New Jersey is spending $1.3 million to study ways to reduce the risk of flooding and damage from storm surges.

The Environmental Protection Department approved 10 projects for Rutgers University, Stevens Institute of Technology, Richard Stockton College of New Jersey and the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

NJIT will spend $145,000 to inventory natural resources in flood-prone areas of Barnegat Bay and in Hudson and Bergen counties.

Rutgers will receive $119,000 to examine flood vulnerability along Cumberland County. Another project calls for looking at how to rebuild infrastructure in the short- and long-term to withstand changing sea levels.

DEP spokesman Larry Ragonese tells The Press of Atlantic City using the schools should help as the state moves forward.