SLRF

Coastal N.C. counties fighting sea-level rise prediction

noreply@blogger.com (Rolph Payet) — Sat, 26 May 2012 12:08:00 +0000

From: Charlotte Observer

By Bruce Henderson

State lawmakers are considering a measure that would limit how North Carolina prepares for sea-level rise, which many scientists consider one of the surest results of climate change.

Federal authorities say the North Carolina coast is vulnerable because of its low, flat land and thin fringe of barrier islands. A state-appointed science panel has reported that a 1-meter rise is likely by 2100.

The calculation, prepared for the N.C. Coastal Resources Commission, was intended to help the state plan for rising water that could threaten 2,000 square miles. Critics say it could thwart economic development on just as large a scale.

A coastal economic development group called NC-20 attacked the report, insisting the scientific research it cited is flawed. The science panel last month confirmed its findings, recommending that they be reassessed every five years.

But NC-20, named for the 20 coastal counties, appears to be winning its campaign to undermine them.

The Coastal Resources Commission agreed to delete references to planning benchmarks – such as the 1-meter prediction – and new development standards for areas likely to be inundated.

The N.C. Division of Emergency Management, which is using a $5 million federal grant to analyze the impact of rising water, lowered its worst-case scenario from 1 meter to 15 inches by 2100.

Several local governments on the coast have passed resolutions against sea-level rise policies.

When the General Assembly convened this month, Republican legislators went further.

They circulated a bill that authorizes only the coastal commission to calculate how fast the sea is rising. It said the calculations must be based only on historic trends, leaving out the accelerated rise that climate scientists widely expect this century if warming increases and glaciers melt.

The bill, a substitute for an unrelated measure the N.C. House passed last year, has not been introduced. State legislative officials say they can’t predict how it might be changed or when or if it will emerge.

Longtime East Carolina University geologist Stan Riggs, a science panel member who studies the evolution of the coast, said the 1-meter estimate is squarely within the mainstream of research.

“We’re throwing this science out completely, and what’s proposed is just crazy for a state that used to be a leader in marine science,” he said of the proposed legislation. “You can’t legislate the ocean, and you can’t legislate storms.”

NC-20 Chairman Tom Thompson, economic development director in Beaufort County, said his members – many of them county managers and other economic development officials – are convinced that climate changes and sea-level rises are part of natural cycles. Climate scientists who say otherwise, he believes, are wrong.

The group’s critiques quote scientists who believe the rate of sea-level rise is actually slowing. NC-20 says the state should rely on historical trends until acceleration is detected. The computer models that predict a quickening rate could be inaccurate, it says.

“If you’re wrong and you start planning today at 39 inches, you could lose millions of dollars in development and 2,000 square miles would be condemned as a flood zone,” Thompson said. “Is it really a risk to wait five years and see?”

Planners concerned

State officials say the land below the 1-meter elevation would not be zoned as a flood zone and off-limits to development. Planners say it’s crucial to allow for rising water when designing bridges, roads, and sewer lines that will be in use for decades.

“We’re concerned about it,” said Philip Prete, an environmental planner in Wilmington, which will soon analyze the potential effects of rising water on infrastructure. “For the state to tie our hands and not let us use the information that the state science panel has come up with makes it overly restrictive.”

Other states, he said, are “certainly embracing planning.”

Maine is preparing for a rise of up to 2 meters by 2100, Delaware 1.5 meters, Louisiana 1 meter and California 1.4 meters. Southeastern Florida projects up to a 2-foot rise by 2060.

NC-20 says the state should plan for 8 inches of rise by 2100, based on the historical trend in Wilmington.

The science panel based its projections on records at the northern coast town of Duck, where the rate is twice as fast, and factored in the accelerated rise expected to come later. Duck was chosen, the panel said, because of the quality of its record and site on the open ocean.

The panel cites seven studies that project global sea level will rise as much as 1 meter, or more, by 2100. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimated in 2007 a rise of no more than 23 inches, but did not factor in the melting land ice that many scientists now expect.

NC-20’s science adviser, Morehead City physicist John Droz, says he consulted with 30 sea-level experts, most of them not named in his latest critique of the panel’s work. He says the 13-member panel failed to do a balanced review of scientific literature, didn’t use the best available science and made unsupported assumptions.

“I’m not saying these people are liars,” Thompson said. “I’m saying they have a passion for sea-level rise and they can’t give it up.”

John Dorman of the N.C. Division of Emergency Management, which is preparing a study of sea-level impact, said an “intense push” by the group and state legislators led to key alterations.

Instead of assuming a 1-meter, worst-case rise, he said, the study will report the impact of seas that rise only 3.9, 7.8, 11.7 and 15.6 inches by 2100. The 1-meter analysis will be available to local governments that request it.

“It’s not the product we had put the grant out for,” Dorman said, referring to the $5 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency that’s paying for the study. Coastal communities will still find the work useful, he predicts.

Finding common ground

The backlash on the coast centers on the question of whether sea-level rise will accelerate, said Bob Emory, chairman of the Coastal Resources Commission.

Emory, who lives in New Bern, said the commission deleted wording from its proposed sea-level rise policy that hinted at new regulations in order to find common ground. “Any remaining unnecessarily inflammatory language that’s still in there, we want to get out,” he said.

New information will be incorporated as it comes out, he said.

“There are people who disagree on the science. There are people who worry about what impact even talking about sea-level rise will have on development,” Emory said. “It’s my objective to have a policy that makes so much sense that people would have trouble picking at it.”

In written comments, the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources said the legislation that circulated earlier this month appeared consistent with the coastal commission’s policy changes.

But the department warned of the “unintended impacts” of not allowing agencies other than the coastal commission to develop sea-level rise policies. The restriction could undermine the Division of Emergency Management’s study, it said, and the ability of transportation and emergency-management planners to address rising waters.

The N.C. Coastal Federation, the region’s largest environmental group, said the bill could hurt local governments in winning federal planning grants. Insurance rates could go up, it says.

Relying solely on historical trends, the group said, is like “being told to make investment decisions strictly on past performance, and not being able to consider market trends and research.”

Lawmakers Form Long Island Sound Caucus

noreply@blogger.com (Rolph Payet) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 14:44:00 +0000

From: EastHaven Patch by: Fred Musante

With legislators from East Haven in key roles, the caucus will focus on shoreline issues.

With sea level rise from global warming looming and coastal storms threatening the future of Connecticut’s shoreline, state legislators in Hartford have formed a Long Island Sound caucus in order to speak with a more unified purpose about coastal issues.

The New Haven Register reported that the new bipartisan caucus, which includes lawmakers representing East Haven, received the support of Gov. Dannel Malloy Wednesday when its formation was announced at the state capitol.

The Register said state Rep. Lonnie Reed, D-Branford, and state Sen. Len Fasano, R-North Haven, would act as caucus co-chairman. Fasano represents East Haven. Also on the caucus steering committee is state Rep. Vincent Candelora, R-North Branford, who also represents part of East Haven.

Goals of the caucus would include issues affecting the environment, economic development, public access, funding for Long Island Sound programs and fisheries resources.

'Surging Seas': N.J. in top 5 states most threatened by rising sea levels, study says

noreply@blogger.com (Rolph Payet) — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 18:47:00 +0000

From: newjerseynewsroom By: Angeloa Daidone

The waters are rising, and New Jersey coastal communities are right in their course.

A study by a Princeton-based research group lists the Garden State as one of the top five states most threatened by rising sea levels which are increasing the likelihood of more catastrophic tidal flooding during storms, the Press of Atlantic City reported.

The study, titled "Surging Seas," said the seas are predicted to rise about 15 inches by 2050 in Atlantic City and Cape May. As a result, storms that used to be considered once-in-a-lifetime events will happen more frequently, the study said. Cape May and Atlantic City may see levels rise by half a foot by 2030, the study stated.

Researchers based their findings on current census population, existing topographical maps and digital map analysis showing inundation zones by each foot of water above the current average high tide line.

Of the 22 coastal states, Florida and Louisiana have the largest number of people at risk of being affected by sea level rise. New Jersey ranked fifth. Recent storms have seen an increase in severe flooding, impacting residential communities, major roads and businesses.

The combination of flooding from storm surges on top of an increased base sea level would put more than 200,000 people and 160,000 homes at risk in New Jersey, the study stated.

Storm surges from northeasters differ from hurricane and tropical storm surges, particularly because there is a limit to how high the water can reach, said a researcher at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken. A northeaster storm surge only will reach about six feet, but will last much longer. A hurricane can bring a more localized high surge, but the coastal flooding will last only a short time, the report stated.

What's at stake in the long run is the main concern of the findings, experts said. Ratables and tourism dollars in vacation communities, residential property values, and beaches and natural coastlines will likely take a big hit if the issue is not addressed on a wide scale, experts said.

As climate changes, Louisiana seeks to lift a highway

noreply@blogger.com (Rolph Payet) — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 18:35:00 +0000

From: The Washington Post

Tim Osborn/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association - Rising sea levels near Leeville, La., during the past 100 years have left this 1905 cemetery entirely underwater.

GOLDEN MEADOW, La.— Here on the side of Louisiana’s Highway 1, next to Raymond’s Bait Shop, a spindly pole with Global Positioning System equipment and a cellphone stuck on top charts the water’s gradual encroachment on dry land.

In 1991 this stretch of road through the marshlands of southern Louisiana was 3.9 feet above sea level, but the instrument — which measures the ground’s position in relation to sea level — shows the land has lost more than a foot against the sea. It sank two inches in the past 16 months alone.

Graphic

Rising seas will make the road to Port Fourchon, La., largely unusable by the end of the century.

Video

Windell Curole, general manager of the South Lafourche Levee District, and Henri Boulet, executive director of the LA 1 Coalition, discuss the challenge sea level rise poses for Louisiana's Highway 1.

That’s a problem because Highway 1, unprotected by levees, connects critical oil and gas resources in booming Port Fourchon to the rest of the nation.

Ten miles of the highway is now standing 22 feet above sea level on cement piles. But another seven miles is not, and if less than half a mile of this highway succumbs to the 14-foot storm surges expected in the future, the highway will need to be shut down, cutting off the port.

Local residents and business leaders are demanding that the federal government help pay to rebuild and elevate the remaining section of Highway 1, adding two miles to span the levees. Federal officials have provided scientific and technical expertise but will not contribute funding unless the state pledges to complete the road.

Louisiana says it doesn’t have the money.

The dilemma facing this important lowland road is one shared by communities across the country as climate change begins to transform the nation’s landscape. By 2030, many areas in the United States are likely to see storm surges combining with rising sea levels to bring waters at least four feet above the local high-tide line, according to a report released last Wednesday by Climate Central, a nonprofit research group. Nearly 2.6 million homes are on land that would be inundated.

The Obama administration is trying to plan for a country altered by shifts in precipitation, higher oceans and more intense periods of heat. It is rethinking infrastructure projects and creating a new plan for how to manage plants and wildlife in the face of global warming. Every agency is required to come up with a plan by June for how to adapt to climate change.

“It’s about how do we incorporate planning for a future that may look very different from the way the world looks today,” said Nancy Sutley, chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, who is spearheading the administration’s federal adaptation strategy.

Researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who started measuring tides in Louisiana in the mid-1800s, have analyzed the numbers for Highway 1, and they do not bode well. At today’s rate of sea-level rise — 9.24 millimeters a year — the road would be under water roughly 22 days of the year by 2030.

Windell Curole didn’t need NOAA’s number-crunching to tell him what’s coming. The 60-year-old general manager of the South Lafourche Levee District said he couldn’t see open water from this road when he was growing up. Now, it is in plain sight, just yards away.

Rising Sea Levels Could Boost Storm Surges

noreply@blogger.com (Rolph Payet) — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 18:31:00 +0000

Source: redOrbit

Sea level rise due to global warming has already doubled the annual risk of coastal flooding of historic proportions across widespread areas of the United States, according to a new report from Climate Central. By 2030, many locations are likely to see storm surges combining with sea level rise to raise waters at least 4 feet above the local high-tide line. Nearly 5 million U.S. residents live in 2.6 million homes on land below this level. More than 6 million people live on land below 5 feet; by 2050, the study projects that widespread areas will experience coastal floods exceeding this higher level.

Titled “Surging Seas,” the report is the first to analyze how sea level rise caused by global warming is compounding the risk from storm surges throughout the coastal contiguous U.S. It is also first to generate local and national estimates of the land, housing and population in vulnerable low-lying areas, and associate this information with flood risk timelines. The Surging Seas website includes a searchable, interactive online map that zooms down to neighborhood level, and shows risk zones and statistics for 3,000 coastal towns, cities, counties and states affected up to 10 feet above the high tide line.

In 285 municipalities, more than half the population lives below the 4-foot mark. One hundred and six of these places are in Florida, 65 are in Louisiana, and ten or more are in New York (13), New Jersey (22), Maryland (14), Virginia (10) and North Carolina (22). In 676 towns and cities spread across every coastal state in the lower 48 except Maine and Pennsylvania, more than 10% of the population lives below the 4-foot mark.

Tidal gauge records show that the sea has already risen 8 inches globally during the last century, and projections point to a steep acceleration. “Sea level rise is not some distant problem that we can just let our children deal with. The risks are imminent and serious,” said report lead author Dr. Ben Strauss of Climate Central. “Just a small amount of sea level rise, including what we may well see within the next 20 years, can turn yesterday’s manageable flood into tomorrow’s potential disaster. Global warming is already making coastal floods more common and damaging.”

In addition to the Surging Seas report and website, Climate Central is releasing fact sheets laying out the risks for each coastal state. Staff scientists (Ben Strauss, Claudia Tebaldi, Remik Ziemlinski) have also authored two peer-reviewed studies being published March 15th in the scientific journal Environmental Research Letters, with co-authors at the University of Arizona (Jeremy Weiss, Jonathan Overpeck) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Chris Zervas). In addition to hosting the map tool, the national report, state fact sheets, and the peer-reviewed papers, the website, SurgingSeas.org, includes downloadable data for all the cities, counties and states studied; embeddable widgets; republishable graphics; and links to dozens of local, state and national planning documents for coping with rising seas.

The website also shows how the threat from climate change-driven sea level rise and storm surge is expected to increase over time at 55 tidal gauges around the U.S. and near most major coastal cities. At the majority of these gauges, floods high enough to formerly be called worse than once-a-century events have more than doubled in likelihood.

Land, housing and population vulnerability estimates are based on 2010 Census data and on land elevations relative to potential water levels, and do not take into account potential protections. However, properties behind walls or levees may suffer enhanced damage when defenses are overtopped, or during rainstorms, because the same structures that normally keep waters out can keep floodwaters in once they arrive.

“Escalating floods from sea level rise will affect millions of people, and threaten countless billions of dollars of damage to buildings and infrastructure,” Strauss said. “To preserve our coastal towns, cities and treasures, the nation needs to confront greenhouse gas pollution today, while also preparing to address sea level rise that can no longer be avoided.

Flood Outlook 2012: Hoping for the Best, Preparing for the Worst

noreply@blogger.com (Rolph Payet) — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 18:28:00 +0000

From: USGS

It’s difficult to forget the epic flooding along the Mississippi, Missouri, and many other rivers throughout 2011. Of course, the memory of these floods is especially vivid for those living in cities like Minot, N.D., where 12,000 people had to evacuate their homes and where record flooding caused an estimated $1 billion in damage; or in Cairo, Ill., where officials had to make complex decisions about whether to divert flood waters onto farmland in order to save the city.

Looking east at Burdick Expressway as the Souris River rises in Minot, North Dakota. Photo taken by USGS personnel during a FEMA Flood Inundation Mapping Project.

Throughout the last century in the United States, on average, floods have caused more lives lost and more economic damage than any other natural hazard. According to forecasts, severe flooding in 2012 will likely be far less widespread than last year. However, scientists cannot predict weather and water patterns with 100 percent accuracy, and there is always the potential for severe flooding somewhere in the country.

When it comes to flooding, preparation is key for saving lives and protecting property. USGS scientists and hydrologic technicians are specially trained and standing by. As soon as water starts to rise, they are measuring water levels, river velocities, and high water marks. All of this information is crucial for National Weather Service flood forecasts, for decisions by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to operate spillways and levees, and for the planning of Federal, State, and local emergency managers, first responders, and many other groups.

In preparation for flood events, the USGS continues to invest in and update equipment like the acoustic Doppler current profiler, which measures water velocity, as well as rapidly deployable streamgages, which measure river heights in areas that do not have a permanent gage or where a gage has been damaged by fast-moving water.

Perhaps most importantly, the USGS is constantly refining, innovating, and updating its ability to deliver river information to emergency managers, first responders, and other Federal agencies before, during, and after a flood. The USGS offers an increasing number of resources to help these organizations, as well as you and your family, better prepare for flood hazards.

Flood Inundation Mapping

When the water starts to rise, how do you know if you’re going to get wet?

Right now, if you want to see areas where river levels are higher than normal, you can go to USGS WaterWatch and view a map of the thousands of real-time streamgages that constantly monitor the Nation’s rivers and streams. But how do you put that number in context? If the current stage is forecasted to go above flood stage, does that mean water will be barely spilling over the banks? Or does it mean that your house might be underwater? At what stage is the river going to spill over onto a roadway and affect traffic? Are you and your family in danger?

River stage measurements can be confusing, and they are not always a great indicator of the actual scope and impacts of the flooding. To reduce this ambiguity, the USGS and the National Weather Service are working together to create visual products, called flood inundation map libraries, that show you estimates of where the water will be — what roads, yards, and buildings will be affected — when a river or stream reaches a certain stage.

For example, in Findlay, Ohio, the flood inundation map shows that when the stream stage is around 11 feet, only the roads closest to the river are underwater, but the rest of the town is out of danger. However, when you use the tool to map out a flood stage of 18 feet, streets as far as 15 blocks away from the river’s banks are underwater, as are a few parks, a cemetery, and almost the entire Findlay Country Club.

A powerful new tool for flood response and mitigation are digital geospatial flood-inundation maps that show flood water extent and depth on the land surface. Because floods are the leading cause of natural-disaster losses, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is actively involved in the development of flood inundation mapping across the Nation pursuant to its major science strategy goal of reducing the vulnerability of the people and areas most at risk from natural hazards. Flood inundation maps have been created for cities on the map indicated by a black triangle (Iowa City, IA, Marshall, MI, Ottawa, OH, Findlay, OH, Peach Creek, near Atlanta, GA, Albany, GA, Trenton, NJ St. John River, near Fort Kent, ME, and Scituate, MA).

In Iowa City, Iowa, the flood inundation map shows that when the stream stage is at 17 feet, the river is barely out of the channel, and most of the town is out of danger. But when you map out a flood stage of 25 feet, parks and local areas designed to hold floodwaters are submerged. At 30 feet, several neighborhoods and much of the University of Iowa are flooded. On this map, you can click anywhere in the flooded area to see the estimated water depth for any location at any stage. Damage estimation models, which are based on FEMA’s Hazus tool, are also available for each flood stage on the map. All of these features allow emergency managers to see what areas and how many people need to be evacuated, and to estimate the cost of potential flood damages.

This new tool is especially useful to emergency managers responsible for keeping people safe on the roads. In fact, over half of all flood-related deaths are the result of people driving their cars onto submerged roadways. These new, interactive flood maps allow emergency managers to see what roads will be submerged at a forecasted flood level, so that the roads can be closed long before waters start to rise.

Flood inundation maps have already been produced for nine areas in the United States. The USGS plans to produce over 40 more of these maps within the next year, including for Terra Haute, Ind., Sweetwater Creek, Ga., and Hattiesburg, Miss. The USGS hopes to eventually have flood inundation map libraries available for many other areas across the country.

You can see what areas have already been mapped by using the tool.

WaterAlert

Smartphones let you know when the river is rising

If you’re on the USGS site and reading this, chances are you probably have a favorite outdoor spot, a favorite river, and perhaps a favorite streamgage that you check on a regular basis. Did you know that you can get automatic notifications from that streamgage sent straight to you as an email or text message? The USGS provides a service called WaterAlert that can text or email you when water levels at a streamgage of interest exceed certain thresholds.

This means that you can keep tabs on a river without having to repeatedly check the USGS website. And if waters start to suddenly rise, you will be alerted, allowing you to put necessary precautions in place to keep yourself, your family, and your property safe.

USGS scientists take streamflow and water quality measurements downstream of the Bonnet Carre Spillway near Norco, La. The Army Corps of Engineers uses USGS streamflow data to help them manage flood control structures.

Sign up for WaterAlert by selecting a State, checking the “surface water” box, and clicking on your streamgage of choice. You can also subscribe to WaterAlert from the flood inundation interactive map. If you live in a community covered by a flood inundation library, use the flood inundation map to discover what flood stage puts you at risk, then click the link in the “Services and Data tab” to sign up to receive a text or email when the water approaches, reaches, or exceeds that stage!

Links:

Flood Inundation Interactive Mapper: http://wim.usgs.gov/FIMI/FloodInundationMapper.html

Additional information about Flood Inundation Mapping: http://water.usgs.gov/osw/flood_inundation/

WaterAlert: http://water.usgs.gov/wateralert/

Main USGS Flood Site: http://water.usgs.gov/floods

News Release: Smart Phones Know When Rivers Rise…with USGS WaterAlert: http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2919

News Release: Instant Information about Water Conditions: Ask the River to Text You a WaterAlert: http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2464

Most sea level rise due to melting polar ice, study confirms

noreply@blogger.com (Rolph Payet) — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 02:18:00 +0000

From: EarthSky

Image Credit: Sean O'Flaherty on Wikimedia Commons

Researchers report that Earth’s polar regions are losing 502 billion tons of water annually out of the total amount 536 billion tons lost annually worldwide.

Scientists published results in a February 2012 issue of Nature that reveal a detailed picture of how Earth’s glacier regions have changed over the last eight years. In previous publications, GRACE satellite data confirmed that Earth’s polar regions are the major contributors to rising sea levels. The recent publication focuses on the high mountain areas, such as the Himalayas and Andes, and shows that these ecosystems are remarkably robust: they are not losing nearly as much water to the ocean as the polar regions.

Earth’s ocean levels are rising at a rate of 1.48 millimeters – about .06 inches – annually. This might sound like a small number, but actually equates to approximately 500 billion tons of water added to our oceans every year! GRACE scientists wanted to know for certain where this water is coming from. One of the central mandates of the GRACE satellite project – which has been making detailed measurements of Earth’s gravity since its launch in March 2002 – is to ascertain the source of the water being added to Earth’s oceans.

Map showing the September ice extent in the Arctic in 1980, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011. The magenta line indicates the median September ice extent for the period 1979-2000. Image Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center Sea Ice Index:

From simple visual evidence, if nothing else, it is clear that our polar glacier regions are depleting due to melting ice.

Arctic report card for 2011

Meanwhile, exactly how much water is being lost by glaciers in high-mountain regions, including the Alps, Andes, the Himalayas among others? In the February 2012 Nature article, GRACE researchers report that the polar regions are losing 502 billion tons of water annually out of the total amount 536 billion tons lost annually worldwide.

Glaciers in the Alps and other high mountain areas are not the greatest contributors to sea level rise, according to data from the two GRACE satellites. Courtesy of J. Balog, Extreme ICE Survey

How does GRACE track ice loss to the oceans? The GRACE project measures minute discrepancies in the Earth’s gravitational field in order to track changes in mass (the amount of matter) through different regions of our planet. Earth possesses an approximately spherically symmetric shape. If it were exactly so, it would produce a spherically symmetric gravitational field. That would mean that, regardless of one’s latitude or longitude, Earth’s gravitational field would pull on us with the same force.

Of course, this isn’t exactly the case. Earth is not exactly spherically symmetric. Instead, Earth is bulged along its equator as a result of its rotation. Mountainous regions also cause the planet to be slightly loop-sided. These deviations from perfect spherical symmetry cause slight alterations in the orbits of satellites around our planet. It is by experiencing these discrepancies in the orbits of satellites that GRACE is able to track minute variations in mass from place to place within our planet.

The GRACE project actually consists of two satellites, one following the other in orbit around Earth.

The GRACE project actually consists of two satellites, one following the other in orbit around Earth. The distance between them is measured by a radio frequency laser bouncing between the two satellites. This method of distance measurement, known as interferometry, utilizes the wavelength of the laser as its measuring stick and is capable of resolving a distance of a few micrometers over hundreds of kilometers. If the Earth were perfectly spherically symmetric, the distance between the satellites would remain constant. This is not the case however, and to complicate the picture even more, the mass distribution of our planet changes with time. It is exactly these time dependent processes that GRACE wishes to track.

The GRACE satellites are still transmitting data more than 10 years after the start of their mission. What’s more the mission has been multifaceted. For example, GRACE’s precise measurement of Earth’s gravitational field anomalies provide images of places where our planet’s tectonic plates – the great blocks of Earth’s crust that slide around slowly over very long timescales to create ocean basins and mountain ranges – are overlapping. In addition to providing data on mass loss to the oceans, the project – through its ability to track heat – has provided us with never before seen details of our ocean’s currents.

GRACE stands for Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment. The project is headed by Dr. Bryon Tapley at the University of Texas.

Bottom line: A publication in Nature in February 2012 presents the results of an analysis of GRACE satellite data, showing that high mountain areas, such as the Himalayas and Andes, are not losing nearly as much water to the ocean as Earth’s polar regions.

Insight: how will sea-level rise affect economic growth?

noreply@blogger.com (Rolph Payet) — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 21:01:00 +0000

From: Environmental Research Web

Sea-level rise is seen as one of the most threatening impacts of climate change. But most analyses have focused only on the direct impact of a change in sea level, such as the number of people at risk from coastal floods, and there's been little study of other, more indirect, consequences.

Looking only at direct impacts may, however, give a biased view of the real consequences of sea-level rise. When coastal regions are affected by a disaster such as a hurricane it is more important to know whether and how the region can bounce back rather than simply assess the number of damaged houses, crucial though this is. In the same way, and over longer timescales, assessing the direct impact of sea-level rise is necessary but is clearly not sufficient. It appears more important to know how sea-level rise can impair development, especially in the poorest regions of the world. To do so, the direct impacts of sea-level rise should be understood as one additional burden on the shoulders of societies and economies that are undergoing constant evolution and that are subject to many other factors.

This is a highly complex problem, and it is difficult to compare studies based on different assumptions. To clarify the situation, we have proposed a framework for investigating the impact of sea-level rise on economic growth via five identified channels through which sea level can affect the growth potential of coastal regions. These are: loss of coastal land, loss of infrastructure and physical capital, loss of social capital, additional costs incurred from extreme events and coastal floods, and increased funds needed to protect coasts.

The study shows how little we know about these channels, and how important it is to know more. In particular, it highlights the need for more research on each channel to be able to answer questions that are really policy-relevant. Who cares how many houses are threatened by sea-level rise if we do not know whether this process represents a significant threat to alleviating poverty and economic development in coastal regions?

About the author

Stéphane Hallegatte is an economist and lead climate-change specialist with the World Bank and Méteo-France. His research deals with climate change and natural-disaster management, and with the public policies needed for green economic growth.

Climate change could cause frequent flooding

noreply@blogger.com (Rolph Payet) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 21:05:00 +0000

From: Houma Today By Nikki Buskey

Sea-level rise from global climate change could increase flooding problems for already vulnerable residents of Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes, according to a new report.

Terrebonne and Lafourche ranked as the most-populated parishes in Louisiana facing the highest risk from sea-level rise.

They came in behind Jefferson and Orleans parishes. Houma and Bayou Cane are also ranked among the most-populated and exposed cities.

The report, “Surging Seas,” is the first to analyze how sea-level rise caused by global warming is increasing risk from storm surges for communities throughout the coastal U.S. It is also the first to generate local and national estimates of what land, housing and population is in vulnerable low-lying areas and how sea-level rise will affect these communities over time.

Tidal records show that the sea rose 8 inches over the last century, and projections point to a steep acceleration.

Coastal Louisiana residents are already accustomed to dealing with regular floods. Lower Terrebonne residents have faced a flood every few years over the past decade.

But could we flood even more often? Even small amounts of sea-level rise make floods more common by adding to tides and storm surge, scientists say.

By 2030, many communities will see storm surges combine with sea-level rise to raise waters at least 4 feet above the local high-tide line.

About 35 percent of Terrebonne residents and 53 percent of Lafourche residents live below this level. About 15,000 homes in Terrebonne and 20,000 homes in Lafourche would be threatened by flooding with 4 feet of sea-level rise.

Louisiana is projected to face 19 inches of sea-level rise by 2050, according to the report. That would put a population of 1.4 million people at risk, including 634,000 people and 4.7 million acres of land.

About 113 cities along the coast will have at least half their populations at risk of serious flooding problems, the report says.

Currently, Louisiana residents face a 17 percent chance of suffering a flood so severe it might happen once in a century. With sea-level rise, that goes up to 20 percent.

“Sea-level rise is not some distant problem that we can just let our children deal with. The risks are imminent and serious,” lead author Ben Strauss said. “Just a small amount of sea-level rise, including what we may well see within the next 20 years, can turn yesterday’s manageable flood into tomorrow’s potential disaster. Global warming is already making coastal floods more common and damaging,” he said.

Nationwide, nearly 5 million U.S. residents live in 2.6 million homes on land below this level. More than 6 million people live on land below 5 feet; by 2050, the study projects that widespread areas will experience coastal floods exceeding this higher level.

In Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes, it’s not just major floods from storm surge that might become more frequent, said Denise Reed, a researcher with the University of New Orleans and a Montegut resident. But smaller floods, too.

“This really underscores the need to provide some kind of protection, for our area in particular,” Reed said. “It’s not just because we’re low-lying. There’s literally nothing between us and the Gulf of Mexico.”

Low-lying roads and yards in bayou communities go underwater once or twice a year now during tropical storms or during strong southeasterly winds.

If the school bus can’t get down to those homes for a couple of days a year, it’s OK, Reed said. But if those roads start going under more frequently and for longer stretches, “it’s something that really starts to impact your day-to-day life. What’s now a minor inconvenience will become a much, much more frequent event.”

Locals, who have been dealing with flooding for years, have already begun to respond to the increasing flood threat by elevating homes and building levees. But Terrebonne’s current levee project, Morganza-to-the-Gulf, will only be built up to about 10 feet high. Levees will have to be taller and stronger if residents want to keep living in low-lying areas, because sea-level rise, combined with coastal erosion, will make flooding higher and more frequent.

“Right now, we know that’s not even going to protect us from extreme events,” Reed said. “And in the future, that might not even protect us from lesser floods.”

Visit the report’s website, surgingseas.org (http://sealevel.climatecentral.org/ ), to check out a searchable, interactive online map that can zoom down to neighborhood level to see your flood risk. The site features statistics for how 3,000 coastal towns, cities, counties and states will be affected by a sea-level rise of up to 10 feet.

Nikki Buskey can be reached at 857-2205 or nicole.buskey@houmatoday.com.

Damaging sea-level rise is on the way

noreply@blogger.com (Rolph Payet) — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 21:05:00 +0000

From: Charlotte Observer By: Orrin H. Pilkey

New peer-reviewed research argues that both sea-level rise (SLR) and storm-surge elevations will be greater along much of the U.S. coastline than currently predicted. The impact for coastal communities could potentially be devastating.

This study, carried out by Climate Central, a nonprofit in Princeton, N.J., re-examined the impact of sea-level rise on storm surges by considering their elevation above the high-tide line. That’s a departure from current maps, which measure elevation from mid-tide levels.

The report predicts substantial increases “in the frequency of what are now considered extreme water levels within the next 50 years.”

If the world’s scientific community is to be believed, long-term global sea level rise is upon us and important changes are occurring on our coasts. A state-appointed SLR panel of N.C. scientists, like similar panels in other U.S. coastal states estimated a SLR on the order of 3 to 5 feet by the year 2100.

Northeastern North Carolina is in particular danger, especially around the Pamlico and Albemarle sounds. The slope of the mainland there is so gentle that a 1-foot rise in sea level will cause at least a 2-mile retreat of the shoreline.

The state’s lower coastal plain is home to more than a hundred small towns with populations ranging from a few hundred (Bath, 267) to more than a thousand (Manteo, 1,200) that are at low elevation already and at extreme risk from storm surges. A number of these communities are still recovering from storm-surge flooding caused by last year’s Hurricane Irene.

The people in these communities have real cause for concern and should be kept informed of the risks they and future generations face. For example, should one build or buy in one of the threatened towns? How much should communities commit to upgrading infrastructure? Are we going to abandon, move, raise or dike these communities?

Until recently the state, with federal funding, was making a study of the risk from a SLR of 39 inches, which would provide maps of future risk from both inundation and storm surges and provide a sound basis for long-term community planning.

Although the National Academy of Sciences, the Geological Society of America and the American Geophysical Union have all supported the strong possibility of a major SLR by the year 2100, deniers of SLR have proven strong and effective.

In North Carolina, NC 20 is such a group. It was formed by the state’s 20 coastal counties and is, according to its website, “dedicated to economic development of the member counties.” It has concluded that the sea level will rise 3 to 14 inches by 2100, a number dramatically at odds with global scientific opinion. Their efforts have led the state to back off its plans to map the impact of a SLR of 39 inches (the science consensus level) and instead map a SLR of 16 inches.

This isn’t the first time that government has tried to hide the unpleasantries of SLR. In 2008, the Bush administration refused to publish an EPA document by SLR guru Jim Titus (he eventually published it privately).

In 2011, The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality deleted references to SLR in a report on Galveston Bay written by Rice University geologist John Anderson. The paper was a synopsis of another peer-reviewed paper already published by the Geological Society of America.

The lesson here is that the denial of the scientific view of global climate change and in particular SLR has penetrated to a local level. It is an intrusion made all the more onerous in light of new studies that predict higher than previously predicted SLR and storm-surge levels in coming decades.

Preservation of the status quo (including real estate prices) may prevail along our coasts, but in a democratic society such as ours, the state has no right to shield citizens from unpleasant environmental realities.

Orrin H. Pilkey is James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of Geology at Duke University.

New research lowers past estimates of sea-level rise

noreply@blogger.com (Rolph Payet) — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 19:18:00 +0000

From: Science Codex

The seas are creeping higher as the planet warms. But how high could they go?

Projections for the year 2100 range from inches to several feet, or even more.

The sub-tropical islands of Bermuda and the Bahamas are two seemingly unlikely places scientists have gone looking for answers.

The cliffs and ancient reefs on Bermuda and the Bahamas have lured fossil-hunters for decades. The land on the Bahamas, for example, has a foundation of fossil coral; the stone is derived from the disintegration of age-old coral reefs and seashells.

These areas are now attracting scientists investigating global sea level rise.

By pinpointing where the shorelines stood on cliffs and coral reefs in the Bahamas and Bermuda during an extremely warm period 400,000 years ago, researchers hope to narrow the range of global sea-level projections for the future.

After correcting for what they say was sinking of these islands at that time, scientists estimate that the seas rose 20 feet to 43 feet higher than today--up to a third less than previous estimates, though still a drastic change.

Scientists have found a new explanation for why beach deposits in the Bahamas are 70 feet above sea level. (Photo Credit: Paul Hearty)

The study infers that the Greenland and West Antarctica ice sheets collapsed during the ancient warm period, but that ice loss from the vast East Antarctic Ice Sheet was negligible.

The results are reported in this week's issue of the journal Nature.

"Our research provides a simple explanation for high beach deposits [such as fossils in the Bahamas]," said the paper's lead author Maureen Raymo, a scientist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

Average global sea-level rose eight inches since the 1880s, and is currently rising an inch per decade, driven by thermal expansion of seawater and melting of glaciers and ice sheets, including the still mostly intact ice in Greenland and West Antarctica.

In its most recent report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimated that the seas could rise up to two feet by 2100.

That number could go higher depending on the amount of ice melt and the quantity of greenhouse gas emissions.

Will the fate of the Bahamas in a time of sea-level rise mirror that of other coastal locales? (Photo Credit: Government of the Bahamas)

The United Nations estimates a five feet sea-level rise would be enough to swamp 17 million people in low-lying Bangladesh alone.

The new study factors in the loading and unloading of ice from North America during the ice ages preceding the long-ago sea-level rise.

As the ice sheets grew, their weight pushed down the land beneath them while causing land at the edges--Bermuda and the Bahamas--to bulge upward, says Raymo.

When the ice pulled back, the continent rebounded, and the islands sank.

"We're re-thinking many of our estimates of past sea-level rise now that we're more aware of the effects of unloading of ice," said Bil Haq, program director in the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Division of Ocean Sciences, which funded the research. "We now have a meaningful way of calculating the rebound.

"This study is a good example of collaboration between paleoceanography and geophysics to resolve an important issue: the question of future sea-level rise."

Today, both Greenland and West Antarctica are losing mass in a warming world, but signals from East Antarctica are less clear.

Raymo said the research helps show that "catastrophic collapse" of the East Antarctic ice is probably not a threat today.

"However, we do need to worry about Greenland and West Antarctica."

The islands of the Bahamas and their fossil cliffs contain clues to sea-level rise. (Photo Credit: NASA)

Source: National Science Foundation

Study: Rising Seas Threaten Millions of US Homes

noreply@blogger.com (Rolph Payet) — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 18:10:00 +0000

From: Voice of America, by: Tom Banse

Photo: AP

A bicyclist makes his way past a stranded taxi on a flooded New York City Street as Tropical Storm Irene passes through the city, August 28, 2011. A global warming-fueled sea level rise over the next century could flood millions in the US, according to a new study.

Small island nations, such as the Maldives and Kiribati, raised the alarm first. Now larger and more populated places are assessing their vulnerability to sea level rise caused by climate change. A new study suggests millions of American homes could be inundated over the next century. Recognizing the change is one thing, though, and taking action and deciding who pays is another matter.
The latest projections of the impact sea level rise will have on coastal communities appear in the journal Environmental Research Letters. The study authors - from the non-profit Climate Central and University of Arizona - calculated how many people in the United States live less than one meter above the high tide line. And how many is that? Close to 2 million homes sheltering 3.7 million Americans could be flooded by rising seas. The biggest concentrations of vulnerable homes are in Florida, followed by Louisiana, coastal California, and then New York and New Jersey.
Nate Mantua is co-director of the Climate Impacts Group at the University of Washington. He was not involved in the Climate Central study. He said the study’s authors used a novel combination of high resolution elevation, population, and tidal datasets - but didn’t factor in that the rate of sea level rise can differ from place to place.
"They didn't actually consider any specific future sea level rise scenario. Instead, they are using a one-meter increase as a reference and asking how many people would be vulnerable to a sea level rise of one meter. They didn't actually say that's our scenario for 2100."
Other studies have calculated how high the seas could rise regionally due to melting glaciers, disappearing ice caps and the simple expansion in volume of water as it gets warmer. Right now, the world's oceans are rising at an average rate of about 3 millimeters per year. One meter is at the higher end of the range for the end of this century. But Mantua points out there is a great deal of local variation. For starters, the land you live on may be sinking or rising ever so slightly depending on underlying geology.
"You can have this different relative sea level just because the land is not staying still. It's moving. Different parts of the coast are moving up or down at different rates," said Mantua.
There are numerous examples of coastal cities and provinces that have completed vulnerability assessments to rising sea levels. San Diego, New York City and British Columbia, Canada, are three that have done so. Examples of places that have taken some concrete action in response, however, are much harder to find. In the port city of Aberdeen, Washington, public works director Larry Bledsoe thought up an affordable defense. He's recommending the city council progressively raise the minimum elevation of ground floors in new construction.
"It seems prudent to make small adjustments now incrementally before the flood is upon us," said Bledsoe.
Another example from western Washington State: A couple of years ago, Nisqually Wildlife Refuge managers considered sea level rise when designing new dikes to protect freshwater wetlands. The new dikes have an extra wide base so they can more easily be made higher in coming decades.
Margaret Davidson, coast services director for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said coping with rising waters requires difficult choices. She looks to the Dutch for confirmation, "because after all, they're been holding back the sea for nearly a thousand years."
"Even the Dutch in their Building with Nature initiative recognize you cannot engineer your way out of everything. We can only save those places that are economically or politically significant. Then we'll have to look at managed retreat and other options for the places that are less so important," said Davidson.
"It's a bit like the options open to the military during a war. We can defend or we can retreat. Both are not very palatable options," she said.
John Clague, an expert on sea level change at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, said holding back the waters or relocating inland are both "very, very costly" options.
"Where the money is going to come from, I don't think anyone knows because it's a large amount of money. You know, it's outside the ability, I think, of most communities to deal with this problem, most urban communities in coastal areas," said Clague.
Clague worries about signs that indicate sea level rise is accelerating. His home province of British Columbia is telling its local jurisdictions to prepare for an average rise of about 1 meter over the next century.

Caribbean Looks Ahead to Stave Off Fresh Water Scarcity

noreply@blogger.com (Rolph Payet) — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 14:12:00 +0000

From: IPSNews By Desmond Brown

Potworks Dam is the largest freshwater lake in Antigua, holding about one billion gallons of water. Credit:Desmond Brown/IPS

ROSEAU, Dominica, Mar 9, 2012 (IPS) - Two years after a severe drought wreaked havoc with a number of Caribbean countries, some are now adopting new strategies in a bid to prevent a repeat of a situation where countries were rationing water and imposing strict restrictions on residents.
"We have embarked on a programme geared towards management of the catchment areas, which includes preventing deforestation, agricultural activities and use of chemicals in protected areas and overall limiting human activities in protected areas," said Bernard Ettinoffe, general manager of the Dominica Water and Sewage Company (Dowasco).
He told IPS, "We have also embarked on educational programmes at the schools and community levels aimed at raising awareness of the need for conservation of water resources and more recently have begun giving consideration to an Integrated Water Resource Management Approach to the management of land and water resources."
Ettinoffe said Dominica, like many other countries, has seen some decline in water levels in rivers and streams, but that the island, also known as the nature isle, still boasts of an abundance of good quality fresh water.
"Whereas measures are being taken to preserve the resources for future generations, the risks of no water or even inadequate supplies for decades to come is minimal," Ettinoffe said.
The neighbouring twin-island state of Antigua and Barbuda is reporting higher than normal rainfall over the past 12 months.
"Our surface water resources are at max capacity," Ivan Rodrigues, water manager of the Antigua Public Utilities Authority (APUA), told IPS.
But in spite of the higher than normal rainfall, an Antiguan meteorologist has expressed concern that not enough rainwater is being caught.
"I have always believed that we need additional surface storage so that we can capture and keep more of the rainfall that we do get," said Keithley Meade, director of the Antigua and Barbuda Meteorological Services.
"The rainfall mostly does not even get to the aquifers (water stored in the ground), since the runoff is pretty fast. This is one area where I think we should have improved and still need to do so," he told IPS.
Even with their increased focus on water management, financial constraints will prevent representatives of the tiny islands in the Caribbean from attending a major gathering next week to discuss this vital commodity - the 6th World Water Forum in Marseille, France from Mar. 12-17.
Despite their absence though, Caribbean countries say they will be keeping a close eye on the meeting, which has set the ambitious target of going down in history as the forum that will bring solutions to water, based on openness and exchange.
"DOWASCO will certainly be keeping an eye on the meeting and will be looking forward to reviewing the findings and recommendations," Ettinoffe said, noting particular attention would be paid to the issue of climate change.
"Climate change and climate variability is as real to Dominica as to many other countries. We are experiencing more intense rainfall and also occasional drier spells, both of which come with their own challenges which must be managed.
"More intense rainfalls result in siltation of streams and rivers and greater need for water treatment and even the need to shut the supply down at times. During drier periods, there is always need for caution and conservation," he added.
Salinisation of fresh groundwater is yet another concern for Caribbean islands.
"Both Antigua and Barbuda are small islands. Our well fields are close to the coast, hence the salinisation of this resource (by over exploitation or rising sea levels) is a major concern," Rodrigues said, noting "our plans include artificial recharge, reducing exploitation in some areas, seeking inland resources, and improving monitoring systems.
"We have also installed additional desalination capacity on Antigua and we are in the process of doing the same for Barbuda," Rodrigues added.
But he said the additional desalination capacity will not meet present needs of a country which presently utilises 20 percent surface water and 10 percent groundwater.
Programme Director at the St. Lucia-based Caribbean Environmental Health Institute Professor Christopher Cox says sea level rise and salinisation is a concern in other parts of the Caribbean as well.
"We know in The Bahamas, in Barbados and in St. Kitts that the coastal aquifers, where you have over-abstraction, it sucks up the salt water component into the fresh water so the fresh water sits on top of the salt water," he told IPS.
"What happens is that as you draw more fresh water it actually pulls in the salt water with it. If you get sea level rises, the saline interface with the fresh water will rise also, or move further inland so that means it's more likely that your wells will be intruded with salt water."
Cox said the Caribbean is very vulnerable in terms of its fresh water resources, noting that the human influences were to blame.
"It's not only about clearing trees but you reduce water availability when you pollute the water. For example, in the case of Antigua, we've heard that there is a lot of land use conflicts and some of the reservoirs are receiving direct contamination from households and other types of activities whether it be agriculture or commercial enterprises."
He also pointed to problems with water availability in rural areas of St. Lucia, Jamaica and Trinidad.
Cox said juxtaposing these situations with the climate change issues, where it is being forecast that the Caribbean region, particularly the Eastern Caribbean, could see declines in average annual rainfall by between 30-50 percent, the dry seasons will become more intense and result in problems with water supply.
He said Caribbean governments are slowly coming around to the whole concept of Integrated Water Resources Management, with Jamaica being the most advanced in this regard.
"Governments are slow to put in place strong polices for protection of water resources. The big problem is that people in the Caribbean think water is free.
"But there is a cost to get it to the stage where it does not constitute a health risk. In the Caribbean, water is not given the level of importance it deserves," he told IPS.

Kiribati considers moving entire island nation as global warming claims first victim

noreply@blogger.com (Rolph Payet) — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 13:59:00 +0000

From: The State Column

Global warming may have claimed its first victim.

The island nation of Kiribati is reportedly considering abandoning the island in favor of moving its populace to Fiji.

Kiribati President Anote Tong told the Associated Press on Friday that his Cabinet this week endorsed a plan to buy nearly 6,000 acres on Fiji’s main island, Viti Levu. The president said the move would ensure the survival of his island’s culture and it would provide residents with a better chance of surviving a possible rise in sea level.

“We would hope not to put everyone on one piece of land, but if it became absolutely necessary, yes, we could do it,” said Mr. Tong. “It wouldn’t be for me, personally, but would apply more to a younger generation. For them, moving won’t be a matter of choice. It’s basically going to be a matter of survival.”

The island nation faces the threat of being swallowed by the sea. The island nation is just a few feet above sea level, leaving it exposed to rising sea levels that could occur over the course of just a few decades.

Speaking Friday, Mr. Tong noted that a number of villages across the island chain have already had to relocate in an effort to avoid finding themselves engulfed by the ocean.

Fiji, home to about 850,000 people, is nearly 1,400 miles south of Kiribati. It remains unclear whether the governing body of Fiji will approve the deal. Mr. Tong said he is currently awaiting full parliamentary approval for the land purchase, which he noted could come as early as April. Following approval, he will formally discuss the plan with Fijian officials.

Kiribati, which was known as the Gilbert Islands when it was a British colony, has been an independent nation since 1979. The island nation has come to the forefront on the debate over global warming and climate change

Preparing for the flood: Visualizations help communities plan for sea-level rise

noreply@blogger.com (Rolph Payet) — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 16:02:00 +0000

From: Physorg

Researchers at the University of British Columbia have produced computer visualizations of rising sea levels in a low-lying coastal municipality, illustrating ways to adapt to climate change impacts such as flooding and storms surges.

The municipality of Delta, B.C. is a low-lying coastal community surrounded by water on three sides Credit: CALP

The researchers are working with a municipality south of Vancouver, Canada that is surrounded by water on three sides and is expecting the sea-level to rise by 1.2 metres by 2100 – a change that would affect a number of waterfront homes, inland suburban developments, roads and farmland.

Considerable infrastructure has been built below current and projected high water levels, and could be inundated in the event of a dike breach. The images produced show how different adaptation strategies that could be implemented in the municipality and are being used to help make decisions about how to best prepare for the future.

"To me, the visualizations are the only way that you can tell the complete story of climate change and its impacts in a low-lying coastal community," says David Flanders, a UBC research scientist with the Collaborative for Advanced Landscape Planning (CALP), who will present this research at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Vancouver on Sunday. "In other words, seeing really is believing in this case."

"It can be hard to mentally grasp what rising sea-levels can mean on the ground but our visualizations give people a glimpse of what their future world will look and feel like in their own backyards. They help community members understand how their quality of life can be affected by climate change, and by the decisions they make to deal with climate impacts."

The municipality of Delta, B.C. is in an agricultural region with a population of about 100,000. Historically, the municipality has used dykes to protect the land from flooding and tides – a common strategy used by coastal communities.

Visualizations of higher water levels in Delta portray what would happen to the community if it does nothing to prepare for rising sea levels. Credit: CALP

New provincial guidelines for the construction of new homes have more than doubled the recommended finished floor elevation to compensate for rising high water lines. Similarly, the guidelines for sea dike construction have increased considerably, in some cases suggesting a top-of-wall more than two times their current elevation above mean sea level.

Working with the municipality, Flanders and his colleagues at CALP have created visualizations of sea-level rise in Delta and four alternate scenarios that show different ways Delta could adapt. These were constructed using a cutting-edge 3D geovisualization process that integrates climate modeling scenarios, inundation modeling, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) data, land use and urban design.

Visualizations of higher water levels in Delta portray what would happen to the community if it does nothing to prepare for climate change.

"Combine the sea-level rise with bigger storms, more wind, more waves and high-tide and that's an enormous amount of water," says Flanders.

The four alternate scenarios show Delta over the next century where the municipality adopts various strategies to prepare for sea-level rise including: raising the dikes; building offshore barrier islands to absorb the impact of incoming storms; moving parts of the community out of the floodplain and on to higher ground; and reducing vulnerability through design by raising homes, roads and critical infrastructure above the floodplain.

Visualization: The municipality of Delta adopts a strategy of raising the dikes to prepare for sea-level rise. Credit: CALP

The visualizations packages not only show what the region could look at the end of the century but also takes into account other important factors like the cost of each solution for the municipality, the cost to individual property owners, and the trade-offs between protecting roads, habitat, homes, waterfront views and agricultural production.

"What is becoming evident is that there is no single, perfect solution. Each alternative pathway has trade-offs associated with it, and this planning process has been very effective at communicating those trade-offs, and assessing acceptability," says Flanders.

"Communities will have to decide what their priorities are, and likely plan for a mosaic of different solutions, because each neighbourhood has its own set of concerns and its own idea of what will be possible. This visioning process can help inform these kinds of tough decisions that many low-lying communities will have to make over the next 20, 50 and 100 years."

To produce the visualizations, Flanders is working with other landscape planning researchers at CALP, climate scientists on the climate forecasts, coastal engineers who can calculate what water will do during a storm when it slams against the dikes, land-use planners who know current policies and how strategies could potentially roll-out on the ground, and a working group of members of the public. These participants helped to build the scenarios and assess their acceptability.

Flanders and his colleagues have begun to show these visualizations to city planners and engineers, local elected officials, and members of the community. He notes that "many individuals seeing the images for the first time had a very emotional response."

The work borrows from international precedents, but CALP is unique in combining visualization, stakeholder input, and evaluation of results comprehensively in the Delta study.

"Other communities around the globe could gain insight from this on how to address their own local concerns, whether it's sea level rise, forest fire risk, changing snow pack, or other issues."

More information: Simulated images are available at http://www.aaas.ub … rces/photos/

Provided by University of British Columbia (news : web)

Interview with the people of Papua New Guinea about how rising seas are affecting their lives

noreply@blogger.com (Rolph Payet) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 10:13:00 +0000

Video produced by MATUSA (Manus Tumbuna Save association), to raise awareness on how Manus Islanders in Papua New Guinea are being affected by sea level rising and climate change. Filmed by Ngenge Sasa, Lou Island, PNG. Presented in public for the first time at the National Museum of American Indian, during the symposium co-organized by Conversations with the Earth, Oct 2011.

The sea is rising? Island nations will see you in court

noreply@blogger.com (Rolph Payet) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:08:00 +0000

From: Los Angeles Times

If the globe keeps warming and the seas keep rising, the country of Palau could be wiped off the map. So the Pacific island is teaming up with other small island nations to fight the threat of climate change -- in court.

The countries want the International Court of Justice to offer an opinion on whether countries that pollute have a responsibility to other countries that get hurt by that pollution. Ecological damage that crosses borders could be seen as a violation of international law, a legal cudgel against climate change.

"It is not an exaggeration to say that climate change is, for us, a matter of life and death," Sprent Dabwido, president of the Pacific state of Nauru, said at a climate change conference in December.

Some island nations have already begun planning to go underwater: Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed recently told the Sydney Morning Herald that his countrymen might need to relocate to Australia as climate refugees. The president of Kiribati, another Pacific island nation, has mused that they might need to build artificial floating islands to cope. Several South Pacific islands have already disappeared.

The same fears have hit closer to home here in California, where Balboa Island, a mere four to eight feet above sea level, is faced with replacing its aging seawalls at a cost of roughly $60 million, The Times reported in December. "We don't want to wait until we have a problem," a city engineer said.

Michael Gerrard, director of the Center for Climate Change Law at Colombia University, has been advising island nations on their legal quest: Can one country take another country to court over polluting it out of existence? He answered our questions about rising seas, shrinking islands and the law.

What would happen to these countries, legally, if they no longer had dry land?

Having inhabited land and a permanent population are usually seen as prerequisites to statehood. There have sometimes been governments in exile, but due to political and military events, not natural causes. There is already talk of creating a new kind of legal entity -- the “nation ex situ,” that is, a state that still has its political identity but no surviving homeland.

Has a country ever ceased to exist because of natural causes?

No. Some islands have been rendered uninhabitable because of volcanic activity, but the complete submersion of a country would be an unprecedented event in human history. The only precedent is the mythical Atlantis.

Lay out the basic argument for us: Who is responsible and what do they owe these island nations?

The basic argument is that under international law, no nation may cause pollution that causes damage in other nations. Thus the major emitting countries should reduce their greenhouse gas emissions so as to reduce the damage that sea level rise and other climate impacts cause to the island nations.

If everything went perfectly, what would you want to see happen as a result of this case?

The International Court of Justice would issue an opinion that the major emitting nations have an obligation to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. This would not directly compel the nations to reduce their emissions, but it would be relevant in the future international negotiations on climate change.

Even if the case succeeds, can carbon emissions be stopped fast enough to save these islands?

If current emission trends continue, the small island nations are likely to be submerged eventually; it will take a major international effort to prevent that from happening, though the time may be extended.

So if sea levels do continue to rise, what might these countries do?

It may be possible to build houses on stilts and take other adaptation measures that will allow populations to stay for longer periods of time. But eventually, migration to other countries may be needed.

(For more on rising sea levels, you can explore the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration map of sea level trends or watch this video from the Manus Tumbuna Save Assn., which interviews people in Papua New Guinea about how rising seas are affecting their lives.)

UK Climate Change Risk Assessment shows the East of England needs to adapt

noreply@blogger.com (Rolph Payet) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 19:07:00 +0000

From: Cambridge Network

A ground-breaking study into the implications of climate change, and the threats the country faces, has revealed that the key priorities for the East of England include responding to water availability, flooding and sea level rise.

The UK Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA) 2012 highlights the top 100 challenges to the country and our economy, and provides the most compelling evidence yet of the need to increase our resilience.

The research also confirms the UK as a world-leader in understanding climate risk to ensure we can make robust plans to deal with these threats. It provides underpinning evidence that can be used by the Government to help inform priorities for action and appropriate adaptation measures.

Drawing on information within the CCRA and other local evidence, the analysis illustrates what climate change may mean for people, businesses, community and charitable groups, local authorities, and other organisations across key sectors, at the local level. It also highlights where there is a strong case for greater local action.

Speaking at the launch of the CCRA, Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman said: “This world class research provides the most comprehensive case yet on why we need to take action to adapt the UK and our economy to the impacts of climate change. It shows what life could be like if we stopped our preparations now, and the consequences such a decision would mean for our economic stability.

“The Climate Change Risk Assessment will be vital in helping us to understand what we need to do to stop these threats becoming a reality. In doing so there is also great potential for growth through UK firms developing innovative products and services tailored to meet the global climate challenges.”

Within the East of England, John Devall, Water Operations Director for Essex & Suffolk Water said: “It is vital for businesses to include climate change adaptation in their business planning processes to ensure a sustainable future. Our project for the development of the Abberton Reservoir in Essex, provides an example of adapting an existing asset to secure water supplies for the future whilst protecting and enhancing the natural environment.”

To respond to the adaptation challenge organisations in the private, public and academic sector in the East of England are collaborating in a network to share information and provide support in order to provide effective and efficient solutions for climate change adaptation.

Dr Aled Jones, Director of Anglia Ruskin University’s Global Sustainability Institute, commented: “The need for organisations, both public and private, to work together has been made ever more apparent with the release of the Climate Change Risk Assessment. As highlighted in the East of England summary report our region is already at risk of water scarcity and flooding and this will only get worse with the impact of climate change, coupled with an increasing demand from development and population growth. For example, 25% of all properties in Norfolk are at risk of flooding and almost 50% of water catchment areas are already over abstracted or over licensed at times of low flow”.

Notes

The National Adaptation Programme (NAP) - The NAP will set out what policies and actions are needed to take action on the risks (and opportunities) from climate change. Defra aim to co-create this with involvement from all relevant stakeholders, and to ensure a strong local component.

A key part of this will be informed by the 'Call for Views' which means individuals, businesses, local authorities, community, charitable or voluntary organisations can tell Defra:

o how climate risks affect us;

o the most urgent areas for action;

o what action is already underway to address risks;

o the key barriers to addressing risks;

o of new or innovative actions or opportunities for addressing risks.

· Full details of the UKCCRA can be downloaded at: http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/climate/government/risk-assessment/

· Regional Packs produced to coincide with the publication of the UKCCRA and local case studies are available at: http://www.sustainabilityeast.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=128:uk-climate-change-risk-assessment&catid=5:latest-news&Itemid=9

· Sustainability East is an independent not for profit social enterprise based in Cambridge, which facilitates collaborative activity on climate change and sustainability in the East of England. Sustainability East focuses upon creating responses that are proportionate to the rate and scale of change ahead and encourages a consistent approach, challenging assumptions in order to help organisations make informed and considered decisions.

· John Devall is Water Operations Director for Essex & Suffolk Water, which is a part of Northumbrian Water Ltd (NWL). He is responsible for the supply of drinking water to 4.4 million people as well as the long term water resource planning and demand management activities of NWL.

· Anglia Ruskin University’s Global Sustainability Institute (GSI) plays a critical role in allying academic disciplines from across the university together with business and governments. This new research institute focuses its efforts in understanding personal motivations and systems change.

· In partnership with Anglia Ruskin University’s Global Sustainability Institute (GSI), Sustainability East facilitates a network of stakeholders working on the climate change adaptation agenda. The network aims to develop a robust adaptation pathway and construct a strong narrative on adaptation for the East of England. This work will strategically link to the National Adaptation Programme work of Defra and the Environment Agency. Further details on the East of England Adaptation Network can be found at www.sustainabilityeast.org.uk

*******

For more information please contact:

Sustainability East: Carly Leonard on t: 01223 361215, e: carlyleonard@sustainabilityeast.org.uk

Anglia Ruskin University: Andrea Hilliard on t: 0845 196 4727, e: andrea.hilliard@anglia.ac.uk

Should Jamestown take action against rising sea level?

noreply@blogger.com (Rolph Payet) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 19:04:00 +0000

From: Jamestown Press

Councilman says town will have to make adaptations to combat climate change

BY KEN SHANE

“Rhode Island’s coastal communities are experiencing changes brought about by chronic events, primarily sea level rise, and changes brought about by the increasing severity of catastrophic events, extreme weather ranging from hurricanes to nor’easters.”

This is an excerpt from a recent article by Andrew Baer. According to Baer, the time for talking about reversing the effects of climate change has passed, and the time for determining ways to adapt to new environmental realities is at hand. Baer is a partner in Oyster Works, a Charlestown architecture, design and project management firm. A recent article he wrote for the firm’s website raises important issues for all of southern Rhode Island.

“We are really going to have to think about the impact of sea level rise on the Navy’s infrastructure…we know climate change is not only coming, but it’s here.” This statement from Rear Adm. David Titley of the U.S. Navy Task Force on Climate Change serves as the jumping-off point for Baer’s article titled, “Adapting to Climate Change in Southern Rhode Island.”

Baer himself lives on a coastal salt pond in Charlestown. His father had a keen interest in the environment and started the Salt Pond Coalition, so there is a heritage of being interested in the ecology of the coastal area.

“All the talk of global warming and sea level rise is utterly academic,” Baer said. “This is happening and you can see the changes in the coast.” As an example, Baer mentions the current situation in Matunuck, where houses are being lost to coastal erosion and some residents need to bring in their own water due to salinity in the aquifer.

“We should be proactively thinking about what we can and should do,” Baer said. “We think that forward-thinking communities would begin to at least raise this as a question.”

Jamestown Town Council Vice President Bob Bowen agrees with Baer. Bowen said that the council has even gone so far as to have a discussion about sea level rise with the state Department of Transpor- tation.

“I think [Baer’s] right,” Bowen said. “Adaptation to climate change is where we have to be putting our effort now. We are going to see significant changes, some of which we’re starting to notice already, including coastal erosion and the increased ferocity of storms. We’re going to have to start making adaptations.”

According to Bowen, Jamestown brought up the issue of sea level rise at a meeting last year with the head of the Department of Transportation. Among other things, that discussion included the impact of the rising water level on the North Main Road bridge over Zeke’s Creek. Sea level rise combined with storm surge puts the bridge at risk, and the DOT has it on their list of things to look at.

“As in most states there is a lack of financial backing for some of the things that need to be done,” Bowen said. “So they may be looking at some of the statewide programs like [the Transportation Improvement Program], and starting to target projects that are in need of work as a result of climate change and rising sea level’s impact on coastlines.”

Bowen said that the DOT could use what had been standard acrossthe board infrastructure assistance to local communities, but target specific areas, such as low-lying roads and bridges.

According to Baer, it is important to stress the fact that talking about reversing the effects of global warming and sea level rise on the coastal communities is pointless. The emphasis should now be on finding ways to adapt to the changes that are already here.

“We can accept what is, and we can look around and see what’s happening,” Baer says. “We can make drastic changes in our energy use, smokestack emissions, and other things, and perhaps we can mitigate the damage. But there is no way we’re going to turn it back, and there’s plenty of evidence to support that conclusion.”

Baer says that what we should do is to realize that global warming and sea level rise are happening, and that our communities are going to feel the impact of it. The tasks now, according to Baer, are figuring out how we can mitigate the damage, and how we can adapt to change.

Baer addressed the controversial concept of continuing to build homes on the shoreline from his viewpoint as a builder. “CRMC regulations discourage building in certain areas,” Baer said. “There are certain areas where, if you have a house you can keep it there, but if it gets wiped out you’re not going to be allowed to rebuild. We have to think about to what degree do we collectively, including government, protect things like that.” Maintenance of roads that access these properties should also be part of that discussion, according to Baer.

“How much can the town, state or federal government commit to maintaining this when you know it’s kind of a losing battle?” Baer asked. While he does not claim to have the answers, Baer thinks it is an important discussion.

“This should be a public discussion. It should be convened by business groups like the chambers of commerce and by local planning boards, to begin to raise the issue so that people can at least get familiar with what the issues are so that we can think collectively about the problems and explore courses of action.”

One of the effects of climate change is the increased ferocity of storms. Bowen points to the damage done to the seawalls at East Ferry and along Racquet Road as a result of Hurricane Irene. “Those are costly repairs,” Bowen said. “We need to start thinking about how we’re going to address that, and start talking to the DOT about how we can get some assistance.”

“We have to accept that there is a problem,” Baer said. “We’re no longer debating the science. We’re no longer saying that this isn’t going to happen. This is happening. We are threatened. Our environment is changing. We have to adapt to change.”

President Michel addresses the Leadership Panel of the Delhi Sustainable Development Summit 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Rolph Payet) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 19:09:00 +0000

From: The Seychelles Nation

‘All peoples must pressure their leaders for action on climate change’
President James Michel has called on all nations of the world to take more responsibility for the actions needed to slow down climate change, as well as urging the peoples of those nations to put pressure on their governments to ensure their pledges turn into reality.

President Michel was speaking at the Leadership Panel of the Delhi Sustainable Development Summit (DSDS) 2012, alongside the President of Finland, Tarja Halonen, and the President of Kiribati, Anote Tong.

“Our focus should not just be on words but on actions. It is 20 years since the Rio summit, during that time we made a lot of statements. We have spoken about sustainable agriculture, sustainable tourism, sustainable financing and so on, but 20 years later we find that we have many unfulfilled pledges and non-binding agreements to accompany them…. We have seen the meetings of the G7, G20, G77, but what about the G193? …where all the nations of the world get together and our concerns are taken into account?.... The people need to put pressure on their governments to do something about climate change and a binding agreement for this,” said President Michel.

The President said that all nations, the “G193”, should have an equal say in the matters of the global environment, as we live in a global village where we share the same concerns for the future of the planet. He spoke of the struggles of small island states, in the face of sea-level rise, droughts, erosion and coral bleaching, which have affected the populations of island nations like Seychelles and Kiribati.

“It is a question of survival for us…. The relative lack of action of the last 20 years signifies that the cry of those that are the most vulnerable have not been heard...We need a legally binding agreement to limit carbon emissions. The time has come for everybody to develop the political will, a strong political will, for us as humanity, to get together and see how we can seriously tackle this problem and save our only home, our planet.... We need to do this soon as we are running out of time,” said the President.

The President also spoke of the need for leaders to take political risks in order to introduce sustainable plans for energy production, as the long-term benefits for humanity outweigh the immediate risks in loss of popularity.

During the summit, President Michel also met the Prime Minister of India, Dr Manmohan Singh, who inaugurated the DSDS 2012.

Also present at the summit were the former President of Botswana, Festus Mogae, the former President of Guyana, Bharrat Jagdeo, and the former Prime Minister of Norway Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland.

President Michel is accompanied on this working visit to India by the Minister for Foreign Affairs Jean- Paul Adam, Ambassador Waven William, and the vice-chancellor of the University of Seychelles, Dr Rolph Payet.

This is the second time the President addresses the DSDS.

Government wants a flood of photos

noreply@blogger.com (Rolph Payet) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 05:52:00 +0000

From: NewsMail by: Mike Derry

Photos of Monday’s king tides will help the government deal with changes as sea levels rise.

THE State Government wants Bundaberg residents to go out on Monday and take photos of the king tides as part of a project to highlight areas and infrastructure that are vulnerable to tidal flooding.

The king tide at Burnett Heads will happen on Monday at 8.42am.

Environment minister Vicky Darling wants people to get involved in the Witness King Tides interactive community event, with the big tides up and down the Queensland coast this weekend and on Monday.

"I encourage all Queenslanders to pick up their cameras and phones over the weekend, head out to your local beach or wetland and snap away," she said.

The website has information about the king tide events, outlines good spots along the coast to see the impact and has tips for taking useful photos.

"King tides give us an opportunity to see what our coast might look like in the future under conditions of sea level rise due to climate change," Ms Darling said.

"Taking photos of areas affected by king tides now is a great way of identifying vulnerable locations and involving the community in monitoring sea level change."

Anyone who takes photos on Monday can upload them to the new Witness King Tides web portal to share the images and create a visual database.

"We know that king tides are a natural phenomenon that occur twice a year and are not caused by climate change," Ms Darling said.

"We also know that high tides levels will become far more common as sea levels continue to rise."

Kincardine homes could be underwater in 20 years

noreply@blogger.com (Rolph Payet) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 05:49:00 +0000

From: Dunfermline Press by: Ally McRoberts

A LARGE swathe of Kincardine and more than 100 homes could be under water within the next 20 years, a report has warned.

Fife Council said the village was one of five locations in danger of being overwhelmed by sea level rises due to climate change and coastal erosion.

A new Fife Shoreline Management Plan (SMP) identified Kincardine as an area with the "highest number of properties at risk of tidal inundation in the first epoch, 0-20 years".

It said 103 properties were at risk in the village - the other areas are Tayport, Newburgh, Lower Largo to Anstruther and St Andrews to Guardbridge - but that beefing up sea defences and guarding against floods would be costly for the council and homeowners.

Councillor Tony Martin, the chair of the enterprise, environment and transportation committee that looked at the SMP yesterday (Thursday), said it was the responsible thing to highlight the issues now.

He said, "At the moment Fife Council has no funding for this work but we have a statutory duty to highlight these areas and it's right and proper we do that.

"We then need to see how we can work with other public bodies like the Scottish Government and Sepa and deal with the problem.

"When you put a report like this together you know there's going to be an adverse reaction, it is worrying, but if we didn't do this and face up to the facts about climate change and coastal erosion, it'd be even worse.

"I can understand people living in these areas having concerns but, for most people in Fife, any such problems are over 100 years away.

"The fact we're looking at addressing these issues now will hopefully give people some reassurance."

In a report due to go before the committee, Dr Bob McLellan, the head of transportation and environmental services, said, "The SMP has identified 1206 properties at risk and many areas of low-lying land which are currently at risk of tidal inundation over the next 20 years, rising to 2822 properties by 2110 as a result of sea level rise.

"Some of these are protected by existing defences which are in a variable condition.

"There will be financial implications for the council in the years ahead."

He continued, "In many areas, coastal erosion has been controlled by the

presence of coastal defences.

"The responsibility for maintenance of these defences rests with the landowner.

"Obtaining appropriate insurance for flooding and storm damage is a concern for property owners.

"The council also has a significant number of assets in the coastal zone which are at risk.

"The maintenance of these assets is the liability of the responsible service and the cost of maintaining these assets is likely to increase in response to sea level rise."

Councillors will be asked to approve the recommendations in the Fife SMP, which maps out the policies for coastal defence for the short- (20-year), medium- (50-year) and long-term (100-year) and shows shoreline erosion over the past 150 years and the predicted erosion over the next century.

It also contains an action plan and the shoreline has been split into 58 'policy units' from Kincardine to Newburgh with four options considered for each unit.

These are: maintain the shoreline at the current position; reclaim land by building seaward of the existing shoreline; allow change in a controlled manner to limit movement; decide not to maintain existing defences or build new defences.

Climate hotspot: sea level rise threatens millions in Mekong Delta rice belt

noreply@blogger.com (Rolph Payet) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 05:45:00 +0000

From: The Ecologist

Some 60 million people depend on the Mekong River for their livelihoods but sea level rise and severe weather puts the area at risk, as Gratianne Quade's unique film shows

The Mekong River flows through six countries-originating in the Tibetan Plateau, it runs through Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and finally meets the ocean at the Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam.

It irrigates and fertilises the world's biggest rice-exporting fields, provides 20 per cent of the world's freshwater fish-yield, and generates thousands of megawatts of electricity via hydropower dams.

It is estimated that more than 60 million people depend on the river for their livelihood.

Tran Mai Kien PhD, Climate Change Programme Officer, Environment Division, Mekong River Commission says, 'The biggest challenges due to climate change that the Mekong region faces are sea level rise and the changes in weather patterns and the increase of intensity and frequency of natural disasters. And water resources will be a serious problem for the next century'.

According to a study released by the Earth Institute at Columbia University, a one meter sea level rise could displace some 7 million people in the Mekong Delta.

The film was produced by Gratianne Quade

Spending and Market-Based Tools to Address Sea-Level Rise in Hawaii (Part 3)

noreply@blogger.com (Rolph Payet) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 05:37:00 +0000

From: Honolulu Civil Beat

Editor's note: This is the final installment of a three-part series on how Hawaii should address climate change and sea-level rise.

Part 1 of this editorial series introduced climate change and sea-level rise adaptation and highlighted three major recommendations for state action to facilitate preparations for sea-level rise. Part 2 discussed planning and regulatory tools for initiating sea-level rise adaptation in Hawai‘i at the state and county level. This segment discusses spending and market-based tools and provides a conclusion to this three-part series.

Spending Tools

Capital Improvement Programs. Hawai‘i state and local governments provide funding for capital improvement programs (CIPs) to invest in transportation, schools, parks, and other public projects. By executive order or legislation, the state could require state agencies to consider a range of sea-level rise scenarios when siting and designing CIPs, similar to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ method for planning and developing its civil works programs. This would promote public safety and efficient use of taxpayer dollars.
Land Acquisitions and Conservation Easements. The state Legacy Land Conservation Program, often in partnership with private and non-profit land trusts, acquires and conserves land for public purposes such as watershed protection, beach access, protection of cultural and historical sites, habitat protection, parks and recreation, and agriculture. When selecting acquisition and conservation lands, decision-makers could consider areas vulnerable to inundation due to flooding and sea-level rise, which could protect public health and safety while also preserving open space along the shoreline.

Market-Based Tools

Mandatory Real Estate Disclosures. State law requires sellers of residential real property to disclose certain material facts, such as flood insurance and utility bill information, to prospective buyers. For coastal real property sales, the law could require disclosure of available site-specific erosion and sea-level rise information (i.e., data and maps). This approach would allow prospective buyers to better weigh the costs and benefits of obtaining property located in hazardous areas.
Transfer of Development Rights Programs. Transfer of development rights (TDR) programs allow landowners to sell their rights to develop properties located where development is less desirable (in this case, makai areas) to individuals owning properties located where development is more desirable (in this case, mauka areas). Buyers may use credits to exceed building requirements such as density, floor area, and height. Maui County is currently considering a TDR program to acquire shoreline lands and encourage landward development. Other counties could likewise research and consider TDR programs for sea-level rise adaptation. This approach, as opposed to a strictly regulatory approach, could fulfill planning goals for retreat while also addressing coastal property owner concerns regarding property rights and values.
Tax Incentives. Various state laws incentivize renewable energy and energy efficiency to reduce climate emissions and dependency on imported oil. To encourage sea-level rise adaptation, the state could incentivize landward relocation, retrofitting that increases flood resiliency, siting new development in upland areas, and conserving open space and natural flood buffers along the shoreline.

Conclusion

Adaptation to sea-level rise requires leadership and bold action by Hawai‘i state and local governments. Decision-makers can utilize a wide range of policy tools and measures to shape Hawai‘i’s plans for coastlines over the coming decades. Some tools — such as shoreline construction setbacks, zoning, capital improvement programs, and mandatory real estate disclosures — are well established and widely employed. With the necessary data and maps, decision-makers can integrate these policy tools to prepare appropriately.

Emerging and innovative approaches to sea-level rise adaptation such as rolling easements statutes and TDR programs, though not commonly applied in Hawai‘i, offer robust and flexible options for planners and decision-makers. When facing barriers and political opposition to implementing these measures, decision-makers could consider how inaction would negatively impact public health and safety and Hawai‘i’s unique natural and cultural resources.

Several factors outside the Hawai‘i state and local regulatory scheme also could influence sea-level rise adaptation. For example, the private insurance industry is currently assessing climate change impacts on policies for weather-related damage, which could affect coverage and rates in hazard-prone areas such as Florida. Additionally, if the Federal Emergency Management Agency updates Flood Insurance Rate Maps to incorporate climate change sea-level rise projections, many state and county regulations also would require updates.

Climate change presents some of the greatest and most complex challenges of our time. Regardless of how we address climate change and sea-level rise, we must bear in mind that our approaches will require flexibility to accommodate new science and information as well as collaboration across many sectors and disciplines. With strong leadership and careful planning backed by best-available science, Hawai‘i could serve as a global model of sound hazard resiliency for present and future generations.

Hawaii Planning and Regulatory Tools To Adapt to Sea-Level Rise ( Part 2)

noreply@blogger.com (Rolph Payet) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 05:34:00 +0000

From: Honololulu Civil Beat

Editor's note: This is the second installment of a three-part series on how Hawaii should address climate change and sea-level rise. To read Part 1, click here. To read Part 3, click here.

Part 1 of this editorial series introduced climate change and sea-level rise adaptation and highlighted three major recommendations for state action to facilitate preparations for sea-level rise: adopting a sea-level rise planning benchmark, expanding climate research, and designating an agency to lead adaptation efforts. This segment details planning and regulatory tools for initiating sea-level rise adaptation.

Planning Tools

State and county decision-makers could consider using three existing planning tools — the Hawaii Coastal Zone Management Act (HCZMA), Comprehensive Plans (i.e., state plans, county general plans, and sustainable community plans), and Pre-Disaster Mitigation Plans — to prepare for sea-level rise.

Hawai‘i Coastal Zone Management Act. The HCZMA, codified in Chapter 205A of the Hawai ‘i Revised Statutes, is an important planning tool for regulating development and land use within the coastal zone. The Act already contains objectives and policies for protecting life and property from coastal hazards and storm surge but could be amended to more directly address sea-level rise impacts. For example, South Carolina’s Coastal Zone Management Act now includes policies for retreating from the coastline to adapt to erosion caused by sea-level rise. In Rhode Island, the Coastal Resources Management Program requires consideration of 3 to 5 feet of sea-level rise by 2100 in siting, designing, and implementing coastal activities.

Comprehensive Plans. State, county, and community plans could similarly address sea-level rise. The State Office of Planning’s proposed climate change adaptation priority guidelines for the 2012 legislative session could represent an important first step for initiating statewide adaptation planning. In 2010, Maui County included policies for addressing sea-level rise into the county general plan.

Pre-Disaster Mitigation Plans. Under the Pre-Disaster Mitigation (PDM) program, the Federal Emergency Management Agency provides funding to state and local governments to develop plans for preparing for and building resiliency to natural hazards. The state and four counties have participated in the program in various capacities. PDM plans could account for sea-level rise and climate change, which worsen existing coastal hazards such as erosion and flooding.

Regulatory Tools

ICAP has also identified fourteen regulatory tools for addressing sea-level rise. These tools are: zoning and overlay zones, floodplain regulations, shoreline construction setbacks, coastal construction control lines, hard armoring, rebuilding restrictions, building codes and resilient design, subdivision approvals, cluster development, land development conditions, environmental review, rolling easement statutes, non-structural armoring, and buffer zones. The following highlights a handful of tools that decision-makers could begin using now as well as those that could be effective with further information or research.

Regulatory Tools to Implement Now.

Shoreline Construction Setbacks. Setbacks indicate the closest distance to the shoreline where development may be permitted. Decision-makers could replace the state maximum setback of 40 feet with setbacks that incorporate not only variable rates of shoreline erosion and the lifespan of structures, as Maui and Kaua‘i counties have already done, but also sea-level rise due to climate change. This would build resiliency to current and future coastal erosion by keeping development at a safe and scientifically-based distance from the shoreline.
Building Codes and Resilient Design. State and county building codes and National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) resilient design standards include detailed requirements for building within coastal areas. These regulations could account for future increases in sea level and flooding by requiring or incentivizing more protective building practices such as increased ground-floor elevation. Under the NFIP Community Rating System, homeowners can qualify for insurance discounts and credits when counties adopt floodplain management regulations that are more stringent than federal requirements.
Cluster Development. Cluster development ordinances allow concentrated development in certain areas of a tract in exchange for preserving open space. In general, the counties allow cluster development to promote economical use of services and utilities and affordable housing development. The counties could amend ordinances to allow cluster development for the purpose of accommodating increased inundation due to sea-level rise. For example, counties could grant density bonuses for developing upland areas of a tract in exchange for preserving low-lying makai areas as open space. This approach would provide incentives for developing further landward.

Regulatory Tools Requiring Further Information or Research.

Sea-Level Rise Zoning and Overlay Zones. Once the necessary research, data, and mapping becomes available so that decision-makers can identify vulnerable areas and infrastructure on a site-specific basis, the counties could consider adopting sea-level rise overlay zones for regulating shoreline development. The counties could designate: (1) protection zones, or areas containing critical infrastructure and dense urban development, where coastal armoring such as sea-walls would be permitted; (2) accommodation zones, or areas where new development would be limited and subject to more protective design requirements; (3) retreat zones, or areas where coastal armoring would be prohibited and landowners would be encouraged to relocate upland; and (4) preservation zones, or areas where natural flood buffers such as sand dunes and wetlands would be preserved and restored. This type of zoning regime would allow decision-makers to tailor adaptation approaches to accommodate area-specific resources and vulnerabilities.
Coastal Construction Control Lines. Coastal construction control lines (CCCLs) could be useful for ensuring safe development along beaches subject to fluctuations such as Kailua Beach, which has been experiencing accretion in some parts and erosion in others. Under current setback laws, building lines fluctuate with shoreline changes so that if accretion occurs, structures may be built farther seaward, thus increasing exposure to coastal hazards. CCCLs could resolve these problems because, unlike setbacks, CCCLS are fixed and pre-recorded construction lines that do not change with shoreline fluctuations. The Kailua Beach and Dune Management Plan provides a model for developing CCCL programs, where appropriate, in Hawai‘i.
Rolling Easement Statutes. The term rolling easement refers to a combination of land use policies that: (1) allow beaches and wetlands to migrate landward, (2) restrict hard armoring, and (3) promote removal of structures and retreat from the coastline. These elements can be achieved by combining various policy tools. Texas, South Carolina, Rhode Island, and Maine have adopted rolling easement policies. If a more comprehensive approach to retreating from the coastline is desired, decision-makers could research implementing a rolling easement policy to meet Hawai‘i’s unique needs and circumstances.

State leadership, particularly the three major recommendations for state action discussed in Part 1 of this series, would support many of these planning and regulatory tools. Decision-makers could begin implementing management tools that address imminent threats to life and safety while keeping others in mind for addressing long-term risks posed by continued climate change.