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Now available in PDF format: Abstract Book [7.4 Mb] (posted 10 November 2005)

Abstracts for Posters

Coastal (P-CO)

Sub-Theme 1: Built Environment & Hazards

P-CO1.1

Space Based Data and Technology Applied to Gulf Coast Geodesy

Roy K. Dokka, Louisiana Spatial Reference Center and Center for GeoInformatics, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, rkdokka@c4g.lsu.edu

Steven Baig, National Hurricane Center, 11691 SW 17th Street, Miami, Florida, 33165-2149, Stephen.R.Baig@noaa.gov

Ronald G. Blom, M/S 300-233 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 800 Oak Grove Drive, asadena, CA 91109, ronald.blom@jpl.nasa.gov

Tim Dixon, Marine Geology & Geophysics Division, Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, 4600 Rickenbacker Causeway, Miami, FL 33149, tdixon@rsmas.miami.edu

Eric Gurrola, M/S 300-323 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109, Eric.M.Gurrola@jpl.nasa.gov

Paul Rosen, M/S 300-323 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 4800 Oak Grove Drive

Pasadena, CA 91109, Paul.Rosen@jpl.nasa.gov

Understanding the combined effects of subsidence, sea level rise, storm surges and flooding on the very low lying Gulf Coast of the United States has major public safety, infrastructure, economic, and homeland security implications. Coastal subsidence has long been held to be a major factor behind loss of Gulf Coast wetlands, particularly those within the Mississippi Delta in Louisiana. Subsidence has also rendered "obsolete and inaccurate" the National Spatial Reference System in Louisiana and other coastal areas along the northern Gulf of Mexico (NOAA Report to Congress, 2001). This means that critical infrastructure, particularly hurricane evacuation roads, storm surge protection levees, and oil and gas facilities, are potentially at risk. Furthermore, because the landscape (and evacuation roads and levees) continues to subside, emergency personnel do not have accurate information. Recent work by Shinkle and Dokka (2004) has disclosed that the elevation situation is worse than previously understood; the entire coast may be at significant risk due to poor elevation control. Previous releveling surveys incorrectly assumed that local starting benchmarks were stable. In contrast, vertical velocities presented in Shinkle and Dokka (2004) were related to the North American Vertical Datum of 1988 further validated by water level gauges and GPS measurements. These well constrained measurements show recent subsidence has occurred 2 to 5 times faster than previous estimates and is not restricted to just wetlands, but includes coastal communities where over 10 million people live. Additional subsidence rates from GPS and InSAR show that subsidence rates are not uniform, adding to the complexity of the picture. From a longer term perspective, the new data indicates that the area of subsidence extends far beyond the coast, suggesting that crustal-scale processes such as loading by recent sedimentation is a contributor to subsidence and resultant land loss. In order to fully understand and predict future subsidence accurately, it is necessary to understand the contributions from sediment loading, compaction, growth faulting, and fluid withdrawal. This requires an integrated modeling and measurement approach using surface and space-based data. We will present our recent results and discuss future plans.

P-CO1.2

Impact of Sea-Level Rise on the Mid- and Upper-Atlantic Coast

Shuang-Ye Wu, University of Dayton, Shuang-Ye.Wu@notes.udayton.edu

Raymond Najjar, Penn State University

John Siewert, Penn State University

Previous studies suggest that by the end of this century climate change could raise sea-level by 2 feet on average, ranging from 1.5 to 3.5 feet, for the Atlantic coastal region. The range reflects, in part, the variability in subsidence throughout the region. For the Consortium for Atlantic Regional Assessment (CARA), we first quantify this variability by removing the rate of global sea-level rise from the observed sea-level rise at water level monitoring stations throughout the region. We then make projections of future sea-level using the estimated subsidence rate and projections of global sea-level from seven climate models run under two greenhouse gas emission scenarios. In order to make these projections more useful for decision makers, they need to be translated into the area affected by sea-level rise. In the next step, we use GIS models to combine topographic, land use and census data to show the potential impact of projected sea-level rise in each of the 85 coastal counties from Massachusetts to Virginia. Five elevation zones are mapped along with current open water: 1) land areas below 0 feet; 2) areas 0 to 3 feet; 3) areas 3 to 6 feet; 4) areas 6 to 9 feet; and 5) areas above 9 feet. Zones 1 and 2 are likely to be completely inundated with future sea-level rise. Zones 3 and 4 are likely to become future tidal land. Zone 5 is considered safe from sea-level rise. Such delineation allows flexibility in using these maps to accommodate uncertainties in sea-level rise projections as well as local variations in tidal range and sea-level rise. For each county, a map shows these elevation zones; quantities of land area in different zones are calculated and presented in tables. In addition, the map of elevation zones is overlaid with land use and 2000 Census block information to calculate the breakdown of different land use types and the number of people living in these elevation zones. All of the information (maps and tables) is provided to the stakeholders through the CARA website, so that they can explore interactively the maps showing areas at risk of sea-level rise and other related information. CARA, a research and outreach effort funded by EPA, provides scientific information and tools through internet resources that government agencies, communities, citizens, businesses and other stakeholders can use for exploring and adapting to potential impacts from changes in land use and climate in the mid- and upper-Atlantic region.

[Poster PDF]

P-CO1.3

An End-User Defined Coastal Climatology Product for Recreation
and Tourism in Southeastern North Carolina

Douglas W. Gamble, University of North Carolina Wilmington, gambled@uncw.edu

Lynn Leonard, University of North Carolina Wilmington

The objective of this project was to develop a test coastal climatology product for recreation and tourism end-users in southeastern North Carolina. The product was designed so that it can offer guidance and serve as a model to the Coastal Services Center (CSC) and National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) of NOAA for further development of climatology products useful to coastal managers across the southeastern United States. Needs assessment interviews were administered to 125 recreation and tourism managers and 330 recreation and tourism participants across the study area and results indicated that recreation and tourism managers and participants place a high value on marine and weather information. However, it should be noted that few, if any, of the interviewees use marine and/or weather information on the climatological time scale (month or longer). The variables most frequently required by interviewees was hurricane information, air temperature, rain probability, water temperature, and wave height. Interview results also indicate managers and participants rely heavily upon television, Web sites, and radio for this information. Based upon these interviews and a web site "focus group," it was decided the test product developed for the project was to be a simple web site that provides coastal climatology information and also serves as an educational resource which places local scale real-time observations within a climatological framework. The test product (http://www.cormp.org/climate/) consists of one "dynamic" page that displays near real-time observations from CORMP observation stations in a climatological context, and four static pages that provide a description of Onslow Bay climate, climate predictions for the United States, hurricane
information for Onslow Bay, and contact information for the PIs and CORMP Outreach. The web site was also constructed to incorporate the cross-cutting issues outlined by Janis and Gamble (2004) as important to the development of effective and useful products for coastal managers from Virginia to Florida. Specifically, the product is a user-defined, collectively designed coastal climatology that utilizes local-scale observations and integrates weather, marine, and climate information across consistent spatial and temporal resolutions. The product also facilitates interaction and follow-up between end-users, the public, and scientists.

[Poster PDF]

P-CO1.4

Global Climate Change Impacts on Coastal Infrastructure Services

Rae Zimmerman, Professor of Planning and Public Administration, New York University-Wagner School, rae.zimmerman@nyu.edu

Consequences of global climate change (GCC) potentially have devastating impacts on the ability of infrastructure to deliver services vital to public health and the economy. One GCC consequence is increased temperature that directly can affect the structural integrity of materials used in infrastructure facilities. Many common materials such as steel and concrete normally have limited tolerances to large, prolonged temperature changes beyond a certain range, and can weaken or collapse under such stress. Another GCC consequence is flooding from rising sea levels, thermal expansion of water, and precipitation, since many infrastructure facilities have traditionally been built in low lying areas prone to flooding (Zimmerman 1996, 2003 with FEMA and USACE data). Catastrophic effects of Hurricane Katrina attest to this.

Scenarios portraying vulnerabilities to infrastructure services from increased heat and flooding are presented, with choices available to decision-makers to reduce vulnerabilities through facility location, design, and usage. Measures for infrastructure planning, siting, design, construction, and operational practices in U.S. urbanized coastal areas that address GCC vulnerabilities are examined, including cases of adaptations to heat and flooding by new and pending large construction projects. This work covers transportation, water, energy and telecommunications. In addition, interdependencies within and among infrastructure that contribute to vulnerabilities are taken into account. Interdependencies include multiple facilities co-located or functionally interdependent; when one infrastructure facility fails, others also fail. Practices that inevitably pose vulnerabilities are identified for decision-makers as areas where new technological innovations are needed. This work builds on the author's previous work cited below.

Zimmerman, R. "Global Climate Change and Transportation Infrastructure: Lessons from the New York Area," in The Potential Impacts of Climate Change on Transportation: Workshop Summary and Proceedings, Washington, DC: U.S. DOT, 2003, pp. 91-101.

Zimmerman, R. and M. Cusker, "Institutional Decision-making," Chapter 9, 10 in Climate Change and a Global City: The Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change. Metro East Coast, C. Rosenzweig and W. D. Solecki, eds. NY, NY: Columbia Earth Institute and Goddard Institute of Space Studies, 2001, pp. 9-1 to 9-25; A11-A17.

Zimmerman, R. "Global Warming, Infrastructure, and Land Use in the Metropolitan New York Area: Prevention and Response," in The Baked Apple? Metropolitan New York in the Greenhouse, Douglas Hill, ed. NY, NY: NY Academy of Sciences, 1996. Pp. 57-83.

[Poster PDF]

P-CO1.5

Which Uncertainties Matter for Decision-Making? Development of an Integrative Decision-Centered Screening Tool with an Application to Coastal Management in California

Susanne Moser, National Center for Atmospheric Research, smoser@ucar.edu

Science that aims to support decision-making must by useful, relevant, credible, and legitimate. Research does not meet these requirements naturally or easily and instead requires active collaboration of scientists and decision-makers to become truly decision-relevant. In the context of climate change, scientific uncertainty can make finding this balance between what decision-makers need and what scientists can credibly provide even more challenging. It is critically important therefore that scientists clearly understand decision needs and effectively communicate the uncertainties associated with the information to practitioners. This paper presents a process model of how scientists and decision-makers can ascertain the decision-needs of the practitioner and decide on necessary analyses. It specifically helps to discern what type of information decision-makers may need about uncertainty associated with the provided scientific information. As such this Decision-Uncertainty Screening Tool (DUST) is educational for the scientists not yet familiar with working with a particular practitioner or in a specific decision context. It also helps practitioners who need to understand what kind of decision support science can realistically provide. The tool further helps to efficiently identify the (uncertainty) analyses that are actually needed to be useful in particular decisions. This systematic approach of determining where and when the decision-making environment is particularly sensitive to uncertainty in the information provided is currently being tested in a case study of coastal management in California. What scientific information do coastal managers actually need to address the potential impacts of climate change-driven sea-level rise? The paper will present first results of this test in an empirical setting and discuss lessons learned. The ultimate goal is that DUST – once fully tested and refined – will give scientists and decision-makers a procedure to identify those instances where science can most effectively support decision-making.

[Poster PDF]

P-CO1.6

The Consortium for Atlantic Regional Assessment:
Bringing Climate and Land Use Change Information to Local and Regional Decision Makers

Brandi Nagle, Pennsylvania State University, BrandiNagle@psu.edu

James Shortle, Pennsylvania State University

Rachael Dempsey, Pennsylvania State University

Jennison Kipp, Pennsylvania State University

The Consortium for Atlantic Regional Assessment (CARA) is a collaborative effort between several universities to bring scientific information on climate change and land use change to communities and stakeholders within the mid-Atlantic region. The data and tools provided on the CARA website can help stakeholders and decision-makers understand how potential changes in climate and land use may impact water quality and quantity, ecosystems, public health, food supply, transportation, storms and floods, and energy supply in their region or locality. Decision-makers can use this information to take advantage of positive consequences that may result from climate and land use change as well as adapt to negative ones. The CARA website showcases each of these sectors with interactive tools and tutorials – allowing the user to gain knowledge specific to the conditions of a given area. The importance of climate and land use change knowledge on the local and regional scales is emphasized by four case study sites throughout the CARA region (Cape Cod, MA; Cape May, NJ; Adirondack Park, NY, and Hampton Roads, VA). CARA has developed a website that serves several purposes:

1. Provides local and regional stakeholders and decision-makers with useful information for making choices in the context of potential changes in climate or land use patterns in their area
2. Produces interactive tools and tutorials for stakeholders and decision makers to explore historical data and future projections
3. Illustrates the utility of this information and tools through case studies.

The CARA website has metamorphosed through several iterations in a conscious effort to present the tools and information to prospective users effectively and concisely. This poster illustrates the current layout of the site as well as offering examples of the types of data and tools that it presents.

[Poster PDF]