SYMP 20-2
Coastal storms: Minimizing impacts, enhancing resilience, and improving restoration success
Background/Question/Methods
The disastrous consequences of Katrina and the other 2005 mega-hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico and of Superstorm Sandy in New York-New Jersey in 2012 brought heightened attention to understanding and improving the resilience of coastal ecosystems and socio-economic systems. Furthermore, these storms brought evidence to the reality of accelerated sea-level rise and heightened storm intensity due to global climate change. Meanwhile, a disaster of a human kind, the 2010 BP-Deepwater Horizon oil spill, is providing unprecedented resources for large-scale coastal ecosystem restoration along the Gulf Coast. How did ecosystems respond to the storms and how did these responses affect the socio-economic systems that depend on them? How will sea-level rise affect future vulnerability and how might the resilience of human and natural systems to coastal storms be improved, including through large-scale ecosystem restoration?
Results/Conclusions
Results/Conclusions
Large storms cause transient acceleration of the slower, secular evolution of coastal ecosystems as they respond to climate change. This is manifest not only in dramatic changes in coastal landforms and loss of wetlands, but also in species shifts and invasions. The human tendency to rebuild and attempt to restore things as they were often diminishes rather than enhances resilience. New realities have to be accepted and planning for resilience should employ natural processes as much as possible and facilitate transgression due to sea-level rise except where preserving human infrastructure is essential and feasible. Non-structural approaches to enhancing resilience, such as elevated buildings and facilitated evacuation, must play a larger role where structural defenses are infeasible or counterproductive. Ecosystem restoration is challenged to foresee future conditions and design approaches that optimize ecosystem services, including moderation of storm vulnerability, under those conditions. Science is presented with a great opportunity to inform decisions that enhance resilience by must overcome beliefs and expectations based largely on preserving the status quo.