From the rocky coast of Maine to the sandy beaches of California, America’s coastlines draw millions of visitors each year. In addition to their beauty, America’s coastal areas also provide numerous recreational opportunities; habitat for hundreds of species of fish, birds and other wildlife; and a livelihood for millions of Americans.
Coasts are dynamic areas, buffeted by storms that can change the way the area looks and functions over time. Erosion caused by storms eats away at developed land and ocean surges during storms can lead to flooding. Coastal areas and the coastal wildlife that call them home also are impacted upon by natural events and human activities.
USACE coastal protection and restoration projects include:
- beach fills and nourishment to protect against storm surge and wave-generated erosion;
- construction of shore structures, such as sea walls, breakwaters, and revetments, to protect against flooding and erosion; and
- best practices sand management, like regional sediment management.
Earthquakes, hurricanes, floods and other disasters are an unfortunate part of life. It is impossible to completely prevent them. A tornado, hurricane, flood, earthquake or other disaster can tear through our communities in moments destroying homes and businesses, uprooting families and leaving behind a path of destruction.
Emergency Response and Disaster Recovery
Each year, USACE sends hundreds of people to respond to disasters around the world. When disasters occur, it is not just a local USACE district or office that responds. Personnel and other resources are mobilized across the country to carry out our response missions. In any disaster, USACE's three top priorities are to:
- Support immediate emergency response priorities
- Sustain lives with critical commodities, temporary emergency power and other needs
- Initiate recovery efforts by assessing and restoring critical infrastructure
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| $434M in repair damage |
$608M provided to 69 projects in 18 states and one territory |
$17.4B for disaster recovery |
Aquatic Ecosystem Restoration and Environmental Stewardship
The USACE Civil Works Environmental Program focuses on two key areas: aquatic ecosystem restoration and stewardship of project lands. Efforts in both areas are guided by USACE environmental operating principles, which help us balance economic and environmental concerns.
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111,000 acres of restoration
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12M acres managed
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47,000 cultural sites
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Aquatic Ecosystem Restoration
The purpose of the aquatic ecosystem restoration program, one of USACE's three core mission areas, is to restore degraded ecosystem structures, function and natural processes to a more natural condition.
The $224 million budget for the Aquatic Ecosystem Restoration program prioritizes studies or projects that support the cost-effective restoration of nationally or regionally significant ecosystems that USACE is uniquely well-suited to manage.
USACE coordinates closely with other Federal agencies that have ongoing work in various ecosystems to synchronize activities and leverage the federal investment. The Budget predominantly supports efforts in the California Bay Delta, Chesapeake Bay, Everglades, Great Lakes, and Upper Mississippi River watersheds as well as compliance with existing biological opinions for the Columbia-Snake system, Missouri River Basin, and the Mud Mountain Dam project on the White River in Washington State. USACE coordinates closely with other Federal agencies on these efforts to synchronize activities and best leverage the Federal investment.
Environmental Stewardship
The mission of the stewardship program is to manage, conserve and protect the natural and cultural resources at USACE operated projects, consistent with project authorities.
USACE is responsible for stewardship of about 12 million acres of project lands, manages over 340 species of concern and 47,000 cultural sites. USACE has more than 450,000 acres of environmentally sensitive areas supporting unique ecosystems.
The 2017 budget for the Environmental Stewardship program will bring 25 master plans into compliance, protect vulnerable and threatened cultural resources, and manage or control invasive plant and animal species on more than 385,000 acres.
The program fully supports the Veterans Curation Program, which by the end of FY20 is projected to have hired and trained more than 650 returning Veterans since the inception of the program.
Additionally, each year the stewardship program maintains thousands of miles of Federal property boundary line, addresses encroachments and trespasses, processes land use requests, and manages a shoreline program with more than 74,000 dock and vegetation permits.
During the period FY05 through FY17, USACE restored approximately 111,000 acres to a less degraded, more natural condition.
Every year floods sweep through communities across the Unites States taking lives, destroying property, shutting down businesses, harming the environment and causing millions of dollars in damages. It is impossible to prevent all floods, but it is possible to prevent some and to limit the impact of those that do occur.
One of the primary missions of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is flood risk management. Through effective planning, forecasting and preparation USACE is working to help communities prevent floods where possible and significantly reduce the loss of lives and the economic and environmental impact when they do occur. USACE also is involved in flood emergency response efforts.
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14,000 miles of levees managed by USACE
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87,000 dams tracked by the National Inventory of Dams
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740 dams managed by USACE
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Preparing
Floods can't always be prevented so a key part of USACE efforts focuses on helping communities prepare in case a flood does occur. USACE helps put in place measures designed to reduce risks from flood hazards to people and their homes and businesses. We also provide people who live and work in floodplains with the information they need to know about flood hazards and the actions that they can take to reduce property damage and to prevent the loss of life caused by flooding.
Specific USACE activities geared towards preparing individuals and communities for potential floods include:
- Structures - USACE is responsible for managing more than 740 dams and 14,000 miles of levees, which help reduce the risk of flood damage. Additionally, USACE has built hundreds of smaller local flood risk reduction projects that have been turned over to non-Federal authorities for operation and maintenance, and has implemented various nonstructural projects to reduce susceptibility to flood damages.
- Advance Measures - When it appears that a flood is imminent in a specific area, USACE can take a number of immediate steps to protect life and property, such as constructing temporary flow restriction structures and removing log debris blockages.
- Floodplain Management Services (FPMS) Program – USACE provides information, technical assistance and planning guidance (paid for by the Federal Government) to states and local communities to help them address floodplain management issues. Typical focus areas are wetland assessment, dam safety/failure, flood damage reduction, floodplain management, and coastal zone management and protection.
- Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Mapping - USACE has also completed thousands of studies for FEMA, mapping the flood potential of various areas of the country. USACE has been instrumental in training private firms to carry out similar studies. These measures are designed to reduce risks from flood hazards to people and their homes and businesses.
USACE is the largest owner and operator of hydroelectric power plants in the U.S. and one of the largest in the world. The 75 USACE hydroelectric power plants have a total installed capacity of approximately 23,900 megawatts (MW), with approximately 60 percent located in the Pacific Northwest. This capability generates about 25 percent of the nation's hydroelectric power and represents approximately 3 percent of the nation's total electric-generating capacity.
Benefits in Perspective
The primary National Economic Development (NED) benefit of USACE hydropower efforts is the willingness to pay for hydropower output from USACE projects. For existing USACE hydropower capital stock, an estimate of replacement in-kind is the most likely and most economical alternative. Accordingly, the replacement value of energy produced by USACE hydropower facilities is used as proxy for the willingness to pay for hydropower output from USACE projects. Energy replacement values illustrate the cost of energy from alternative generating resources used to replace lost hydropower generation from outages.
How These Numbers were Calculated
A 2015 USACE Hydropower Analysis Center study, Quantifying the Cost of Unit Outages Across the USACE Hydropower Facilities, developed an approach to simulate 15 years of historic average daily flow and reservoir elevations into hourly flow distributions by matching historical flows to current plant operations and turbine efficiencies. This study generated values for the energy produced from the USACE hydropower capital stock. The energy values are based on regional locational marginal prices (LMP) collected from a plant’s most relevant energy market. The NED benefits accruing to USACE hydropower investments are computed by summing the average energy replacement values from each USACE project with generating capability. Values were adjusted for inflation in order to convert estimates to 2021 dollars. The FY 2021 NED hydropower benefit estimate is $2.82 billion.
Sources of Data
USACE Hydropower Analysis Center, 2015. Quantifying the Cost of Unit Outages across the USACE Hydropower Facilities.
- FY 2021 Fast Facts
- USACE Hydropower Analysis Center (2015). Quantifying the Cost of Unit Outages across the USACE Hydropower Facilities.
- Values were adjusted for inflation in order to convert estimates to 2021 dollars.
- FY 2020 Fast Facts
- USACE Hydropower Analysis Center (2015). Quantifying the Cost of Unit Outages across the USACE Hydropower Facilities.
- Values were adjusted for inflation in order to convert estimates to 2020 dollars.
- FY 2019 Fast Facts
- USACE Hydropower Analysis Center (2015). Quantifying the Cost of Unit Outages across the USACE Hydropower Facilities.
- Values were adjusted for inflation in order to convert estimates to 2019 dollars.
- FY 2018 Fast Facts
- USACE Hydropower Analysis Center (2015). Quantifying the Cost of Unit Outages across the USACE Hydropower Facilities.
- Values were adjusted for inflation in order to convert estimates to 2018 dollars.
- FY 2017 Fast Facts
- USACE Hydropower Analysis Center (2015). Quantifying the Cost of Unit Outages across the USACE Hydropower Facilities.
- Values were adjusted for inflation in order to convert estimates to 2017 dollars.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is the nation’s lead water resources development agency. Through its annual appropriations, USACE plans, invests in, operates, and maintains a system of Civil Works infrastructure.
This website presents some economic "fast facts" about the value USACE Civil Works programs provide to the nation. The value of these programs is expressed in terms of each program’s contributions to national economic development (NED) benefits and revenues to the U.S. Department of the Treasury (U.S. Treasury). Where available, additional facts are included. The latest data available is for 2024.
Sources and Computations of Economic Benefits:
- Sources for Value to the Nation Fast Facts can be found under the label "How these numbers were calculated" on any Value to the Nation page that features Fast Facts information.
- Sources for Capital Stock Fast Facts can be found within the Capital Stock pages in the right-hand Capital Stock menu under "How these numbers were calculated".