scholarly journals ADAPTATION TO A CHANGING CLIMATE IN THE COASTAL ZONE – A CASE STUDY OF PRIME HOOK NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE

2018 ◽  
pp. 2
Author(s):  
Jeffrey R. Tabar
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Hurricane Sandy ◽  
Delaware Bay ◽  
Storm Events ◽  
Engineering Analysis ◽  
National Wildlife Refuge ◽  
Wildlife Refuge ◽  
The Past ◽  
Morphologic Changes

Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge and its adjacent water bodies are important natural features along western Delaware Bay, USA. Historically salt and brackish marsh habitats, portions of the Refuge were diked and managed as freshwater impoundments starting in the early 1980s. Over the past decade, some of these impoundments have reverted to saline conditions, largely due to several storm events (including Hurricane Sandy in 2012) that have caused flooding, erosion, and opened several breaches between the Refuge and Delaware Bay. Because of these significant morphologic changes, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) completed a series of surveys and coastal engineering analysis to aid in developing restoration alternatives for managing the Refuge. As part of this effort, seasonal shoreline surveys were conducted in the fall of 2011 through the spring of 2017 to provide a temporal span of data for evaluating the rapid retreat.

Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge Marsh Restoration & Shoreline Resilience Project – A Carbon Sequestration Case Study in the Coastal Zone 

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aspen Tabar ◽  
Susan Guiteras ◽  
Jeff Tabar
Keyword(s):  
Salt Marsh ◽  
Carbon Sequestration ◽  
Coastal Zone ◽  
Hurricane Sandy ◽  
Community Response ◽  
Delaware Bay ◽  
National Wildlife Refuge ◽  
Vegetation Community ◽  
Marsh Restoration ◽  
Wildlife Refuge

<p>Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge and its adjacent water bodies are important natural features along western Delaware Bay, USA. Historically salt and brackish marsh habitats, portions of the Refuge were diked and managed as freshwater impoundments starting in the early 1980s. Over the past decade, some of these impoundments have reverted to saline conditions, largely due to several storm events (including Hurricane Sandy in 2012) that have caused flooding, erosion, and opened several breaches between the Refuge and Delaware Bay. Because of these significant morphologic changes, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) completed a series of surveys, numerical modeling using Delft3D and coastal engineering analyses to aid in developing restoration alternatives for managing the Refuge and its marshlands. This work will review the results of the strategic planning used to recommend a preferred restoration alternative for managing the Refuge under the new environmental regime aimed at resilience. As a result of this effort, a project for restoring and managing the Refuge was recommended and constructed in 2018. Total cost of the project was $40 million US and was the largest restoration/recovery project authorized to address the impacts of Hurricane Sandy.</p><p>The project included two major components: 1) shoreline reconstruction and 2) marsh restoration.  The shoreline reconstruction portion of the project included placing approximately 1.2 million cubic meters of sand from an offshore borrow area along the shoreline to reconstruction a 12 m wide dune, 45 m beach berm and 30 m back-bay marsh platform (essentially rebuilding the entire barrier island). In addition, the project included a major marsh restoration effort including dredging 48 km of conveyance channels and “thin layer” disposal of 460,000 cubic meters of sediment to create 2,000 hectares of salt marsh.</p><p>Herein will present findings from an analysis using monitoring data and observations to evaluate converting freshwater wetlands to saltwater marshes and the resulting increase in carbon sequestration. As tidal marshes are restored, harmful emissions decline as the project site transforms from a freshwater to a saltwater environment. Therefore, carbon is stored in the soils more readily under tidal marsh conditions. The findings will show the increase in carbon sequestration as a result of the vegetation community response and discuss future projections.  Methodologies used for identifying vegetation community response included:</p><ul><li>Salt Marsh Integrity (SMI) and Saltmarsh Habitat & Avian Research Program (SHARP)</li> <li>Mid-Atlantic Tidal Rapid Assessment Method (MidTRAM)</li> <li>Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI)</li> </ul><p>This work will show the importance of incorporating coastal restoration projects and carbon sequestration into policies and management in the coastal zone.</p>

Transportation Fuel Resiliency: Case Study of Tampa Bay

2021 ◽  
pp. 036119812110416
Author(s):  
Alexander Kolpakov ◽  
Austin Marie Sipiora ◽  
Caley Johnson ◽  
Erin Nobler
Keyword(s):  
Alternative Fuels ◽  
The United States ◽  
Tampa Bay ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Transportation Fuel ◽  
Fuel Supply ◽  
Preparedness Planning ◽  
The Past ◽  
Hurricane Irma

This case study presents findings from an analysis of the emergency preparation and response for Hurricane Irma, the most recent hurricane impacting the Tampa Bay region. The Tampa Bay region, in particular, is considered one of the most vulnerable areas in the United States to hurricanes and severe tropical weather. A particular vulnerability stems from how all petroleum fuel comes to the area by marine transport through Port Tampa Bay, which can be (and has been in the past) impacted by hurricanes and tropical storms. The case study discussed in this paper covers previous fuel challenges, vulnerabilities, and lessons learned by key Tampa Bay public agency fleets during the past 10 years (mainly as a result of the most recent 2017 Hurricane Irma) to explore ways to improve the area’s resilience to natural disasters. Some of the strategies for fuel-supply resiliency include maintaining emergency fuel supply, prioritizing fuel use, strategically placing the assets around the region to help with recovery, investing in backup generators (including generators powered by alternative fuels), planning for redundancies in fuel supply networks, developing more efficient communication procedures between public fleets, hurricane preparedness-planning, and upgrading street drainage systems to reduce the threat of local flooding.

scholarly journals Comprehensive valuation of the ecosystem services of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam C. Turner ◽  
Margaret A. Young ◽  
Maureen R. McClung ◽  
Matthew D. Moran
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Full Range ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
National Wildlife Refuge ◽  
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge ◽  
Wildlife Refuge ◽  
Gas Drilling ◽  
Contingent Valuation Survey

AbstractEcosystem services (ES) have been well studied in most biomes, but the Arctic tundra has received little attention, despite covering over 10% of terrestrial Earth. Using established ES methodologies, we calculated values for the United States Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a region virtually undisturbed by humans, but slated for future oil and gas drilling. We estimated the Refuge is worth about 1,709 USD/hectare/year, equal to over 13 billion USD annually.Globally important services, such as climate regulation (e.g., carbon storage) and non-use services (e.g., aesthetic information), contributed the most value and were similar to valuations from more productive ecosystems. Local services made smaller contributions to the total, but they remain vitally important to local indigenous cultures. Strikingly, a contingent valuation survey of U.S. residents found that, after neutral educational information, willingness-to-pay to maintain the Refuge in its current state exceeded estimated values of the oil and gas deposits.Our study shows that citizens may value Arctic habitats beyond their traditional economic development potential. Our comprehensive ecosystem services valuation suggests that maintaining the Refuge in its current condition (i.e., de facto wilderness) with its full range of ES is more valuable to humanity compared to development for oil and gas.

scholarly journals Addressing Affordability in the National Flood Insurance Program

2014 ◽  
Vol 01 (01) ◽  
pp. 1450001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolyn Kousky ◽  
Howard Kunreuther
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Hurricane Sandy ◽  
Flood Insurance ◽  
National Flood Insurance Program ◽  
Voucher Program ◽  
Insurance Program ◽  
Loan Program ◽  
Flood Prone Areas

There is often tension between setting insurance premiums that reflect risk and dealing with equity/affordability issues. The National Flood Insurance Program in the United States recently moved toward elimination of certain premium discounts, but this raised issues with respect to the affordability of coverage for homeowners in flood-prone areas. Ultimately, Congress reversed course and reinstated discounted rates for certain classes of policyholders. We examine the tension between risk-based rates and affordability through a case study of Ocean County, New Jersey, an area heavily damaged by Hurricane Sandy. We argue that the NFIP must address affordability, but that this should not be done through discounted premiums. Instead, we propose a means-tested voucher program coupled with a loan program for investments in hazard mitigation.

Personal Disclosure as a Catalyst for Empathetic Agency

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
The United States ◽  
Japanese Americans ◽  
First Person ◽  
The Past ◽  
Willingness To Disclose ◽  
Personal Disclosure

Chapter Two examines the growing willingness of Japanese Americans to engage in personal disclosure regarding wartime incarceration. Taking former U.S. Representative Norman Mineta as a case study, it demonstrates that Nikkei did not undertake such disclosures lightly, but rather recognized the importance of first-person singular modes of address for creating legislative coalitions. With respect to Mineta, that willingness to disclose the particulars of incarceration built on an empathetic engagement with economic and social justice that had informed his career from early on. During the pursuit of redress in the United States, however, what had been an implicit engagement with the past became explicit, so much so that it came eventually to inform Mineta's decisions concerning post-9/11 policy. In this respect, the pursuit of empathetic agency not only changed Mineta; it also changed him, rendering that agency both transmissible and reciprocal.

Can sea level rise help us restore coastal wetlands? The hydrologic restoration of the Slop Bowl, Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge, Texas

Shore & Beach ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 73-82
Author(s):  
Rusty Feagin ◽  
Thomas Huff ◽  
Kevin Yeager ◽  
Sam Whitehead
Keyword(s):  
Sea Level Rise ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Coastal Wetland ◽  
Marsh Surface ◽  
Baseline Scenario ◽  
National Wildlife Refuge ◽  
Wildlife Refuge ◽  
The Past ◽  
Access Road ◽  
Hydrologic Restoration

The Slop Bowl marsh in the Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge provides extraordinarily high quality, heavily used bird habitat. Much of this habitat has experienced hypersaline conditions due to both hydrologic alteration by humans and a rapidly and changing physical environment over the past several decades. Oil and natural gas extraction activities have resulted in excavation and channelization along pipelines and hydrologic obstruction by an access road. In addition, subsidence along growth faults has altered hydrologic pathways and lowered surface elevations in the center of the marsh. Our objective was to understand the underlying processes that contribute to hypersaline conditions and to evaluate possible restoration alternatives to reduce the severity of those conditions. Accordingly, we conducted extensive field and hydrologic modeling efforts, and identified the past, present, and future of this marsh habitat under a baseline scenario. We then compared various restoration action scenarios against this baseline. We found that, beginning in about 15 years, relative sea level rise will improve the hydrologic conditions by enhancing tidal flushing. However, if fill material is continually added to elevate the obstructing road as the sea rises, this hydrologic relief may never be realized. Moreover, we found that if a drought occurs during this critical period, a difference of only a few centimeters in the relative water level and road elevation, or changes in marsh surface elevations driven by fault motion and subsidence, may have catastrophic consequences. The modeling also suggests that several potential interventions can bridge this gap over the next 15 years and beyond. Actions that improve tidal circulation, reduce salinity, and enhance marsh accretion are being developed by the project team to enhance and restore habitat in the near term. The most optimal approaches evaluated thus far include the installation of culverts at critical locations, the excavation of a small channel, the modification of flow pathways, and the beneficial use of sediments and vegetative plantings. We conclude that, under specific circumstances or at unique locations such as the Slop Bowl marsh, sea level rise can be leveraged to improve coastal wetland health.

The Interplay of American Political Culture and Public Policy: The Sacramento River as a Case Study

1989 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Kelley
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Environmental History ◽  
The United States ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
American Political Culture ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
National Life

Historians of the United States have learned much in the past twenty years about the history of what is now called its political culture, and about its environmental history.1 These two dimensions of national life, however, are rarely, if ever, looked at together. The result is that we little understand how powerfully environmental policy is influenced not simply by everyday politics—of that we know abundantly—but by the long-term political mentalities of the Democrats and the Republicans, mentalities which originate not in abstract theorizing, but which grow up naturally within the cultural worlds to be found among the distinctive groups of peoples who line up within one party or the other and remain there, generation after generation. What I propose here is to put political culture and natural resource management history together and see what happens.

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