Proposal for UNC Board of Governors
Federal Priority 2006-07
More than half of all
Americans now live on or near coast. This represents over 153 million people
living in coastal communities, an increase of 33 million since 1980. For many
of these communities, tourism is essential to their continued economic
well-being. In
The State has the second
largest estuarine and wetland system in the US, with approximately 4,000 miles
of estuarine shoreline and eight major drainage basins with their abundant
water supply.
Coastal Hazards are real!
While much of coastal
The NC coastal system is
a high energy system that is dominated by change. Change is driven by the
interaction of long-term climatic and sea-level changes in concert with the
short-term high energy storm events. Since these changes operate within human
time scales, there is an imminent conflict brewing between the natural dynamics
and human economic expectations. Understanding the complex evolutionary history
of sea-level rise, coastal system evolution, and the dynamic processes driving
the barrier islands and associated water systems is crucial for both the human
economic component and the natural coastal system.
This five-year research
program is a large inter-disciplinary, inter-departmental, and
inter-institutional cooperative program in which the ECU will be the lead
institution and the Department of Geology will be the program managers and lead
scientists. Other institutions participating in this work include:
University Partners
Virginia
Institute of Marine Sciences, Dr. Jesse McNinch, Shoreface dynamics, geophysics
Other Cooperating Agencies
US National Park Service:
US Fish & Wildlife
Service:
National
Wildlife Refuges
US Army Corps of
Engineers: Field Research Facility—Duck
NC Division of Coastal
Management and Coastal Resources Commission
NC Division of State
Parks: Jockeys Ridge and
NC Department of
Transportation
NC Sea Grant College
Program
Action
Requested
The North Carolina Congressional Delegation is
requested to support additional funding to undertake the research to provide reliable geologic, biologic, economic and
sociologic data upon
which
informed coastal management decisions can be based to determine the coastal
hazards.
Interior
FY 2007 Appropriations
Item: Program in Coastal Hazards
Request: $5,000,000 per year for 5 years
Agency: Department of the Interior: United States Geological Survey
Account: U.S.G.S Coastal and Marine Geology
Program
ECU Office of Federal
Relations, 12.05.05