North Carolina Coastal Hazards: Implications of Climate Change, Sea-Level Rise and Storms

 

Proposal for UNC Board of Governors

Federal Priority 2006-07

 

Background

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 North Carolina the impact of coastal tourism in the 20 coastal counties reaches into the several billions of dollars annually and affects the economic lives of nearly every one of the 865,000 residents. .   The natural resources that support the coastal economy have crucial components of recreation, tourism, fisheries, agriculture, and silvaculture - it’s all about water and the adjacent lands!

 

North Carolina has about 325 miles of barrier islands with ocean shoreline and 24 inlets/outlets.

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 North Carolina is less than 18 inches above sea-level, scientists agree that sea level is rising in North Carolina at a rate up to 18 inches per century.  In the last decade, 10 major hurricanes affected the coast, the most ever recorded in such a short period of time. Climatologists predict this high frequency will continue for several more decades, with increased intensity storms. Submarine slumps along the Atlantic continental margin and oceanic earthquakes occur infrequently in this portion of the Atlantic Ocean, but when they occur they are capable of producing coastal tsunamis. A large portion of NC’s fresh surface-water resources come from the frequent storms that impact the coastal system. Several years without major storms quickly develop drought conditions. Drought severely impacts coastal communities dependent on surface water resources, as well as tourism, agriculture and silvaculture.

 

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.

 

North Carolina’s coast, its inhabitants, economy, infra-structure, and natural environment are subject to many threats, including climate change, sea-level rise and storms.  The proposed program will address these and other issues and will provide reliable geologic, biologic, economic and sociologic data upon which informed coastal management decisions can be based for both hazards planning and long-term economic development.

 

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

Western Carolina University, Dr. Rob Young, Coastal hazards, wetland ecology

University of Delaware, Dr. John Wehmiller, Age dating, Quaternary stratigraphy

University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Ben Horton, Holocene sea level, micropaleontology

Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences, Dr. Jesse McNinch, Shoreface dynamics, geophysics

 

Other Cooperating Agencies

US National Park Service: Cape Hatteras and Cape Lookout National Seashores

US Fish & Wildlife Service: Pea Island, Alligator, Pungo Lakes, Swanquarter, and Cedar Island

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 Merchants Millpond State Parks

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