.
Funding and next steps Staff said the county is already pursuing several resilience-related grants and will use the plan to target implementation grants, including Resilient Florida Implementation Grants and Coastal/estuary funding. A public web page and interactive story map was made live concurrent with the presentation, and UF/IFAS staff promised continued cross-departmental coordination to pursue project design, prioritized funding applications and public outreach.
Why it matters The plan supplies a county-wide, grant-ready inventory and prioritized project list that county departments can use to accelerate funding requests and to coordinate projects that reduce vulnerability to future flood hazards.
Source: Presentation by Lee Hayes Byron, UF/IFAS director for extension and sustainability, and project lead Sarah Kane, at the March 12, 2025 Sarasota County Board of County Commissioners meeting.
