Dimensions - Summer 2008 - 5

Climate Change Adaptation The floodplain and emergency management community has been focusing on how climate change has the potential to increase the frequency of hazards in current hazardprone or new areas in the United States, producing impacts such as increased sea level rise and storm surge elevations; coastal flooding and erosion; stresses on water resources; wildfire risk; and extreme heat. While regional variations play a major role in the possible impacts, climate change can also exacerbate stress on communities currently struggling from aging infrastructure or other issues. Experts at Dewberry have been developing potential strategies to address climate change adaptation, reduce risk through proper planning, and evaluate potential impact and loss of critical infrastructure and facilities. This issue of Dimensions examines these topics with Jerry Sparks, PE, a certified floodplain manager with an extensive background in hydrologic and hydraulic studies and the National Flood Insurance Program, and Chris Mack, PE, Dewberry’s coastal group leader with broad public and private coastal engineering experience involving storm surge modeling, shoreline change analysis and restoration, and hurricane preparedness. Defining Uncertainty in Hazard Mitigation How may climate change impact an area? Mack: In a coastal community, for example, impacts can be short- and long-term. Short-term impacts may include increased storm frequency, greater damage due to increased inundation levels, and loss of critical coastal area habitats. Long-term impacts are driven by more gradual losses in shoreline positions. In both scenarios, losses may include property, infrastructure, homes, and coastal habitats, as shorelines adjust to changing climatic conditions. How would governments integrate climate change adaptation into planning? Sparks: One way is to address climate change in hazard mitigation plans that many state, local, and regional governments are already preparing under the Stafford Act. This requires analyzing the range of potential impacts of long-term climate change and how it might affect natural hazards for a given geography. Once the potential changes are known, this information can be applied to the built environment to assess its potential risk and vulnerability. From there, governments can identify, evaluate, and select short-term and long-term mitigation and planning strategies. Mack: Our approach includes prioritizing how future resources may be applied to address climate change adaptation. This approach is founded on community “values” inventories—a summary of what a community wants to protect, preserve, or create—and the development of planning and adaptation approaches to preserve them. What do you see as the biggest challenge? Mack: Good planning and appropriate application of resources pose the greatest challenge for communities adapting to variable predictions versus actual climate change impacts. Successful approaches will focus on regional, physical and societal impacts and will provide systems-based solutions that are flexible to change. Sparks: Uncertainty. Although the expected effects of climate change can be forecast, climate is dynamic and always changing; there is no “normal” climate. The uncertainty we face—which can also be categorized as scientific uncertainty, especially related to weather extremes; longterm exposure changes associated with future socioeconomic and demographic conditions; and system feedback between evolving risks and societal and environmental adaptation—increases exponentially with time. We have the ability to sift through existing and emerging studies to see how the data can best be applied to existing mitigation plans and create reasonable scenarios to address these uncertainties. Click here to view a more in-depth presentation of strategies for adapting to climate change through mitigation planning, as delivered at the national Association of State Floodplain Managers Conference, May 18-23, 2008. 5

Dimensions - Summer 2008

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Dimensions - Summer 2008