CNH-L: Climate Change Adaptation in a Coupled Geomorphic-Economic Coastal System

本项目将分析海岸过程与有关土地利用和海岸工程的经济决策相互作用的方式，以确定适应气候风险的性质和时机。它阐述了自然力、经济决策和公共政策在长期范围内的相互作用，以确定建成环境和人类居住模式如何对海平面上升和相关的海岸线变化做出反应。这些问题关系到相当一部分美国人的关切，特别是在东海岸和墨西哥湾沿岸，他们面临着持续的洪水和风暴破坏。这项研究的一个基本目的是提供知识和工具，以便及时对沿海和环境变化作出更进一步的展望。这一结果将促进人们对海滩和沿海环境如何应对各种与风暴有关的情景的了解。它还将提供对房地产市场如何对环境条件、公共政策、科学知识以及个人态度和价值观的复杂变化做出反应的洞察。该项目的技术描述--气候和地貌过程的变化可能会增加未来在沿海生活的风险，并增加通过工程降低这些风险的价值。然而，同样的因素往往会提高成本，降低这些工程行动有效性的确定性。这些动态最终可能会使继续以目前的形式在沿海居住的成本过高。对自然环境和已建成环境的修改的组合选择，不仅将决定沿海社区的特征，而且还将决定向较少有人居住或无人居住状态过渡的性质。自然系统将由最先进的三维海岸地貌模型来表示，以显著改进对海岸系统随时间演变的预测。经济体系将通过对美国东海岸两个社区房地产市场的新规范进行调查，并将通过对居民对风险的了解以及对沿海设施和基础设施的偏好的调查和定性研究来了解。该项目将调查公共政策，包括政府管理的保险、工程项目、救灾和基础设施，将如何影响经济决策和沿海环境。由此产生的建模结构将是在长时间尺度上对应对气候变化的社区-环境相互作用建模方面向前迈出的重要一步，代码和模型结构将可用于其他研究和政策决策。

ABSTRACTA non-technical description explaining the broader significance of the projectThis project will analyze the ways in which coastal processes and economic decisions about land use and coastal engineering interact to determine the nature and timing of adaptation to climate risk. It addresses the interactions of natural forces, economic decisions, and public policies over long time horizons to determine how the built environment and patterns of human settlement react to rising seas and related coastline changes. These issues are of concern to a significant part of the US population, especially along the East Coast and Gulf of Mexico, that faces persistent flooding and storm damage. A fundamental aim of this research is to provide knowledge and tools to look further forward in time in responding to coastal and environmental changes. The results will advance knowledge about how beaches and coastal environments react to various storm-related scenarios. It will also provide insight into how real-estate markets react to complex changes in environmental conditions, public policies, scientific knowledge, and individual attitudes and values.A technical description of the projectChanging climatic and geomorphological processes are likely to increase risks of living at the coast in the future and to increase the value of reducing those risks through engineering. However, the same factors will tend to elevate the cost and decrease the certainty of the effectiveness of those engineering actions. These dynamics may eventually make it too expensive to continue coastal habitation in its current forms. Coupled choices about modifications to the natural and built environment will determine not only the characteristics of coastal communities but also the nature of transitions to less inhabited or uninhabited states. Natural systems will be represented by state-of-the-art three-dimensional coastal geomorphology models to significantly improve predictions about the way coastal systems evolve over time. The economic system will be investigated through a novel specification of the property markets in two US east coast communities and will be informed by surveys and qualitative research into residents' knowledge of risks and preferences for coastal amenities and infrastructure. The project will investigate the way that public policies, including government-managed insurance, engineering projects, disaster relief, and infrastructure, will impact both economic decisions and the coastal environment. The resulting modeling structure will be a significant step forward in modeling community-environment interactions in response to climate change over long time scales, and the code and model structure will be made both accessible for additional research and policy decisions.