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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 2: Wetlands

P-CO2.1

Choice Modeling Tools to Inform Climate Change Decision-Making:
A Case Study on Public Preferences for Coastal Wetland Restoration

Frank Lupi, Michigan State University, lupi@msu.edu

Michael Kaplowitz, Michigan State University

John Hoehn, Michigan State University

Our poster highlights the production of information in support of decision making for climate change and provides a case study and overview of a powerful social science tool for informing decision making regarding climate change policy. The case study addresses policies for large-scale restoration of Great Lakes coastal wetlands. Coastal wetlands provide critical ecosystem services that affect human well being including the provision of recreation, support of fish and wildlife game populations, and numerous other ecological functions. Although coastal wetlands are adapted to and depend on some variability in water levels, changes in water levels that are expected to occur in the Great Lakes due to climate change will have profound impacts on Great Lakes coastal wetlands. The case study research estimated public preferences and support for policies and programs aimed at large-scale restoration of Great Lakes coastal wetland ecosystems. Ecological restoration decisions in coastal zones are critically dependent on climate change policy as anticipated water level changes directly affect coastal wetlands.

The case study research sought to learn public preferences for different preservation and restoration programs for Great Lakes coastal wetlands. The reported results are based on data from a mail survey of a random sample of Michigan residents. The survey included general questions and information about Great Lakes wetlands. The survey then gave respondents a stated choice question about wetland programs that asks respondents to make trade-offs between alternative programs with different program attributes such as the environmental services to be preserved or restored, different levels of preservation and restoration activities, and the types of property acquisition mechanisms. Statistical results reveal significant public preferences for biodiversity services of coastal wetlands as well as significant preferences for more secure, long-term property acquisition methods.

The case study demonstrates the use of multiattribute choice modeling to elicit and quantify public support and preferences for ecological restoration programs that differ in their characteristics. The choice modeling methodology has wide application in the area of climate change as a method for eliciting and quantifying public preferences for alternative policy and mitigation scenarios. The resulting preference information can be used to craft policies that maximize public support or to identify critical areas where educational efforts might be well targeted to better inform public preferences.

P-CO2.2

Sea Level Rise and Potential Change in Coastal Bird Habitat in New Jersey, USA

Michael D. Beevers, STEP Program, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, mbeevers@Princeton.edu

The consequences of global climate change are expected to intensify in the 21st century and beyond resulting in accelerating rates sea level rise. The effect will be the inundation, flooding, erosion and increasing salinity of shorelines, barrier islands and low-lying mainland areas. This will cause changes in coastal bird habitat, including reductions and alternations in wetlands, and inter-tidal and beach areas. This study provides an illustration of the effects of sea level rise on four globally important bird areas in New Jersey, USA. The study predicts the ability of these bird areas to support a variety of coast dependent bird species at current population levels given sea level rise. The results indicate, based on the models, that the extent of the habitat change will likely be unable to sustain present bird populations and potentially even particular bird species, especially those currently endangered, threatened or in decline.

[Poster PDF]

P-CO2.3

Prediction of Ecological Effects of Sea Level Rise in North Carolina
through Coupled Hydrodynamic, Digital Elevation, and Habitat Models

C. Auer, NOAA National Ocean Service, Silver Spring, MD

J. Feyen, NOAA National Ocean Service, Silver Spring, MD

K. Hess, NOAA National Ocean Service, Silver Spring, MD

E. Spargo, NOAA National Ocean Service, Silver Spring, MD

S. White, NOAA National Ocean Service, Silver Spring, MD

J. Sellars, NOAA National Ocean Service, Silver Spring, MD

S. Gill, NOAA National Ocean Service, Silver Spring, MD

The Ecological Effects of Sea Level Rise research program is designed to help managers prepare for changes in coastal ecosystems due to sea level rise (SLR) by providing an ecological prediction that utilizes modeling and mapping tools. The first priority in developing ecological predictions is to model the hydrodynamic response of the system. A Coastal Flooding Model (CFM) has been developed for North Carolina by combining a high-resolution hydrodynamic model with continuous bathymetric/topographic elevation data. The CFM computes tidal response, regional synoptic wind event circulation, and hurricane storm surge propagation to study changes in these events due to SLR. Integrated into the CFM is a high-resolution continuous bathymetric/ topographic Digital Elevation Model (DEM). LIDAR (LIght Detection And Ranging) data providing topographic elevation relative to NAVD 88 were combined with bathymetric sounding data relative to NAVD 88 to construct the continuous DEM, which is important for accurately predicting rising water levels. The bathymetric data were transformed from local tidal datums to NAVD 88 through use of the vertical transformation tool VDatum, which enables conversion between tidal, orthometric, and ellipsoidal datums by combining hydrodynamic and geoid models with benchmark data. Ecological predictions will be made by coupling the CFM with ecological habitat models to determine habitat fate and landscape change due to SLR.

[Poster PDF]

P-CO2.4

Predicting the Persistence of Coastal Wetlands to Global Change Effects

Glenn Guntenspergen, USGS, glenn_guntenspergen@usgs.gov

Donald Cahoon, USGS

Global average eustatic sea level is projected to rise under all emission scenarios used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in their climate models with most model scenarios indicating an increase of 30-50 cm relative to 1990 levels. Similar model scenarios have been used in combination with coastal elevation data to estimate that a 1 meter rise in sea level could reduce coastal wetlands in the United States by 26 to 66 percent. These low-lying lands provide important habitat for plant and animal species and over US trillion in ecosystem services worldwide. LIDAR imagery or detailed elevation surveys have historically been combined with projected rates of sea level rise to assess the vulnerability of coastal wetlands. However, this approach has not included the potential for coastal wetlands to respond to increases in sea-level rise. We used new technology to understand the linkages and feedback effects that control habitat stability of coastal wetlands, and the specific biological and physical processes that determine how wetland surface elevations respond to changes in relative sea level. We illustrate this approach with work from sites in the Mid-Atlantic and provide a research strategy used to develop a predictive capacity to forecast future responses of coastal wetlands to changes in external forcing functions.

P-CO2.5

Studies of Climate-Driven Changes in Lake Levels Assist in Decision Making in the Great Lakes Region

Douglas A. Wilcox, U.S. Geological Survey—Great Lakes Science Center, douglas_wilcox@usgs.gov

Todd A. Thompson, Indiana Geological Survey

Steve J. Baedke, James Madison University

The effects of climate change on Great Lakes wetlands are both directly and indirectly tied to climate-driven changes in lake levels. We conducted studies to evaluate those linkages and their effects on wetland plant communities, as they occurred in the past, as a means of predicting potential future responses to climate change. The studies made use of chronosequences of beach ridges and wetlands that form in strandplains in large embayments along the shores of the lakes. Each beach ridge was formed at the end of a high lake-level period corresponding to a short-term cooling event (about every 33 years in lakes Michigan and Huron). High lake levels also occurred in longer quasi-periodic cycles (about 160 years), with the short-term cycles encompassed within them. These longer-term events clearly match records of past climate change from other sources and represent a proxy for climate change in the upper Great Lakes region over the past 4700 years. These findings have had a profound effect on decision-making in the Great Lakes region. Studies conducted under the International Joint Commission's Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River Reference Study to develop a new water-level-regulation plan for Lake Ontario have recognized these patterns and their role in development and maintenance of wetland plant communities. The results also portend future water supplies to Lake Ontario that affect plans for regulation. An International Joint Commission study to review the regulation plan for Lake Superior is also being considered; similar climate-change studies have produced a long-term lake-level record specific to Lake Superior that will be instrumental in evaluating environmental components of that study, as well as foretelling what the future may hold with respect to all other study components. In addition to predicting effects of future climate change on Great Lakes wetlands, study results have also been used to reevaluate rates of rebound of the Earth's crust in the upper Great Lakes region following melting of Wisconsinin glaciers, to reevaluate the separation of Lake Superior from lakes Michigan-Huron more than a millennia ago, and to develop an understanding of dune development processes along the shores of the lakes that are critical to land managers.

[Poster PDF]