Sea-Level Rise Inundation GIS Layer for Use in WRP Easement Payment per Acreage Rate

Sea level rise;climate change;wetlands;easement;conservation;tidal;Environmental Sciences and Policy

Guck, Michelle MarieWinklerPrins, Antoinette M. ;

Johns Hopkins University

关键词: Sea level rise;    climate change;    wetlands;    easement;    conservation;    tidal;    Environmental Sciences and Policy;   

Others  :  https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/bitstream/handle/1774.2/39398/GUCK-CAPSTONE-2014.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

瑞士|英语

来源: JOHNS HOPKINS DSpace Repository

【 摘 要 】

The overarching goal of this project is to provide products that will inform state-level policy decision makers, stakeholders, and tools to assist local planners. Consequences of climate change come in different forms and one of the visible results of climate change is sea level rise. The rise and fall of sea level is recorded in modern written history as well as in prehistoric times. In an effort to integrate climate change adaptation strategies with conservation easement policy the State of Maryland Department of Natural Resources (MD DNR) turned to geospatial-based model outputs, created in Geographic Information Systems (GIS), to assess conservation easement applications in their Program Open Space during the purchasing process. A similar Federal conservation easement program, the Wetlands Reserve Program, administered by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), has no policy in place to integrate future impacts of climate change. Yet both programs are applied in the state of Maryland to address conservation of wetland ecosystems, some of which include tidal marsh areas present on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. These areas of tidal wetlands are located on the lower Eastern Shore in the Coastal Plain physiographic province and are susceptible to changes in sea level and projected sea level rise inundation. Forecasting sea level rise inundation introduces multiple layers of complexity as the best available science is constantly evolving with new data and technology advances seemingly are released annually. Modeling future sea level rise impacts in coastal areas is highly dependent on local variations, especially in marsh wetland areas, where accretion rates vary widely. Rather than model where marsh areas and their vegetation community composition are expected to migrate horizontally as an impact of sea level rise, the outcome of this project is to have a GIS layer represent areas where inundation above current sea level is likely to occur.