Research Blitz – Science for Adaptation Planning

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I’m en route to the Friday Harbor Labs for a much anticipated research blitz – a 72 hour research intensive with fellow graduate students in the IGERT Program on Ocean Change (IPOC). Over the course of the coming weekend, we hope to make considerable progress on an interdisciplinary collaboration we started last fall. Our objective: Use a case study approach to identify how scientists can best support the planning process undertaken by coastal cities as they adapt to rising sea level.

From the IPCC's 2013 Report (see link in text)
From the IPCC’s 2013 Report (see link in text)

For many years now, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes (IPCC) and concerned scientists have warned of the impending rise of global sea level and the risks it poses to coastal communities, particularly in high density, urban areas. Projections published by the IPCC in 2013 suggest that sea level could increase by more than 3 feet by the end of the century. But more recent research suggests that the threat may be much more extreme and immediate in some locations due to geographic unevenness in the rate at which sea level is rising. Cities like Miami are already beginning to experience periodic inundation from the surrounding ocean, and record-breaking storm surge events like that from Hurricane Sandy now pose considerable risks to New York and other low-lying metropolitan areas. For many coastal cities, sea level rise is no longer a possibility in the distant future; it’s a process that is already underway, with very real social and economic consequences.

The question many coastal cities therefore face is not how to prevent sea level from rising, but how to adapt to the additional increase we’re already fairly certain will occur. Adaptation plans are under development in most major coastal cities, with the Dutch leading the pack. Many of these plans employ both traditional engineering solutions, like the construction or reinforcement of seawalls and dikes, as well as “soft engineering” approaches, such as restoring wetlands that serve as barriers from encroaching seas. Though economists, social scientists, policy buffs, and the design and urban planning community have already made extensive research contributions to the field of adaptation planning, we’d like to know what more natural scientists (climatologists, oceanographers, biologists, ecologists) could do to help.

Adapting to sea level rise will most certainly require creative approaches that draw on expertise from a wide range of disciplines. What better way to learn about adaptation planning and the science behind it than with an interdisciplinary group of IPOC fellows!

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