Coastlines and Inland Bays: Compounding the Pressures from Development

Discussion led by Ray Najjar (Penn State) and Claire Buchanan (ICPRB)
Note taking by Colin Polsky (Penn State)

• Two stakeholder groups
  - Those involved in assessment
  - Congress?
• Two Questions: (How to define coastal?)
  - Is there a problem?
  - Who does it affect?
• Stakeholder group needs:
  - More diverse industry representation
  ­ Fishery representative
  ­ Coastal homeowners (local government representative)
  ­ Water Environment Federation
  ­ U.S. Army Corps
  ­ Recreation/Tourism
  ­ Ag Industry (runoff)
  ­ Media: need more quantity and better quality
  ­ FEMA
  ­ Doctors (but there is health sector), veterinarians, pathologists
  - Some bias inherent that affects who is involved
  - Education (K-12)
• Two aspects of stakeholder needs
  - Input from stakeholders
  - Audience

• "What if" Scenarios
  - Sea Level Rise (SLR)
  - Storm frequency
  - Runoff
  - Precipitation and temperature

• Coastal Flooding
  - Increases with SLR and storm frequency
  - What is worst case scenario for a coastal flooding event?
  - Most vulnerable
  - Combined effects of high precipitation, SLR, storm surge

• What is impact of increased sediment delivery on coastal ecosystem?
• How well can coastal ecosystems adapt to "rapid" climate change?
• Ecosystems do impact economics
• Sea Level Rise (2'-4'):
  - What is impact on ecosystems?
  -  Effect of salinity, turbidity change associated with SLR
  - What is impact on wetlands?
  - Can they migrate?
  - Wetland extent affects oysters, etc.; economic/fisheries impact - what is cost?
  - Underwater wetlands (submerged aquatic vegetation, or SAV) affected too.
• Increased turbidity leads to more blue-green algae, dinos, protozoans
  - What are critical turbidity thresholds?
  - What would be impacts on human health?

• What do stakeholders need to develop an action plan?
  - They need to know confidence level in prediction
  - How to amend current practices to include more flexibility
  - What will be frequency of flooding events?
  - What will be severity of events and what is damage (cost)?
  - Confidence interval important

• What format should information be distributed in?
  - Tailor to individual stakeholder
  - Educators - Lesson plans
• Industry - Insurance company - will get word out to customer
  - Like a sales job
  - Farmers use extension services
  - Fishermen use resource management agencies and SEA Grant
  - Town meetings
  - Booklets, information fact sheets for nature society members and general public
  - For local governments, use existing technology and policy forum
  - Cannot rely on one medium - be comprehensive
  - Use existing communication channels
  - Word of mouth
  - For Congress - briefing, hearings
  - Target representatives of folks most affected
  - Relevant subcommittees
  - Purpose: ratify Kyoto protocol?

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