CNH-L: Climate Change Adaptation in a Coupled Geomorphic-Economic Coastal System

ABSTRACT

A non-technical description explaining the broader significance of the project

This project will analyze the ways in which coastal processes and economic decisions about land use and coastal engineering interact to determine the nature and timing of adaptation to climate risk. It addresses the interactions of natural forces, economic decisions, and public policies over long time horizons to determine how the built environment and patterns of human settlement react to rising seas and related coastline changes. These issues are of concern to a significant part of the US population, especially along the East Coast and Gulf of Mexico, that faces persistent flooding and storm damage. A fundamental aim of this research is to provide knowledge and tools to look further forward in time in responding to coastal and environmental changes. The results will advance knowledge about how beaches and coastal environments react to various storm-related scenarios. It will also provide insight into how real-estate markets react to complex changes in environmental conditions, public policies, scientific knowledge, and individual attitudes and values.

A technical description of the project

Changing climatic and geomorphological processes are likely to increase risks of living at the coast in the future and to increase the value of reducing those risks through engineering. However, the same factors will tend to elevate the cost and decrease the certainty of the effectiveness of those engineering actions. These dynamics may eventually make it too expensive to continue coastal habitation in its current forms. Coupled choices about modifications to the natural and built environment will determine not only the characteristics of coastal communities but also the nature of transitions to less inhabited or uninhabited states. Natural systems will be represented by state-of-the-art three-dimensional coastal geomorphology models to significantly improve predictions about the way coastal systems evolve over time. The economic system will be investigated through a novel specification of the property markets in two US east coast communities and will be informed by surveys and qualitative research into residents' knowledge of risks and preferences for coastal amenities and infrastructure. The project will investigate the way that public policies, including government-managed insurance, engineering projects, disaster relief, and infrastructure, will impact both economic decisions and the coastal environment. The resulting modeling structure will be a significant step forward in modeling community-environment interactions in response to climate change over long time scales, and the code and model structure will be made both accessible for additional research and policy decisions.