Author: Josh Kastrinsky (Page 4 of 4)

By Dr. Scott C. Hagen

Dr. Hagen is a professor at Louisiana State University (LSU) and Principal Investigator (PI) for the Coastal Resilience Center project “Development of an optimized tide and hurricane storm surge model for the northern Gulf of Mexico (MS, AL, FL) for use with the ADCIRC Surge Guidance System.” A version of this information originally appeared in the Year 2016 Issue 4 edition of “Hydrolink,” a publication of the International Association for Hydro-Environment Engineering and Research.

Homes flooded near Baton Rouge in August 2016.
Credit: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Coastal resiliency requires interdisciplinary research with stakeholder involvement to yield results and provide effective tools and products for conducting outreach. Continued advancement of computational models, with integration of precipitation, overland flow, river discharge, tides, wind-waves and surge processes, is essential. However, we must go further and develop a better understanding of the dynamic, interrelated processes of natural and human systems through advanced systems-based models to assess effects of climate change and relative sea-level rise. Continue reading

U.S. Rep. David Price (D-N.C.) speaks to attendees at the 7th Annual Maritime Risk Symposium on Nov. 14, 2016.

Representatives from the U.S. Coast Guard, the Coastal Resilience Center of Excellence (CRC) and academic and practitioners from around the country came together on Nov. 14-15, 2016, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for the 7th  Annual Maritime Risk Symposium. Members of the military, commercial and academic communities focused on the topic of “Integrating Maritime and Coastal Resilience”. Each of the Department of Homeland Security Science & Technology Directorate Office of University Programs Centers of Excellence was represented.

Dr. Austin Becker of the University of Rhode Island presented during the first session, “Enhancing Resilience of Coastal & Maritime Systems: Port Resilience.” Dr. Becker is a researcher on a Coastal Resilience Center project led by Dr. James Opaluch.

The symposium was organized into five sessions:

• General Port Resilience
• Resilience in Houston/Galveston, TX, area
  

  Dr. Melissa Allen, Post-Doctoral Research Associate, Computational Science and Engineering Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, spoke during the third session, “Enhancing the Resilience of Coastal Infrastructure.”

• Resilience in Coastal Infrastructure
• Resilience in the Norfolk / Hampton Roads, VA, area
• Cyber Resilience in the Maritime Transportation System

The 2017 Maritime Risk Symposium will be held at Tiffin University in Tiffin, Ohio, and will focus on cyber-security issues within the Maritime Transportation System.

To see photos, visit our Flickr page.

To view presentations and see abstracts from each panel, visit the event program page.

A full report from the event will be posted online at coastalresiliencecenter.org.

Jaimie Hicks Masterson is Program Manager for Texas Target Communities at Texas A&M University and a researcher on the Coastal Resilience Center project “Local Planning Networks and Neighborhood Vulnerability Indicators,” led by Principal Investigator Dr. Phil Berke. Masterson writes with an update for the integration of the Resilience Scorecard element of the project, which measures when and where their community plans are in conflict, as well as how well they target areas of the community that are most vulnerable.

Testing the Scorecard

Location of League City, Tex., relative to Houston. Photo via houstonproperties.com.

We have selected the first pilot community, League City, Tex., and will begin training this month. We began discussing the opportunity with the city in April 2016. The city discussed the project with key stakeholders, such as city staff, city council members, the planning and zoning commission and the emergency management office to seek approval to move forward. This city is a good fit because of:

• Their exposure to sea-level rise and the 100-year floodplain.
• The potential for strong networking of multiple local government agencies to influence plan quality and integration.
• They will soon begin a comprehensive plan update and assessment of all development regulations. The city would like to utilize the Resilience Scorecard to determine priority policy changes.
• It provides a small/medium-sized city (pop. 88,000) perspective in a politically conservative context.

The waterfront in Norfolk, Va. Photo via norfolkvisitor.com.

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From Sept. 12-14, Coastal Resilience Center (CRC) researchers and students in CRC education projects presented at the Carolinas Climate Resilience Conference, a biennial meeting convened to provide an opportunity for practitioners and academics to share information about climate-related tools, resources, experiences and activities in North and South Carolina.

• Ashton Rohmer, a graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-Chapel Hill) and a CRC fellow, presented on “Buy-In for Buyouts: Buyout Best Practices and Their Implications for Hazard Mitigation and Climate Change Adaptation.” The work was related to a trip taken by students to Kinston, N.C., which  saw major damage from Hurricane Floyd in 1999.

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By Sierra C. Woodruff

Sierra C. Woodruff is a PhD candidate at University North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Curriculum for the Environment and Ecology. Her research focuses on how planning can help communities preserve ecosystem services and reduce the impacts of climate change. She was a student in a Coastal Resilience Center education program at UNC, a graduate certificate in natural hazards resilience, and was a Department of Homeland Security Office of University Programs Graduate Student Climate Preparedness Intern in the summer of 2014. The information discussed below is the basis of a paper published in Climatic Change, available at: http://rdcu.be/kIv2.

As a graduate student, there is a lot of uncertainty in my life: When will I finish my degree? Will I get a job? Where will it be?

Sierra Woodruff

We all confront uncertainty when we plan for the future. Our local governments are no different. They may ask: How will our population grow? What will be our future demand for water?

Today, local governments are also beginning to ask questions about climate change: How much will rainfall patterns change? When will the next drought be? How will it affect our drinking water supply?

The uncertainty in the magnitude and timing of climate change impacts complicates decisions our local governments make about how we should manage our natural resources, where development should occur and how we should design our physical infrastructure. Continue reading

Dr. Jennifer Horney

Dr. Jennifer Horney of Texas A&M University, whose Coastal Resilience Center (CRC) project focuses on tracking long-term disaster recovery, recently published an article on the website The Conversation about the reasons that people don’t evacuate in the face of imminent threats such as hurricanes. In the article, Dr. Horney examines why, in advance of Hurricane Matthew, residents in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina did not heed multiple warnings to evacuate. In South Carolina, for example, estimates indicate that about 35 percent of residents under evacuation orders actually left their homes (the rate in coastal areas like Charleston and Beaufort was closer to 50 percent).

To read the full article, visit http://ow.ly/Rs7J305lnUE.

In her work with the CRC, Dr. Horney collects long-term data on recovery to effectively improve community resilience to future disasters. These data are used to improve the Disaster Recovery Tracking Tool, a web-based resource designed to aid local government stakeholders and other end users in tracking the progress and quality of post-disaster recovery.

By Colleen Durfee, Ashton Rohmer and Darien Williams

Charlotte-Mecklenburg County’s Storm Water Services office can trace its origins back to an ambitious set of projects from the early 1900s, including the draining of swamps and the straightening of creeks and streams, literally bending nature to the short-sighted will of the inhabitants who chose to settle atop it. The environment was a nuisance and obstacle to development, not an asset; in fact, some developers even built on top of streams, covering them with pavement and putting them out of sight. Vegetation removal was routinely conducted in flooded areas and the situation quickly morphed into a larger flooding problem that the Storm Water Services team battled until they exhausted the patience and resolve of the residents in the 1990s.

Students in Coastal Resilience Center of Excellence (CRC) Director Gavin Smith’s “Planning for Natural Hazards and Climate Change Adaptation” class learned about local government response to environmental issues during a field trip that included visits to the Land Use and Environmental Services Agency and to properties impacted by flooding around the city of Charlotte in Mecklenburg County, N.C. The city and county have combined resources for many of its services. The class is part of a CRC educational program, “Expanding Coastal Resilience Education at UNC-CH.”

UNC class “Planning for Natural Hazards and Climate Change Adaptation” takes a field trip to see Charlotte-Mecklenburg County Storm Water Services’ work on the Midtown Urban Greenway.
Photo by Ashton Rohmer

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