Mapping Out Climate Change: Assessing How Coastal Communities Adapt Using Alternative Future Scenarios
Authored by Eva Lipiec, Peter Ruggiero, Alexis Mills, Katherine A Serafin, John Bolte, Patrick Corcoran, John Stevenson, Chad Zanocco, Denise Lach
Date Published: 2018
DOI: 10.2112/jcoastres-d-17-00115.1
Sponsors:
United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
Platforms:
Envision
Model Documentation:
Other Narrative
Model Code URLs:
Model code not found
Abstract
Coastal communities are increasingly experiencing climate change-induced
coastal disasters and chronic flooding and erosion. Decision makers and
the public alike are struggling to reconcile the lack of ``fit{''}
between a rapidly changing environment and relatively rigid governance
structures. In efforts to bridge this environment-governance gap in
Tillamook County, Oregon, stakeholders formed a knowledge-to-action
network (KTAN). The KTAN examined alternative future coastal policy and
climate scenarios through extensive stakeholder engagement and the
spatially explicit agent-based modeling framework Envision. The KTAN's
results were further evaluated through a two-step mixed methods
approach. First, KTAN-identified metrics were quantitatively assessed
and compared under present-day vs. alternative policy scenarios. Second,
the feasibility of implementing these policy scenarios was qualitatively
evaluated through a review of governmental regulations and
semistructured interviews. The findings show that alternative policy
scenarios ranged from significantly beneficial to extremely harmful to
coastal buildings and beach accessibility in comparison to present-day
policies, and they were relatively feasible to almost impossible to
implement. Beneficial policies that lower impacts of flooding and
erosion clearly diverge from the existing regulatory environment, which
inhibits their implementation. In response, leadership and cross-sector
cooperation and coordination can help to overcome mixed interests and
motivations, and increase information exchange between and within the
public and government organizations. The combination of stakeholder
engagement, an alternative futures modeling framework, and the robust
quantitative and qualitative evaluation of policy scenarios provides a
powerful model for coastal communities hoping to adapt to climate change
along any coastline.
Tags
Adaptation
Climate change
vulnerability
governance
resilience
Scenario planning
Capacity
Sea-level rise
Change impacts
El-nino
Pacific
Coastal hazards
Envision
Coastal futures
Oregon coast
Tillamook county
Wave climate
Water levels