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

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Physical Climate Forces 37this difference in understanding the quantitative value of the current model predictionsis important.2.5 Relative Vulnerability of CoastsThe key factors governing the relative vulnerability of U.S. coastal regions include thephysical setting of specific areas, including their geology, geomorphology, and oceanographiccharacteristics, and the relevant climate and non-climate drivers. The coastlineof the U.S. and its territories is highly diverse, ranging from arctic permafrost cliffs tomid-latitude barrier islands to low-lying tropical atolls. The broad geographic distributionof U.S. and territorial coastal environments also means that climate and non-climatechange drivers are similarly diverse, varying in form and magnitude at regional scales.Assessing coastal vulnerability in this context is challenging because of the many factorsinvolved. Understanding how the coast will change in the future requires knowledge ofphysical, chemical, biological, and social processes that describe landscape and habitatchanges and of societal adaptation abilities. Coastal vulnerability assessments thus requirea multidisciplinary approach that evaluates the joint probability of a wide varietyof global change impacts and societal responses; however, current vulnerability assessmentstypically focus on only one variable such as elevation or rate of shoreline change.Physical SettingA number of studies have classified the physical setting of the U.S. coastal zone for purposesof developing vulnerability assessments (Gornitz, 1990, 1991; Shaw et al., 1998;Thieler & Hammar-Klose, 1999, 2000a, b). Variables such as geology, geomorphology, elevation,shoreline change rate, sea-level rise rate, and wave and tide regime among otherfactors are used to describe the coast according to increasing vulnerability to changedue to sea-level rise. A simple mathematical formula relates the different variables andis used to calculate an index value. This method combines estimates of the coastal system’ssusceptibility to change with its natural ability to adapt to changing environmentalconditions, yielding an objective, quantitative measure of the system’s vulnerabilityto sea-level rise. This approach has been applied to a number of locations worldwide;some applications include the addition of societal data and location-specific physicalvariables (Aboudha & Woodroffe, 2010; Boruff et al., 2005; Ozyurt & Ergin, 2010; Pendletonet al., 2010).Climate and Non-Climate DriversCoastal change is driven by a number of important factors (Table 2-3) that affect thelandscape as well as biological systems such as wetlands and coral reefs. The climatedrivers will have a non-uniform spatial and temporal influence across the U.S. and itsterritories. For example, the location of future ice-sheet melting (e.g., Greenland vs. Antarctica)will affect the gravitational distribution of water in the oceans, such that someareas far from the meltwater source will experience greater sea-level rise (Bamber et al.,2009; Mitrovica et al., 2009; Riva et al., 2010). Regional variations in ocean warming andcirculation may also enhance or reduce the amount of sea-level rise along the coast (Huet al., 2008; Yin et al., 2009). Other climate drivers such as CO2concentration may change
38 Coastal Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerabilitiesthe rate at which coastal wetlands and coral reefs can accrete (Hoegh-Guldberg et al.,2007; Langley et al., 2009).Non-climate drivers (Table 2-3) will have largely regional effects. For example, damconstruction in the Mississippi River basin has reduced sediment loads such that theMississippi delta may experience significant future land loss (Blum & Roberts, 2009).Near-instantaneous events such as earthquakes can result in a meter or more of verticalland movement and associated shoreline displacement (Peterson et al., 2000).Table 2-3: Climate and non-climate drivers of coastal changeClimate DriversSea level change• Waves and Currents• Winds• Storminess (frequency, intensity,track)Atmospheric CO 2ConcentrationAtmospheric TemperatureWater Properties (temperature, pH,turbidity, salinity)Sediment SupplyGroundwater AvailabilityNon-Climate DriversTidesVertical Land Movement (tectonic, glacialisostatic, sediment compaction, fluidwithdrawal)Coseismic Uplift or SubsidenceTsunamiHuman Development and ManagementActionsAssessment ResultsMost current global and U.S.-based coastal vulnerability assessments have focused onsea-level rise (Nicholls et al., 2007). Initial assessments of the relative vulnerability of U.S.coastal environments to future sea-level rise (Gornitz, 1990; Thieler & Hammar-Klose,1999, 2000a, b) were based on index values determined from coastal characteristics anddid not explicitly incorporate future sea-level change or other climate and non-climatedrivers. More recently, as large and consistent datasets have become available, assessmentshave focused on coastal elevations relative to potential future sea-level rise (Weisset al., 2011; Figure 2-12). Knowles (2010) used both elevation data and a model of hydrodynamicforcing to assess potential future inundation in the San Francisco Bay region;however, a number of limitations of the simple-inundation approach should be noted,including lack of vertical accuracy in coastal elevation data and inability to distinguishlocations where inundation will not be the principal response to sea-level rise (Gesch,2009; Gesch et al., 2009; Knowles, 2010; Weiss et al., 2010).Vulnerability assessments of coastal environments such as cliffed coasts are not currentlywidespread, but the data and modeling frameworks exist to develop future assessments(Ashton et al., 2011; Hampton & Griggs, 2004; Hapke & Plant, 2010). Recent work(Gutierrez et al., 2011; Figures 2-8 and 2-9) has sought to present coastal vulnerabilityassessment in a probabilistic fashion. This approach takes advantage of the uncertainty
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National Climate Assessment Regiona
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© 2012 The National Oceanic and At
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Coastal Impacts, Adaptation,and Vul
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Chapter 3Lead Author: Carlton H. He
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ContentsKey TermsAcronymsCommunicat
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ReferencesAbuodha, P. & Woodroffe,
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