It’s high tide for America’s coastal communities and the water is just going to keep rising, according to a trio of reports on sea level rise released this month. The reports— produced independently—predict higher water this century from sea to shining sea, with several areas of the East and West coasts already rising at higher than average rates.

Among the most dramatic of the findings are those of a U.S. Geological Survey report that found that a swath along the Atlantic coast was rising at rates three to four times faster than other coasts. The 600-mile “hotspot” from Cape Hatteras to north of Boston includes Norfolk, Virginia, New York City, and lots of other pieces of what NOAA Coastal Services Director Margret Davidson called “bodaciously expensive property.”

"Cities in the hotspot, like Norfolk, New York, and Boston already experience damaging floods during relatively low intensity storms," USGS oceanographer and project lead Asbury (Abby) Sallenger stated in a press release. "Ongoing accelerated sea level rise in the hotspot will make coastal cities and surrounding areas increasingly vulnerable to flooding by adding to the height that storm surge and breaking waves reach on the coast."

Sallenger’s research—which reaches back to the 1950s—has shown a total sea level increase since 1990 of 4.8 inches in Norfolk, 3.7 inches in Philadelphia, and 2.8 inches in New York City, according to the Associated Press. The hotspot could see 8 to 11.4 more inches of rise by 2100, the report states.

On the other side of the nation, a National Research Council report finds a similar dynamic at play on the West Coast, where sea levels rose 7 inches during the 20th century. That pace will pick up, according to the report, which predicts a wide-ranging 2 to 12-inch rise before 2030.

Much like the Atlantic hotspot, only areas of the Pacific coast south of Cape Mendocino, California, are expected to experience significant rise, according to an NRC press release. Levels to the north will actually fall 2 to 9 inches thanks to a shifting landmass over the continental plate.

A third report examining the broad effects of climate change on industries in the Gulf Coast also tackled sea level rise, finding that in some Gulf areas the sea level was increasing by more than ten times the global rate, according to a press release. In the Gulf, the combination of sea level rise and strengthening hurricanes caused by warmer waters presages increasingly serious storm surges, the report stated.

Although the reports don’t have total buy in—at least one scientist said the Atlantic data could be explained by a cyclical rise—the takeaway from all three is that coastal communities need to prepare for more flooding and storm impacts.

“Sea level rise isn't a political question, it's a scientific reality,” Gary Griggs, director of the Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a member of the NRC report committee, told McClatchy Tribune News Service. “In the short term it's these severe storms in low-lying areas that are most problematic. So we have to plan for that.”