Upcoming webinars

Roads and Resilience: Integrating State Transportation, 

Hazards, and Nature-Based Solutions

December 16, 2025 |  10:00 am - noon

This webinar will be held on Zoom

Register Here

Join the Shoreline & Coastal Planners Group for a webinar focused on work that state agencies are doing to study and address natural hazard impacts (many from coastal and riverine flooding and erosion) to state roads. The goal of the programs is to repair roads and reduce further risk, while providing benefits such as improved habitat, cost savings, and supporting local community needs. 

We will have three presentations during this webinar. Come learn about these efforts and how you can get involved!

1. During large storms, highways next to rivers and shorelines are vulnerable to erosion, sedimentation, flooding, and washouts, which can result in frequent road closures or expensive repairs and maintenance. This can threaten public safety, result in road closures, and divert maintenance resources away from other emergency needs. These frequent repairs can also harm fish. WSDOT’s Chronic Environmental Deficiencies (CED) Program constructs climate-resilient, nature-based retrofits along Washington’s state highways to protect them from debris flows and floods while improving fish and aquatic habitat. This presentation will describe WSDOT’s CED program with a focus on its holistic approach and importance in resiliency and salmon recovery habitat planning at WSDOT, and improving the critical infrastructure that connects the communities WSDOT serves.

2. The Coastal Transportation Vulnerability & Planning Study will evaluate state transportation infrastructure across Washington’s 15 coastal counties for vulnerability to coastal hazards including sea level rise, flooding, erosion, and landslides. The project will also identify up to six future nature-based resilience projects to address risks to roadways, improve community resilience, and protect and restore habitat conditions. This project is an innovative partnership between the Washington departments of Ecology, Transportation,  Fish and Wildlife, and Washington Sea Grant. This project is funded by a grant from the National Coastal Resilience Fund, a partnership between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. Visit the project website for more information. 

3. The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) is conducting a study known as the Transportation Resilience Improvement Plan (TRIP). The TRIP will help decision-makers prioritize immediate and long-term investments to address climate and natural hazards such as flooding, wildfire, sea-level rise, landslides, earthquakes, and more. These hazards disrupt transportation networks and make it difficult for our communities to get services they need, especially in times of emergency. Mitigating these hazards can protect human life and well-being, economic stability, and the natural environment. The TRIP includes a statewide vulnerability and risk assessment. It will also map roads, bridges, and other transportation features that are vulnerable to climate hazards. The assessment will look at both current and potential future threats, and will coordinate with other recent or current vulnerability assessments on coastal resilience (with Ecology, WDFW, and WA Sea Grant), I-5, rail, and ferry terminals. The TRIP final report, due in June 2026, will summarize existing climate adaptation policies, tools, guidance, and activities that position WSDOT and its partners to make immediate and long-range investments. It will also include a prioritization framework for resilience projects and a prioritized project list for consideration by decision-makers.

Webinar logistics: 

Speakers:

Jenni Dykstra is a fish biologist with the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) and has led WSDOT’s Chronic Environmental Deficiencies Program for the past eight years. Her background in government, non-profit, and consulting includes developing projects that use nature-based methods to protect and enhance fish and aquatic habitat at the interface of state highway infrastructure, fish passage, floodplain restoration, and fish habitat assessment and monitoring.

Sam Giannakos is a coastal engineer working for the Department of Ecology as part of the Applied Coastal Research and Engineering section with the Shorelands and Environmental Assistance program. I am a member of the interagency Coastal Hazards Organizational Resilience Team (COHORT), where I bring technical assistance and expertise to underserved communities and Tribes, working to help them address growing coastal resilience concerns within their communities.

Susan Kanzler is the Stream Restoration Program Manager within WSDOT’s Environmental Services Office. She leads a team of biologists who manage, coordinate, and support WSDOT’s Statewide Fish Passage and Chronic Environmental Deficiencies (CED) programs, which use nature-based solutions to enhance fish habitat while improving transportation resilience. She provides policy support and technical guidance for addressing stream habitat restoration, fish passage, nature-based solutions, and climate-resilient transportation planning.

Sydney Fishman is the Coastal Management Specialist at Washington Sea Grant, where she helps shoreline and coastal decision-makers find solutions to their complex management issues. Her work spans the broad areas of shoreline management, shoreline stabilization, and coastal climate resilience. She fosters a shoreline management community of practice in western Washington; supports the development of regional incentives for shoreline landowners to reduce hard shoreline armor; and supports local and state planning for climate change and sea level rise. She holds a Master of Environmental Management degree from Duke University.

Harriet Morgan is the climate change coordinator for Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW). In close collaboration with internal and external partners, Harriet works to facilitate the development and implementation of a coordinated agency response to the impacts of climate change at WDFW. Before joining the agency, Harriet worked as a research scientist at the University of Washington Climate Impacts Group (CIG) for seven years, where she was involved in many facets of climate resiliency across the region, from planning to implementation.

Chelsea Buchanan serves as Climate Operations Lead at Washington State Department of Transportation’s Climate Mitigation and Adaptation Branch. She provides lead support for WSDOT’s Transportation Resilience Improvement Plan (TRIP), a statewide resilience improvement plan funded by the federal PROTECT program (Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient, and Cost-Saving Transportation). She coordinates this work with staff at WSDOT leading the Coastal Resilience Project. She also staffs the Interagency Climate Resilience Team in support of the State Climate Resilience Strategy led by the Washington State Department of Ecology. She holds a Master of Public Administration from the University of Washington Evans School of Public Policy and Governance.

Have comments, questions, or an idea for a meeting?
Contact Sydney Fishman, sfishma@uw.edu.