Coastal Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerabilities - Climate ...

Physical Climate Forces 17maintain land that would otherwise be claimed by the sea (Titus et al., 2009). Nevertheless,land elevation, determined from high resolution data such as LiDAR, is a usefulindicator of potential vulnerability.Table 2-1 shows regional and state-specific estimates of the area of land low enoughto become inundated by a 1 meter rise in sea level, from published multi-state studies.The table includes much of the U.S. but excludes regions where data for analyses werelimited. Those studies generally distinguish possible tidal flooding of dry land that isless than 1 meter above high tide from inundation of tidal wetlands that are already inundatedat high tide but might convert to open water with a higher sea level. The statesof Louisiana, Florida, and North Carolina each have more than one thousand square kilometersof dry land less than 1 meter above high tide; in the case of Louisiana, much ofthis low land is already below mean sea level and kept habitable by dikes and pumpingsystems. Considering also low-lying coastal wetlands, every state along the Atlantic andGulf Coast from New Jersey to Texas has at least 1000 square kilometers that could besubmerged by a 1 meter rise in sea level, except for the three states with relatively shortcoastlines: Delaware, Mississippi, and Alabama.Table 2-1: Dry Land and Total Land Area Less than One Meter above High Waterby State and Region (square kilometers)Dry land 1 All Land 2ElevationSourceSample of USGS andNational Elev.Printed maps local dataDataset (2012)(1991) 3 (2009) 54Sample of USGS USGS and(1991) 3 (2001) 6 (2009) 4Printed maps 1-degree data local dataNortheastME – – 54 – 383 420NH – – 5 – 42 47MA – 110 86 – 365 459RI – 8 11 – 122 38CT – 30 27 – 63 106Mid-AtlanticNY – 90–218 155 – 240 244–379NJ – 148–365 174 – 1083 1231–1564PA – 11–33 7 – 3 18–44DE – 84–158 90 – 388 465–553MD – 326–570 410 – 1547 1539–1832DC – 3–4 2 – 2 3–5VA – 189–479 315 – 969 1881–2265