COASTAL HAZARDS - Aquarium of the Pacific · Condition: Ocean Health and Human Health. There is also a series of briefer reports on film-making, kiosk messaging design, and communicating

COASTAL HAZARDSToo Many People Living Too Close

To The Edge Of A Rising Sea

A Growing Challenge For The 21st Century

This Report Is Part Of The Ocean On The Edge Series Produced By The Aquarium Of The Pacific As Products Of Its National Conference—Ocean On The Edge: Top Ocean Issues, May 2009

2 C O A S T A L H A Z A R D S

3C O A S T A L H A Z A R D S

The conference brought together leading marine scientists and engineers, policy-makers, film-makers, exhibit designers, informal science educators, journalists and communicators to develop a portfolio of models for communicating major ocean issues to the public. This report is one of a series of reports from that conference. The reports include: Coastal Hazards, Marine Ecosystems and Fisheries, Pollution in the Ocean, and Critical Condition: Ocean Health and Human Health. There is also a series of briefer reports on film-making, kiosk messaging design, and communicating science to the public. All reports are available at www.aquariumofpacific.org

Ocean on the Edge: Top Ocean IssuesMaking Ocean Issues Come Alive for the Public



Support for the “Ocean on the Edge Conference: Top Ocean Issues” was provided by NOAA, the National Science Foundation, Southern California Edison, SAVOR, the Long Beach Convention Center, and the Aquarium of the Pacific.

We are grateful to the Conference’s National Advisory Panel that provided valuable guid-ance in selecting participants and in review-ing sections of this report. Members are listed in Appendix A.

This report is based very loosely on the report, “Coastal Hazards” published by the National Academies in their Ocean Science Series which formed the starting point of discussion at the Aquarium of the Pacific’s Conference, “Ocean on the Edge: Top Ocean

Issues” held in May 2009, at Long Beach Convention Center. Participants in the Coastal Hazards workshop session included: Dr. Robert Dean, Dr. R. A. Dalrymple, Dr. Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Jr., Dr. Jerry R. Schubel, and Dana Swanson. Sandy Eslinger was the facilitator of the session. Leah Young and Margaret Schubel were the rapporteurs.

The report was reviewed by Dr. Orrin Pilkey, William Sargent, Julie Thomas, Doug Harper, and Adam Stein all of whom also provided text boxes to enhance the report.

Acknowledgements


D. James Baker

Tom Bowman

John Byrne

Michael Connor

James Cortina

Joseph Cortina

Robert Dalrymple

Lynn Dierking

William Eichbaum

John Falk

Alan Friedman

Martha Grabowski

Mary Nichol

William Patzert

Shirley Pomponi

William Reeburgh

Jonathan Sharp

National Advisory Panel


Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Setting the Stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Sea Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

What’s Different? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

The Big Unknown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Like Politics, All Sea Level Rise is Local . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Increasing Vulnerability to Risk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

The Higher the Sea, The Higher the Risk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Areas at Greatest Risk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Atolls: The Canaries in the Mine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

The Allure of the Coastal Zone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Hurricanes and Other Coastal Storms: A Growing Threat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Some Places and People are at Greater Risk Than Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

How Will Global Climate Change Affect Hurricanes and

Other Tropical Storms?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Coastal Populations at Risk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Adapting to a New Normal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Policies to Nudge Us in the Right Direction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Resilient Coastal Communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Inundation Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

The Roles of Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

The Roles of Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Closing Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Appendix A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Recommended Readings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Appendix B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Conference Participants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Table of Contents



The Earth and the ocean are warming. Gla-ciers and ice sheets are melting. The addi-tion of new water and the expansion of the warming upper ocean are causing sea level to rise—worldwide. This is nothing new. Sea level has been rising since the end of the last ice age, about 18,000 years ago. Throughout geologic time sea level has risen and fallen. It has been higher than today, and lower than today. The shoreline, and coastal ecosystems including beaches, wetlands, mangrove for-ests, and barrier islands have advanced and retreated laterally with the rising and falling sea. For nearly all of human history, some 100,000-200,000 years, humans have moved with the shoreline.

But something is different now. More than half of the 6.8 billion people worldwide live near the coast. Hundreds of millions live in low-lying coastal areas. We have built houses, hotels, condominiums, office buildings, stores, factories …entire communities, in-cluding large cities, along with the infrastruc-ture—highways, railways, subways, water and wastewater treatment and distribution systems, and electric generating facilities—needed to support them, all at the edge of an increasingly restless sea.

In this brief document we explore sea level rise and inundation—the causes and conse-quences, the prognosis for the future, and what can be done to decrease vulnerability and risk to make coastal communities more resilient. We draw upon a large number of sources but two in particular: the NAS report, Coastal Hazards (2007) in the Ocean Sci-ence Series; and the Proceedings from the Sea Level Rise and Inundation Community Workshop (2010) sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and facilitated by the Aquarium of the Pacific in December 2009.1

Introduction

1. Recommended readings are listed in Appendix A.



Sea Level Sea level has been rising for the past 18,000-20,000 years, since the end of the last ice age, but something is different now. Climate change is causing sea level to rise more rap-idly and the number of people, the number and value of structures, and the number of natural environments at risk, are far greater now than at any time in human history.

Over the past century, sea level rose world-wide by about 7 inches. Over this century it may rise by 3 feet, 5 feet, or much more depending upon how much of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets melt.2 Both ice sheets are melting faster than scientists predicted just a few years ago. Even the lower bound of most sea level rise estimates will have cata-strophic impacts on low-lying coastal areas of the world that are home to about 10% of the world’s population.

Sea level rise is driven by two processes as-sociated with global warming—the expansion of the ocean as it warms and the addition of new water from melting of glaciers and continental ice sheets. Over the past few de-cades the contributions from each have been roughly the same. But that will probably

Setting the Stage

2. IPCC 2009

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Source: Wikimedia Commons


change well before the end of this century as more melt water is added to the ocean.

For every degree Fahrenheit the upper ocean warms, it expands between 0.5 foot and 1 foot. For every foot it rises vertically, the sea advances laterally. The inundation ranges from very little where the coast is made up of steep vertical cliffs such as along parts of the west coast of the U.S. to several thousand feet where the coast is low-lying and gently sloping such as along the Gulf and Southeast coasts of the U.S. To exacerbate the problem, both the Gulf and Southeast regions are sink-ing so the effective rise of sea level in these regions is greater than the global average.3

The rising sea is invading low-lying coastal lands, eroding coastal cliffs and beaches, intensifying coastal flooding, and invading coastal groundwater supplies. The effects of the inexorable rise of the sea is punctuated

by storms. Oceanic storms of all kinds—hurricanes, typhoons, Nor’easters, and cyclones—produce greater damage when superimposed upon a higher standing sea, both because of greater damage from waves and particularly from increased storm surges. There is growing scientific evidence that global warming is increasing the intensity and probably the frequency of tropical storms—hurricanes and typhoons.

What’s Different? Sea level has risen and fallen throughout geo-logic history. Continental ice sheets waxed and waned throughout the most recent Gla-cial Epoch, the Pleistocene, which extended from 1.8 million years ago to about 18,000 years ago. The rise and fall of the sea in response to the retreats and advances of the great ice sheets was part of nature’s rhythm, and part of the early human experience. Humans first appeared on the evolutionary

Beach Erosion: Esplanade Drive in Pacifica, California from 1997 to 1998. Dur-ing the 1997 to 1998 El Niño season, California’s coastlines were hit by major beach erosion caus-ing millions of dollars in damage.

NASA/Goddard Space flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio.

3. You can find predictions of sea level rise for individual properties by going to http://www.floodsmart.gov and

typing in your address.


stage between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago, and it took until about 200 years ago for the population to reach one billion.

Since the end of the last ice age, sea level has been rising in response to the release of melt water from the retreating glaciers. It has risen roughly 400 feet over that time with almost all of that coming before 8,000 years ago when the rate of rise averaged about 5.5 inches/decade. From 3,000 years ago until the beginning of the 19th century, the rate of sea level rise was only about 0.05 inches per decade—one-tenth the rate over the previous 10,000 years. Over the past century, global sea level rose about 7 inches. Within the past few decades the rate of rise has increased.

The Big Unknown The largest unknown in future sea level rise is the rate of melting of the ice sheets of Green-land and Antarctica. They contain 75% of the world’s fresh water.

• IfallofGreenlandweretomelt,globalsea level would rise 23 feet.4

• TheWesternAntarcticIceSheetisthesmaller of the two Antarctic Ice sheets, but is by far the more unstable and could cause sea level to rise 16 feet by 2100 if it were to melt entirely.

Once these ice sheets start to disintegrate, and they have, the process can proceed rapidly with little warning. Unlike the rise associated with expansion from warming, the disintegration of ice sheets and the addition of melt water to the ocean is non-linear.

Like Politics, All Sea Level Rise is Local It is important to distinguish between world-wide changes in sea level, so-called eustatic sea level, which affects the entire world ocean, and regional changes in sea level. The latter are relative to benchmarks on land. If the land is moving up or down because of

4. Herring, D. (2005) Time on the shelf. Earth Observatory. Retrieved October 29, 2009, from http://earthobser-

vatory.nasa.gov/Features/TimeShelf/

Source of data modified from CLIMAP isotopic data summarized in chart is from Ice Ages by John Embris and Katherine Imbrie, 1979.


geologic processes, that alters how people on land observe and experience the change in the level of the sea. For example, for people living along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, the regional rise of sea level is much greater than the global-average because the entire Gulf coast is sinking. On the other hand, in some parts of Alaska sea level appears to be falling because the land is rising more rapidly than the sea. This is caused by rebound of the land associated with melting of glacial ice and decrease in weight on the land.

The direction of global sea level change for the foreseeable future is clear. It is up. There is less agreement on how much it will rise or how rapidly it will rise. The uncertainty comes primarily from the uncertainty of what will happen to the Greenland and Ant-

arctic ice sheets. Science tells us that the rate of rise will be more rapid than it has been in at least the past 3,000 years and that before the end of this century, humans will have to adapt to a higher sea.


Increasing Vulnerability To Risk

The Higher The Sea, The Higher The Risk Living near the coast always involves risk, and a higher sea makes it even riskier. The increased risk comes primarily from the chronic effects of inundation and accelerated coastal erosion. On the East and Gulf Coasts a primary concern is the episodic effects of storm surges superimposed upon a higher sea. Any significant increase in sea level can dramatically increase the destructive power of storm surges. On the West Coast, high tides and energetic waves are the driving force for inundation. A rise in sea level also increases the intrusion of salt water into coastal groundwater supplies.

Before humans, natural coastal environ-ments, such as wetlands, mangrove forests and coral reefs, moved laterally to keep pace with the rising—or falling—sea. But hu-mans have blocked the natural movements of beaches, dunes, salt marshes and other coastal environments with roads, bridges, and an increasing number of structures—all part of the infrastructure to accommodate a growing human population along the coast. So not only are human systems at risk from a rising sea, but natural coastal ecosystems as well. Most have nowhere to go.

A growing number of oceanographers and climate scientists are convinced that the intensity, and perhaps the frequency, of tropical storms, hurricanes and typhoons,

will increase as the Earth continues to warm. Many believe that in about 1995 we moved into a different domain of intensity, and per-haps frequency, of tropical storms.

This combination—a higher sea and in-creased storm activity—increases the risk of living in the coastal zone and underscores the urgency of taking measures to assess coastal hazards and to reduce vulnerability. Beginning with a rise of 2-3 feet, our nation will be physically under siege. Long before then, we will need to have executed plans on how to respond.

Kiribati, the Maldives, the Marshall Islands, Tokelau, and Tuvalu are all Island Nations threatened by the rising sea.


The toll taken by the relentless rise of the sea over decades will be punctuated by storm surge events during extreme storms like Katrina that will devour large sections of the coast and everything in its path. Imagine Hurricane Katrina (August 2005) or the Indo-nesian tsunami (December 2004) if sea level had been 3 feet higher.

Nature has built-in buffering capacity against major storms and storm surges. But in many places we have removed or degraded nature’s protective buffers—wetlands, mangrove forests, coral reefs, and offshore sand bars—all of which dissipate the energy of the sea. Many have been destroyed to make way for coastal development. In southern California we drained and filled more than 95% of our wetlands. These actions have increased the vulnerability of coastal communities world-wide.

Areas at Greatest Risk The countries facing the most immediate challenges are island nations such as the Marshall Islands, the Maldives, Tuvalu, and Kirabati; deltaic countries such as Egypt, the Netherlands, and Bangladesh; and countries with large, low-lying, heavily developed coastal plains such as the United States, Bra-zil, and China.

Among the most vulnerable areas are low-lying delta regions such as those in Louisi-ana, Vietnam, Myanmar, Bangladesh, and Egypt. Even at the lower bound of projected sea level rise, the effects of a higher sea on these areas will be profound. Tens of millions of people worldwide will have to move to es-cape the advancing sea. Entire communities will have to be relocated to higher ground. Everything and everyone in the path of the rising sea is vulnerable.

Ninety percent of Bangladesh is made up of floodplain and delta. The Meghna River is formed by the confluence of Asia’s two larg-est rivers—the Ganges and the Brahmaputra. In 1970 and 1991 storm surges caused by tropical cyclones killed an estimated 500,000 and 140,000 Bangladesh residents respec-tively. And floods in 1992 and 1998 flooded more than half the country’s land area. It’s clear that a rising sea poses a daunting chal-lenge for Bangladesh. It has been estimated that at least 15 million of the nation’s popu-lation will become environmental refugees before 2100.

Major parts of nations, such as Indonesia, will be drowned. Some countries facing submergence can retreat inland to higher ground, but others have no place to go.

Village of Shishmaref, Alaska before the storm (below left) and after the storm (below right). Images courtesy of Nome Nugget Newspaper.


Atolls: The Canaries In The MineAtolls are the circular islands of coral found in tropical waters of the South Pacific and Indian Oceans. Charles Darwin correctly theorized that the islands originated as coral reefs on the sides of sinking volcanoes. As the volcano disappeared beneath the waves, the coral grew upward remaining as a ring shaped chain of small islands separated by inlets.

The typical atoll has a flat living area next to the lagoon, 3 to 4 ft in elevation. The seaward or out-ward facing edge of the atoll, consists of a mound of coral fragments, tossed ashore during storms. This outer ridge may have elevations of 10 to 20 feet but is generally not habitable because of its ex-posure to storm waves. Most atoll islands support small populations of a few hundred souls but the total populations of the nations (each consisting of several widely spaced atolls) range from 2,000 (Tokeau) to 10,000 (Tuvalu) to 269,000 (the Maldives). These tiny countries have few resources with which to respond to sea level rise and have no high ground for escape. The only possible response to sea level rise is abandonment of their islands along with some of their traditions and their way of life.

Already a number of atolls are suffering from salinization of ground water. On some Marshall Island communities, crops are grown in abandoned oil drums to avoid the salty soils. This loss of freshwa-ter supply will likely drive the inhabitants away well before the sea level rise inundates them. Resi-dents of the Carteret atolls have already been moved to Papua, New Guinea, Tuvalu has a refugee arrangement with New Zealand and The Maldives are considering purchase of a site in Sri Lanka to transplant their entire nation.

Some atoll nations consider the rising sea level to be a civil rights issue and are considering lawsuits against the western nations responsible for excess CO2 production. Whatever happens, it is clear that the atoll nations are the canaries in the mine as far as sea level rise is concerned. Hopefully the world will take note and realize the implications for their own cultures.

– Orrin Pilkey

Kiribati, the Maldives, the Marshall Islands, Tokelau, and Tuvalu are all Island Nations. All are threatened by the rising sea and none has higher ground on their islands. Their populations will have to find new homes in other countries, but the Maldives has found that receptivity by other countries to accept their population is low. And the threats to cultural identity when nations move must also be dealt with.

Some Native Villages in Alaska includ-ing Shishmasref on Sarichef Island and Kivalina are developing plans to move their entire communities. The cost will be high,

$300,000-400,000 per individual to make the move, or a total of about $200 million to move the entire community of Shishmasref’s 600 people. And there will be losses to their subsistence culture that will be harder to quantify.

According to the Government Accountability Office Report (2009), 31 Alaskan villages are in imminent danger of flooding and coastal erosion related to climate change. At least 12 of these villages are at some stage in the relocation process.


The Allure Of The Coastal Zone The coastal zone has been a magnet for humans throughout most of modern human history. It offers a rich and constantly changing array of aesthetic pleasures, bountiful supplies of seafood, and more recently, major economic benefits that result from coastal industries such as tourism, fishing, shipping and transportation. The coastal zone can be a dynamic, inspiring, calming, exhilarating, and dangerous zone to live in, and more than half the people in the U.S. and the world live there. The hazards—the sources of the danger—are increasing, but it is still the loca-tion of choice for many humans. Perhaps at no time in human history that stretches back over some 100,000 to 200,000 years has it been as risky for humans to live along the coast as now, and most coastal scientists believe the danger levels may well increase significantly over the next century and perhaps longer, primarily as a result of climate change.

The United States has nearly 88,000 miles of ocean, estuarine, and Great Lakes shorelines with an amazing variation in natural and human-altered characteristics. The coastal zone is an ex-ample of a tightly coupled human-natural system.


A recent study (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD 2007, www.oecd.org/dataoecd/16/10/39721444.pdf) ranked the ten most vulnerable cities in the world in terms of the potential for property damage as a result of flooding from a higher sea, not including any storm surge impacts. The cities are listed below in decreasing order of vul-nerability and are shown in Figure 1.

1. Miami

2. New York/Newark

3. New Orleans

4. Osaka/Kobe

5. Tokyo

6. Amsterdam

7. Rotterdam

8. Nagoya

9. Tampa/St. Petersburg

10. Virginia Beach

Five of the 10 cities most vulnerable to sea level rise and inundation are in the United States.

Using the same criteria, OECD ranked the vulnerability of major U.S. cities to flooding from sea level rise.

1. Miami

2. New York/Newark

3. New Orleans

4. Tampa/St. Petersburg

5. Virginia Beach

6. Boston

7. Philadelphia

8. San Francisco/Oakland

9. Los Angeles

10. Houston

If one adds storm surges to the simple drown-ing scenarios modeled by the OECD, risks to coastal cities increases—in some cases significantly.



Hurricanes and Other Coastal Storms: A Growing Threat

Hurricanes are responsible for most of the storm-related coastal property damage in the United States, but other types of storms, particularly nor’easters on the east coast, so’easters on the Gulf coast, and El Niños on the west coast are also important. Nearly 90 percent of presidential disaster declarations from 1964 to 2007 were in response to weather-induced hazards by flood from hurricanes and other severe storms. During the relatively hurricane-free period from the 1960s until 1989, the majority of today’s coastal residents and property owners did not experience the full force of a hurricane. This led to apathy and a disregard for the hazard posed by hurricanes. A series of hurricanes in rapid succession: Hugo, Bob, Andrew, and others—and more recently Katrina and Rita—changed all that. Unfortunately, in spite of widespread recognition of the hazard, post-storm recovery of hurricane damage in the U.S. often has consisted of replacement of destroyed buildings with larger buildings on the same sites.

The Galveston Hurricane of 1900 was the deadliest hurricane in U.S. history. The City of Galveston lost 6,000 to 8,000 lives and the entire Galveston Island may have lost up to 12,000 lives.5 Lake Okeechobee Hurricane (1928) was the next deadliest hurricane with 2,500 lives lost, followed by Katrina (2005) with nearly 2,000 lives lost.

Heavy rains and high surf from storms associated with the 1998 El Niño event produced severe erosion along the California coast, leading to major property losses.

Paul Neiman, Environmental Technology Laboratory, NOAA.

5. Estimates vary from 6,000 to 12,000 lives lost with 8,000 being the most frequently cited number.


The five deadliest hurricanes in U.S. history between 1900-2008 are listed in the box below.

Hurricane destruction comes from high winds, and particularly from storm surges. Improved building codes and better construction in recent years have reduced wind damage. Storm surges with accompanying storm waves on top of them are a bigger challenge. They result from the interaction of high winds and low atmospheric pressure beneath the storm. As the storm approaches landfall, surface winds push water onto the coast. The height of the surge is amplified in shallow water areas such as the Gulf of Mexico. Hurricane Katrina brought the highest storm surge—up to 30 feet—on record in the U.S. This massive wall of water was responsible for most of the loss of life and property.

The ten costliest hurricanes in U.S. history between 1900-2008 are summarized in the chart above. Much of the increase in the cost of damages caused by hurricanes over the past several decades is the direct result of the large amount of new construction along the coast. For example, the great Miami hurricane of 1926 caused about $76 million in damages. But when Hurricane Andrew, a storm of comparable size and intensity, struck southern Florida in 1992, the damages were on the order of $30 billion (dollar values adjusted for inflation), reflecting both the current size and high value of Miami’s buildings and infrastructure.


While the U.S. has experienced a number of devastating hurricanes in recent history, Central America and the Caribbean have experienced even more disastrous hurricanes in terms of loss of human life. Hurricane Mitch (1998) was one of the most powerful hurricanes on record in the Atlantic basin, with maximum sustained winds of 180 mph. Because of its slow movement, Hurricane Mitch dropped historic amounts of rainfall in Honduras and Nicaragua, with unofficial

reports of up to 75 inches. Deaths caused by catastrophic flooding made it the sec-ond deadliest Atlantic hurricane in history; nearly 11,000 people were killed and nearly 3 million were left homeless or missing. The flooding caused extreme damage, estimated at over $5 billion (1998 USD, $6.5 billion 2008 USD).

Hurricane Mitch will be remembered as the deadliest hurricane to strike the Western Hemisphere in the last two centuries. Not

New Orleans after Katrina.


since the Great Hurricane of 1780, which killed approximately 22,000 people in the eastern Caribbean, has there been a deadlier hurricane. The President of Honduras, Carlos Flores Facusse, claimed the storm destroyed 50 years of progress.

Some Places And People Are At Greater Risk Than Others

Risks of living along the coast are not evenly distributed in space or in time. The Gulf coast and the east coast of the U.S. are more vulner-able to hurricanes than the west coast. The west coast and Hawaii are more vulnerable to El Niños and tsunamis than the east coast. At any given location at any given time, risks are not evenly distributed across different socio-economic groups. The poor, the sick, and the elderly usually are most vulnerable

Deaths caused by hurricanes have been re-duced significantly by improved forecasting and early warning systems in combination with realistic evacuation plans. The deaths from recorded hurricanes pale in comparison to the deaths from the December 2004 Indo-nesian tsunami that claimed nearly 230,000 lives in eleven countries. The tsunami inun-dated coastal communities with surges up to 100 feet high. It was one of the deadliest natu-ral disasters in recorded history. Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand were hardest hit. The earthquake that produced the tsunami had a magnitude of between 9.1 and 9.3 and was the second largest earthquake ever record-ed. This earthquake had the longest duration of faulting ever observed, between 8.3 and 10 minutes. It caused the entire planet to vibrate as much as 0.4 inches and triggered other earthquakes as far away as Alaska.

Although climate change will not affect the frequency of tsunamis since they are triggered by geologic events—earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, large slumps—and not by atmo-spheric events, their effects will be magnified by a higher stand of sea level.

How Will Global Climate Change Affect Hurricanes and Other Tropical Storms?

While this is still a subject of debate, many scientists believe that the intensity and the frequency of hurricanes and other tropical storms, will increase as a result of warming of


the upper ocean. Storms can intensify quick-ly within 24 to 48 hours of landfall if they pass over warm ocean waters such as the Gulf Stream, the Florida Current, and the Gulf of Mexico. Because of the relationship between storm intensity and warm ocean waters—the source of the storm’s energy—many experts are convinced that rising ocean temperatures

that result from climate change will increase the destructive potential of tropical storms. In the North Atlantic the picture already seems to be clear. Observations indicate that there has been an increase in the frequency of tropical storms and major hurricanes in the North Atlantic, particularly since about 1970, and this correlates with increases in


Coastal Populations at Risk

Twenty-three of the nation’s 25 most densely populated counties, and 10 of the nation’s most populous cites are found in coastal areas. More than 50% of the U.S. population lives within 50 miles of a coast within the nation’s 673 coastal counties in 30 coastal states. These counties make up less than 20% of the nation’s land area. Between 1980 and 2003, coastal counties grew by 33 million people, or 28%. In the entire Southeast the increase over this period was 60%—and Florida’s coastal population rose by 75%. More than 60 percent of homes and buildings within 500 feet of the shoreline are located along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts—the nation’s fastest growing coastal areas.

Worldwide, more than half of the world’s population lives within 50 miles of a coast and it is estimated that nearly 75% of the world’s population will live along the coast by 2050. This is happening not only in the developed world. Two-thirds of Southeast Asian cities with populations of 2.5 million or more are located along the coast, and of 77 major cities in Latin America, 57 are on the coast.

As more and more people live and vacation along the coast, more lives, property, and dollars are put at risk from coastal hazards and the risks are increasing. The rising sea and more intense and more frequent tropical storms that result from cli-mate change are making living near the coast riskier than ever. The risk is not just to beachfront property, but often extends inland, especially on barrier islands.

sea surface temperatures of tropical waters. Observations of the increase in the frequency and intensity of those hurricanes that make landfall in the South Atlantic are less con-vincing. Models indicate that it is likely that future tropical cyclones—typhoons and hurricanes—will become more frequent, more intense with higher peak winds, and have heavier precipitation—all as a result of warming of the surface layer of the ocean. The risks from these storms to coastal com-munities will be increased further because of the rise of sea level.


The response to sea level rise will vary from community to community depending on environmental concerns, economics, politics, local priorities, the type of coast, and many other factors. Careful community planning that results in formal adoption of policies to deal with a rising sea and strict enforcement of those policies will be required. Policies to Nudge Us in the Right Direction National, state, and local policies are needed to develop comprehensive strategies for

dealing with a rising sea and more intense tropical storms and destructive storm surges. The strategies must identify critical areas to be protected —both natural and human-built—and other areas that should be left untouched, and where appropriate, those from which to plan a strategic systematic relocation.

For starters, we should stop providing incen-tives to build near the ocean in flood-prone areas and to rebuild after serious damage or destruction by flooding. Second, we should

Adapting to a New Normal


take full advantage of the inevitable flooding events that are occurring and that will con-tinue to occur in the near-term. Instead of focusing exclusively on “getting back to nor-mal” as quickly as possible, we should help

communities understand at a deep visceral level the need to acknowledge that we must adapt to a “new normal”, and it is that “new normal” that we should be planning for and acting upon—now!

Barrier Islands: Vanishing Beneath The Waves

Barrier islands, there are around 2200 worldwide, can be found on the rims of all the continents ex-cept Antarctica. About 12 % of the world’s open ocean shorelines are lined with these islands which, in the temperate zone, are much sought after for ocean view development. These long, thin and low elevation islands, are made up of unconsolidated sand or gravel and are particularly susceptible to sea level rise.

Barrier islands are among the most dynamic features on the surface of the earth; capable of landward migration in their entirety in response to a rising sea. All this flexibility however is completely lost when the islands are covered by buildings and the inhabitants choose to fight nature and hold the shoreline in place.

The U.S. has more barrier islands (total length of 3054 miles,) than any other country. Distant second, third and fourth are Mexico (1392 miles), Russia (1020 miles) and Australia (905 miles). The Russian barriers are mostly undeveloped and located in cold Siberia, but the U.S. islands are in a more favor-able climate hence the hundreds of miles of high rise-lined islands, particularly in Florida. Although there are many candidates for the most immediate sea-level-rise endangered American island, the west end of narrow, low Dauphin Island, Alabama is certainly a top candidate among Gulf of Mexico islands as is Topsail Island, North Carolina on the East Coast. On a state level, because of the thou-sands of immovable beach front high rises, Florida is in the worst shape of all for any kind of flexible response to sea level rise

There is wide agreement that the anticipated 3-foot sea level rise by the year 2100 will mean the end of barrier island development except when islands are completely surrounded by massive seawalls and have no remaining beaches. Development will end because the shoreline retreat will be unstoppable. But there is an economic problem. When the barrier islands are in deep trouble and miles and miles of costly seawalls are required to protect buildings, the coastal cities will also be in trouble. Who will get the money? Manhattan or Dauphin Island? The choice is obvious.

– Orrin Pilkey


Some steps that might be taken include:

• Prohibitnewconstructioninareaspro-jected to be flooded by sea level rise on beachfront areas not already developed.

• Evaluateexistingcostalinfrastructure(e.g. sewer, water, storm water runoff systems, electric generating plants) as to its ability to withstand the predicted rise of sea level and plan replacement in appropriate areas where necessary.

• Constructallnewcoastalinfrastructurebeyond reach of a 7-foot sea level rise.

• Enactamoratoriumonconstructionofhigh-rise construction in areas that are likely to be impacted by 21st century sea level rise. High-rise buildings are, for all practical purposes, immovable and make future flexible response to sea level rise virtually impossible.

• Discourageorprohibitrepairorreplace-ment of seriously damaged shorefront buildings in high risk areas.

• Requirethatnewbuildingsinflood-prone coastal areas be constructed to be readily moved if needed in response to sea level rise.

• Movebuildingsbackordemolishthemas the advancing sea reaches them.

Many of these strategies would be unpopu-lar and might be challenged in court.

In a workshop on December 3-5, NOAA and the USGS developed a template for helping communities—the places where land-use de-cisions are made—to plan for and adapt to a higher sea level. Elements of the template are summarized in the box at right.

A Community Framework for Responding to Sea Level Rise and Inundation

Define The Problem & State It RichlyI. Explore the issues of Sea Level Rise and

Inundation with the community to develop a shared vision of what is at risk and the qualities stakeholders want to protect in the face of a rising sea.

II. Identify the geographic scope of the project area and the time scales of concern.

III. Identify and recruit critical partners and stakeholders and clarify roles and responsibilities.

Gather The Data, Information & ToolsIV. Characterize the current and future

states of Sea Level Rise and Inundation for the Project area.

V. Identify critical data, information, and tools that need to be refined or developed to reduce uncertainty.

VI. Secure or develop the necessary data, information, and tools.

Identify & Explore Alternative StrategiesVII. Identify and evaluate the various strate-

gies for dealing with the projected Sea Level Rise and Inundation scenarios to protect the qualities identified in Step I.

Build & Sustain Capacity and SupportVIII. Develop a comprehensive

communication strategy. IX. Build the institutional capacity and

the political will to execute the strategies selected.

X. Institutionalize the program and keep current.


The proposed framework calls for each community to develop a vision for a sustainable future under a variety of sea level rise scenarios, a vision that protects the qualities valued by the community. Better tools are required for predicting and responding to different sea level rise scenarios. The development of these is primarily the responsibility of the Federal Govern-ment. They include:

• Better,moreaccuratesitespecificdataandinformation

• Localandregionalsealevelrisedata.

• Inundationmapsfordifferentsealevelrisescenarios.

• Mapsofresourcesatrisk—societalandnatural—atdifferentsealevelelevations,withvaluations of those resources.

• AFederalFloodInsuranceProgramthatdoesnotprovideincentivestobuildorrebuildin areas vulnerable to sea level rise and inundation.

• Betterfloodforecastingmodelsandotheranalyticaltools.

• Analysesoftheefficaciesandcosts—bothcapitalandmaintenance—ofdifferentengi-neering approaches and their environmental consequences.

• And,ofcourse,leadershipwillbeakeyfactor.Sincesolutionstosealevelrise-inundationproblems must be adaptive solutions—some with engineering components—they require support by affected populations. The challenge for local leaders is considerable. For most the greatest impacts will not occur during their terms of office and there may be little incentive for them to tackle this issue.

Resilient Coastal Communities

A resilient coastal community is a community that has been developed, or redeveloped, to minimize the human, environmental, property losses, and the social and economic disrup-tions caused by natural disasters. Resilient communities are attuned to the natural fluctua-tions of nature and have a greater capacity to tolerate environmental extremes than less resilient communities.

It has been shown that healthy, productive natural coastal environments such as wetlands, mangrove forests, and beach-dune systems provide some level of support against storms and storm surges. Unfortunately, development took a toll on many natural coastal ecosystems before their protective value was recognized.

The challenge now is to protect and nurture those ecosystems that remain, and to create and sustain new wetlands, mangrove forests, and other coastal ecosystems to help buffer storms and storm surges in the future. These measures are important ingredients in any overall strat-egy to create more resilient coastal communities, but the magnitude of the challenge should not be underestimated. As noted earlier, before human dominance, most coastal ecosystems migrated landward to keep pace with the rising sea. Now, those pathways often are blocked with infrastructure to support coastal communities along some coasts. We will need to iden-tify new sites for creation of wetlands and provide corridors for them to migrate landward as sea level continues to rise throughout this century.


Maps for 2050 projecting the impact of changes can be used to estimate the severity and fre-quency of shoreline inundation. (The California Energy Commission’s, San Diego Foundation 2050 Study,

2009.)

2050 Coastal Inundation: Oceanside Beach, CA. Tidal fluctuations alone (purple) appear to inundate portions of

sandy beach and wetland. Adding run-up from moderately common wave events (blue) floods south jetty and por-

tions of beach. Moderately rare wave events (green)flood majority of north beach. The effects of shoreline erosion

are not included.

– Julie Thomas

Inundation Maps


It’s clear that not only is natural capital—healthy productive natural ecosystems—important in contributing to a community’s resilience, but social capital as well. Social capital refers to the capital that is built within and among social networks. Social capital is a critically important ingredient of resilient communities. Instead of rioting and looting that sometimes follows disasters, in communities with large reservoirs of social capital the dominant behaviors are coopera-tion, assistance, and support.

The importance of social capital was illustrat-ed in dramatic fashion following Hurricane

Katrina in Versailles, commonly known as “Viet Village”, in eastern New Orleans. Viet Village is a community of Vietnamese im-migrants. The impacts of Hurricane Katrina strengthened an already strong community. Stores and restaurants reopened relatively quickly and the people worked together to restore homes and businesses. The church played important coordinating and support-ive roles by providing transportation, food, relief, and temporary housing. Most residents returned to Versailles, unlike residents of many other parts of New Orleans.


Using Web Cams To Forecast Erosion Events

Many coastal communities host web cams to allow beachgoers to see what conditions are like before they pack up their cars and drive to their favorite beaches. These same cameras can also be used to predict erosion events.

In 2007, an April storm broke a new inlet through the barrier beach that protects Chatham, Massachusetts on the elbow of Cape Cod. As the inlet migrated north during the following two years, it put a dozen beach homeowners at risk. They needed to know when their houses might wash away, so they could make significant financial decisions.

A group of citizen scientists decided to put together a website to provide such informa-tion. My job was to use a web cam to make daily erosion reports. Our camera was ideally located on the mainland aimed toward the barrier beach a half a mile away, where a dozen beach homes sat in a row like seagulls

waiting for the tide to turn. On my computer screen I could see the beach receding from the right so it looked like a two-dimensional graph. It was easy to make predictions be-cause the beach was eroding at an average robust rate of ten feet a day. I could actually see an individual wave wash in, tear off a foot of sand, then withdraw.

Soon I realized, that during a storm, or a run of high course tides, the rate of erosion might increase to 20 feet a day and during periods of calm weather and moderate tides the rate of erosion would be less than 5 feet. By using a tide chart, a weather report, and the dis-tance of a house from the end of the beach I could use simple math to give homeowners an accurate assessment of when their houses might be washed away.

– William Sargent

Google: utube Sea Level Rise Pleasant Bay

Bill Sargent/Barbara Di Lorenzo


The Contribution Of Healthy Coastal Ecosystems In Creating Resilient Coastal Communities

One of the best ways to reduce risks from hazards is to maintain healthy coastal ecosystems—beach-dune systems, wetlands, mangroves, and coral reefs. The pro-tective effects of mangroves, wetlands, other coastal vegetation, and beach-dune systems were noted following numerous hurricanes. Examples include:

• ThecoastoftheYucatanPeninsula,Mexico,afterHurricaneGilbertin1988.

• Pawley’sIsland(SC)afterHurricaneHugoin1989.Overwashpenetrationand storm wave damage to property was noticeably less where maritime forests had been kept in tact than in areas where they had been cleared.

• ThedensemangroveforestsofsouthFloridahelpedreducethecoastalim-pacts of Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

• Someexpertshavestatedthathadmoreoftheoriginalwetlandsbeenintact,some of the $90-100 billion damages to New Orleans and surrounding areas from Hurricane Katrina (August 2005) would have been avoided.

The benefits of healthy coastal ecosystems are not limited to hurricanes. Assess-ments of damage following the Indonesian tsunami (December 26, 2004) showed clearly that coastal communities with largely undisturbed coastal ecosystems and healthy offshore coral reefs suffered less loss of human life and property damage and than those where these protective natural systems had been destroyed.

It’s clear that healthy, productive natural coastal ecosystems can contribute to reducing the risks to coastal communities from coastal hazards, to reducing their vulnerability, and to increasing their resiliency.

Doug Harper & Adam Stein


Better, more reliable flooding models, hur-ricane projection models, and early warning systems, have reduced the loss of life from hur-ricanes and other tropical storms. Significant (15-20%) advances have been made in the ability of hurricane storm prediction models to predict storm tracks accurately. Improve-ments in predicting storm intensity have been less impressive. Even small improvements in model forecasts can save many lives and pre-vent property damage b y millions of dollars. This continues to be an area of active develop-ment by NOAA.

It is estimated that preparation in the days and hours leading up to an anticipated landfall of a hurricane costs approximately $1 million per mile of coastline. With current forecast-ing tools, about 125 miles of coastline can be warned—and evacuated, if necessary—48 hours in advance of a major hurricane making landfall. Inaccurate warnings result not only in high costs but also loss of public confidence in forecasts, often causing residents to ignore subsequent warnings.

Forecasting hurricanes and other tropical storms is challenging because of the uncertain-ties and non-linear interactions of the various driving forces, and how they will be influ-enced by coastal topography, changes in water temperature, and other factors. This uncer-tainty makes it difficult for coastal managers to assess risk, to identify the most vulnerable regions of the coast, and to take appropriate action far enough in advance of the projected landfall to reduce loss of life and property.

Early warning has another component—get-ting the information generated by computer models to the people at risk in a timely way and in forms that allow them to take appropri-ate action. Information dissemination systems must exploit a range of technologies and distribution systems to ensure redundancy and robustness during disruptive events, and to get to the maximum number of people from di-verse demographic groups. Experience in bar-rier island communities shows that although

tourists are willing to obey evacuation orders, local residents often resist evacuation because they have “been through it before.” Social scientists can be helpful in structuring mes-sages and in designing dissemination systems to elicit the desired responses.

Although better forecasts and warning process-es have helped save lives by providing more lead time for evacuation, the tremendous growth of development and human popula-tion in coastal regions is so rapid that the loss of life and property from coastal disasters can probably be expected to increase in the future. The rise of sea level will only exacerbate the problem.

Science also has provided valuable informa-tion that could enlighten where and how people should build—and rebuild—along coasts; which areas are most and least ame-nable to engineering solutions; and which areas could be candidates for development of plans for systematic retreat and relocation. The extent to which scientific information is used for these purposes is growing.

Social scientists of all kinds can help gener-ate the needed data and transform them into information and strategies in which decision-makers and the public can have confidence. This will require more inclusive, open, and transparent processes with substantial and sustained stakeholder involvement.

The Roles of Science

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2005/images/Katrina-08-28-2005-15452.jpg


There is a belief among some that a “dooms-day sea level rise scenario” will not happen and that if it does, it is far into the future, and by then we will have the scientific and engineering know-how and the financial resources to stop the rising sea from invading and drowning coastal communities across the country and around the world. For centu-ries humans have built structures to protect the shoreline from erosion and flooding, but most have been fairly modest in spatial extent.

Sea level rise, severe coastal erosion and inundation are happening now, and all the evidence points to a continued rise of sea level, probably at an accelerated pace, and more active tropical storms superimposed upon this rising sea. Engineering solutions will probably be part of every coastal state’s strategy and every nation’s strategy, but there are no affordable engineering fixes that can be applied on a state-wide or country-wide scale, and even if there were, the effects on coastal ecosystems, recreational beaches, coastscapes, and on human uses of the coastal zone would probably not be accept-able. The Netherlands is a nation that has successfully held off the assaults by the sea, and even reclaimed land from the North Sea, but things are different now, and even they are re-thinking their strategy.

Poor countries do not have the resources—fi-nancial or technical—to invest in responding to the rising sea. They will require assistance

from developed countries. Even well off countries will have to decide which areas to protect, and from which to strategically re-treat if they are to avoid major loss of life and property and serious economic and societal disruption. The United States is among them. The core strategy in many locations will be to adjust to a ‘new normal’ by moving away from the sea to higher elevations. Engineer-ing will play major roles in the design and execution of these strategies.

Engineering structures often are referred to as “hard solutions” to distinguish them from so-called “soft solutions” such as beach nourishment and planting vegetation to stabilize dunes. The structures fall into two basic categories: those perpendicular to the coast and those parallel to it. Hard solutions to managing coastal hazards have grown increasingly out of favor with many environ-mental groups and coastal managers primar-ily because of their cost and their unintended consequences. Engineering solutions may be important in dealing with a rising sea in many situations on a transitional basis and in a smaller number of others on a more permanent basis.

Engineering will be important in design and construction of buildings that can greatly

The Roles of Engineering


reduce property damage and even loss of life. Structures elevated on well-engineered stilts that allow storm surges to pass under the structure unimpeded, reduce property dam-age and loss of life. Structures aligned in the direction of flow of storm surges, rather than perpendicular to it reduce damage and strong foundations provide added protection against scour and the undermining of structures. The choice of materials is also important.

Engineering solutions—both hard and soft—should be evaluated as transitional strategies to a “new normal” of sea level, and to achiev-ing and sustaining community resilience under those new conditions. Engineering

solutions will play important roles in this “new normal”, particularly in protecting urban areas in which society has made huge investments in infrastructure.

Living on the edge in Seal Beach, Ca. Average 10.3 feet above sea level.


As coastal populations continue to increase, risks to human life and property also in-crease. Risks are driven not only by the num-bers of people, but by the nature and extent of coastal development and its impacts on natural ecosystems. Coastal hazards will in-crease as a result of climate change with a ris-ing sea and more frequent and more intense tropical storms.

Well before the end of this century, depend-ing upon the sea level rise scenario that plays out, it may become impractical to protect more than very restricted and mostly urban sections of the coastline. Strategic retreat may be the prudent course of action except in locations such as major cities and ports where societies have made huge investments in infrastructure and retreat is not a plausible option.

As the NRC document “Coastal Hazards” points out: “Comprehensive, cohesive poli-cies on coastal protection need to be based on the best possible information, from improving coastal mapping to enhanced weather and impact forecasting. Armed with knowledge gleaned from these tools, gov-ernment officials, coastal managers, prop-erty owners, and everyone who enjoys the nations’ coastal areas should work toward developing a long-term plan for ensuring that U.S. coastal resources will be sustainable for future generations to enjoy.”

Achieving this end state will require a broadly-shared vision of what society wants our coastlines to look like at some future time horizon and one that is consistent with evolving natural processes. It must also be one that society is prepared to invest in securing. It is a complex, challenging design problem. Sea level rise and inundation and the inevitable collision with human society falls into the category of what are called “wicked problems.” Wicked problems are problems that cannot be solved. They are problems that can only be managed, to be kept within certain bounds, and to do that requires a rich formulation of the problem to capture its multiple and complex dimen-sions—scientific and societal—to ensure that the correct problem, or set of problems, is ad-dressed. This should be a priority for coastal

Closing Observations


communities, states, the U.S. Government, other nations, and interna-tional bodies. Research has shown that under conditions of deep uncertainty such as this, the most prudent approach is not to search for the optimum solution, but rather to identify a portfolio of strategies that are robust across numerous pos-sible outcomes that in the aggregate minimize the potential for regret.

Never in the history of humankind has living near the coast been riskier. And the risk is increasing. Throughout most of the history of modern civilization, sea level has been relatively

stable. Since the Industrial Revolution began some 200-250 years ago, global sea level has risen only about a foot. In the same period the world’s population has increased by nearly 700%, from less than a billion to 6.8 billion

We are experiencing the two biggest migra-tions in human history—the migration to the coast and the migration into cities. In 2008 for the first time in human history more than half the world’s population lived in towns and cites. By 2030 more than 5 billion people will live in towns and cities with the growth concentrated mostly in Africa and Asia.

More than two-thirds of the world’s cities with populations greater than 5 million are located along the coast. These cities are in

both the developed world and in the devel-oping world and it is likely that response to sea level rise on coastal cities will consume much of the available resources and funding. They include: Miami, New York, Los Ange-les, Tokyo, Mombasa, Shanghai, Jakarta, and Dhaka. Trillions of dollars have been invested in infrastructure to support them—all dur-ing a period of relative stability of sea level. That’s about to change. Worldwide sea level rose about 0.6 feet over the past 100 years. Over the next 100 years it is projected to rise by 3, 5, 7 feet, or much more depending upon what happens to the Greenland and the west Antarctic Ice sheets. Superimposed upon this inexorable rise in sea level will be an increase in the intensity, and probably the frequency, of tropical storms—hurricanes and typhoons. All driven by global climate change.

Sea level rise, inundation of coastal areas, erosion of shorelines, and increased tropi-cal storm activity are the most immediate and direct effects of global climate change on humans and human society. More than half the world’s population lives within the coastal zone, and the percentage is projected to grow to 75% before the end of this cen-tury. Instead of migrating toward the coast, we should begin now to make plans to move away from much of the coast in a thought-ful, planned, systematic and sustained way to minimize human and financial dislocations. It’s a design problem.


Recommended Readings

Culver, M.El, J. R. Schubel, M.A. Davidson, J. Haines, and K.C. Texeira (editors) (2010): Proceeding from the Sea Level Rise and Inundation Community Workshop, Lansdowne, MD, Dec 3-5, 2009. Sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Geological Survey. (online at www.climate.gov and www.csc.noaa.gov/digitalcoast/inundation/resources.html)

Kelley, J.T., Pilkey, O.H. and Cooper, J.A.G., 2010, Americas Most Vulnerable Coastal Communities: Geological Society of America, Special paper 460, 179p

Pilkey, O.H., 2003, A Celebration of the Worlds Barrier Islands: Columbia University Press, 309p

Pilkey, Orrin and Robert Young (2009): The Rising Sea, Shearwater Books, Island Press, Washington, DC, 203 p.

Sargent, William (2007): Just Seconds From The Ocean: Coastal Living in the Wake of Katrina. University Press of New England, Hanover and London, 142 p.

Sargent, Bill (2009): Sea Level Rising: The Chatham Story. Schiffer Publishing, Atglen, PA., 224 p.

The National Academies (20??): Coastal Hazards, a booklet in the Ocean Science Series, Washington, DC, 17 p.

http://www.sandiego.gov/environmental-services/sustainable/pdf/2050climate.pdf

Appendix A

Name affiliatioN email addressKathy Almon MacGillivray Freeman Films [email protected]

John Anderson New England Aquarium [email protected]

Wolf Berger Scripps Institution of Oceanography [email protected]

Tom Bowman Bowman Design Group [email protected]

James Cortina Cortina Productions [email protected]

Robert K. Cowen University of Miami [email protected]

Paulynn Cue Cal State Long Beach-CSULB [email protected]

Robert A. Dalrymple Johns Hopkins University [email protected]

Robert G. Dean University of Florida [email protected]

Alistair Dove Georgia State Aquarium [email protected]

Sandy Eslinger NOAA Coastal Service Center [email protected]

Kristin Evans Birch Aquarium [email protected]

Kathleen Frith Harvard University [email protected]

Christian Greer Shedd Aquarium [email protected]

Cpt. Douglas Grubbs Crescent River Port Pilots [email protected]

Judith Hill-Harris City of Portland, Maine [email protected]

Michael Hirshfield Oceana [email protected]

Roger Holzberg Right Brainiacs [email protected]

Jennifer A. Jay UCLA [email protected]

Susan Kirch Right Brainiacs [email protected]

Sheril Kirshenbaum Duke University [email protected]

Louisa Koch NOAA [email protected]

Jon Krosnick Stanford University [email protected]

Conrad C. Lautenbacher CSC Corporation [email protected]

Shaun MacGillivray MacGillivray Freeman Films [email protected]

Edward Maibach George Mason University [email protected]

Michael Mann Pennsylvania State University [email protected]

Steven Mayer Aquarium of the Pacific [email protected]

William Patzert NASA/Jet Propulsion Lab [email protected]

Richard Pieper Southern California Marine Institute [email protected]

Paul Sandifer NOAA [email protected]

Michael Schaadt Cabrillo Marine Aquarium [email protected]

Karen Setty SCCWRP [email protected]

Robert Stickney Texas A&M [email protected]

Soames Summerhays Summerhay’s Films, Inc. [email protected]

R. Lawrence Swanson Stony Brook University [email protected]

James Thebaut The Chronicles Group [email protected]

Brian Trimble Cal State Long Beach-CSULB [email protected]

Cynthia Vernon Monterey Bay Aquarium [email protected]

Dallas Weaver Scientific Hatcheries [email protected]

Stephen Weisberg SCCWRP [email protected]

Richard West Private Consultant [email protected]

Appendix B

Conference Participants


aquarium staff David Anderson Aquarium of the Pacific [email protected]

Dave Bader Aquarium of the Pacific [email protected]

Derek Balsillie Aquarium of the Pacific [email protected]

Linda Brown Aquarium of the Pacific [email protected]

Andrew Gruel Aquarium of the Pacific [email protected]

Perry Hampton Aquarium of the Pacific [email protected]

Alexi Holford Aquarium of the Pacific [email protected]

Elizabeth Keenan Aquarium of the Pacific [email protected]

Lisa Leof Aquarium of the Pacific [email protected]

Barbara Long Aquarium of the Pacific [email protected]

Adina Metz Aquarium of the Pacific [email protected]

Bruce Monroe Aquarium of the Pacific [email protected]

Corinne Monroe Aquarium of the Pacific [email protected]

Kim Moore Aquarium of the Pacific [email protected]

Jerry Schubel Aquarium of the Pacific [email protected]

Margaret Schubel Aquarium of the Pacific [email protected]

Bill Waterhouse Aquarium of the Pacific [email protected]

Dudley Wigdahl Aquarium of the Pacific [email protected]

Leah Young Aquarium of the Pacific [email protected]

James Wood Aquarium of the Pacific [email protected]

Conference Participants


Documents

COASTAL HAZARDS - Aquarium of the Pacific · Condition: Ocean Health and Human Health. There is also a series of briefer reports on film-making, kiosk messaging design, and communicating