Editorial: Anticipating and adapting to the impacts of climate change on low elevation coastal zone (LECZ) communities

[Scholarcy Abstract] The rates of sea level rise in coastal Virginia and the Chesapeake Bay significantly exceed the global rate and weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation adds to the annual rates. The original vision was to enhance future resilience of Low-Elevation Coastal Zone communities by advancing understandings and approaches to better anticipate and mitigate hazards to human health, safety and welfare and reduce deleterious impacts to coastal residents and industries. The goal of the thematic Research Topic has been to assemble interdisciplinary papers that contribute to better understanding of the couplings among physical, ecological, socioeconomic, management and policy factors involved for different regions and under contrasting environmental conditions. The finding that nearly ten percent of the US population is at risk from coastal flooding by severe storms and sea level rise highlights the need for improved adaptation measures. The rates of sea level rise in coastal Virginia and the Chesapeake Bay significantly exceed the global rate and weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation adds to the annual rates. Many Australian estuaries have been degraded by human activity and are threatened by climate change. Ten Caribbean small-island developing states were studied with respect to sustainability of their water-energy-food nexus with climate change

Anticipating and Adapting to the Future Impacts of Climate Change on the Health, Security and Welfare of Low Elevation Coastal Zone (LECZ) Communities in Southeastern USA

Low elevation coastal zones (LECZ) are extensive throughout the southeastern United States. LECZ communities are threatened by inundation from sea level rise, storm surge, wetland degradation, land subsidence, and hydrological flooding. Communication among scientists, stakeholders, policy makers and minority and poor residents must improve. We must predict processes spanning the ecological, physical, social, and health sciences. Communities need to address linkages of (1) human and socioeconomic vulnerabilities; (2) public health and safety; (3) economic concerns; (4) land loss; (5) wetland threats; and (6) coastal inundation. Essential capabilities must include a network to assemble and distribute data and model code to assess risk and its causes, support adaptive management, and improve the resiliency of communities. Better communication of information and understanding among residents and officials is essential. Here we review recent background literature on these matters and offer recommendations for integrating natural and social sciences. We advocate for a cyber-network of scientists, modelers, engineers, educators, and stakeholders from academia, federal state and local agencies, non-governmental organizations, residents, and the private sector. Our vision is to enhance future resilience of LECZ communities by offering approaches to mitigate hazards to human health, safety and welfare and reduce impacts to coastal residents and industries

The Evolution and Outcomes of a Collaborative Testbed for Predicting Coastal Threats

Beginning in 2003, the Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA) enabled an open-access network of distributed sensors and linked computer models through the SURA Coastal Ocean Observing and Predicting (SCOOP) program. The goal was to support collaborations among universities, government, and industry to advance integrated observation and modeling systems. SCOOP improved the path to operational real-time data-guided predictions and forecasts of coastal ocean processes. This was critical to the maritime infrastructure of the U.S. and to the well-being of coastal communities. SCOOP integrated and expanded observations from the Gulf of Mexico, the South Atlantic Bight, the Middle Atlantic Bight, and the Chesapeake Bay. From these successes, a Coastal and Ocean Modeling Testbed (COMT) evolved with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) funding via the Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) to facilitate the transition of key models from research to operations. Since 2010, COMT has been a conduit between the research community and the federal government for sharing and improving models and software tools. SCOOP and COMT have been based on strong partnerships among universities and U.S. agencies that have missions in ocean and coastal environmental prediction. During SURA’s COMT project, which ended September 2018, significant progress was made in evaluating the performance of models that are progressively becoming operational. COMT successes are ongoing

Modeling multiscale and multiphysics coastal ocean processes: A discussion on necessity, status, and advances

Coastal ocean flows are interconnected by a complex suite of processes. Examples are inlet jets, river mouth effluents, ocean currents, surface gravity waves, internal waves, wave overtopping, and wave slamming on coastal structures. It has become necessary to simulate such oceanographic phenomena directly and simultaneously in many disciplines, including coastal engineering, environmental science, and marine science. Oceanographic processes exhibit distinct behaviors at specific temporal and spatial scales, and they are multiscale, multiphysics in nature; these processes are described by different sets of governing equations and are often modeled individually. In order to draw the attention of the scientific community and promote their simulations, a Special Issue of the Journal of Marine Science and Engineering entitled “Multiscale, Multiphysics Modelling of Coastal Ocean Processes: Paradigms and Approaches” was published. The papers collected in this issue cover physical phenomena, such as wind-driven flows, coastal flooding, turbidity currents, and modeling techniques such as model comparison, model coupling, parallel computation, and domain decomposition. This article outlines the needs for modeling of coastal ocean flows involving multiple physical processes at different scales, and it discusses the implications of the collected papers. Additionally, it reviews the current status and offers a roadmap with numerical methods, data collection, and artificial intelligence as future endeavors

Sonar evidence for methane ebullition in Eckernförde Bay

A bottom-mounted, circularly scanning sonar was used to observe the methane-rich seafloor of Eckernforde Bay during the months of April and May in 1993, Event-like changes in the acoustic signal were observed and are shown to be caused by scatterers in the water column that are interpreted to be gas bubbles rising in columns having transverse dimensions 2-5 m. The events do not correlate with seafloor current stress, temperature, or refraction due to stratification, but a strong correlation is seen with pressure at the seafloor, consistent with gas ebullition due to pressure release. It is not possible to definitively exclude scattering from pelagic animals as the cause of these events, but the observed localization at a few spots on the seafloor appears to be inconsistent with the biological explanation. These data are insufficient to determine the flux of free methane, but bounds are estimated and suggestions are made for future measurements that could determine flu

Anticipating and Adapting to the Future Impacts of Climate Change on the Health, Security and Welfare of Low Elevation Coastal Zone (LECZ) Communities in Southeastern USA

Low elevation coastal zones (LECZ) are extensive throughout the southeastern United States. LECZ communities are threatened by inundation from sea level rise, storm surge, wetland degradation, land subsidence, and hydrological flooding. Communication among scientists, stakeholders, policy makers and minority and poor residents must improve. We must predict processes spanning the ecological, physical, social, and health sciences. Communities need to address linkages of (1) human and socioeconomic vulnerabilities; (2) public health and safety; (3) economic concerns; (4) land loss; (5) wetland threats; and (6) coastal inundation. Essential capabilities must include a network to assemble and distribute data and model code to assess risk and its causes, support adaptive management, and improve the resiliency of communities. Better communication of information and understanding among residents and officials is essential. Here we review recent background literature on these matters and offer recommendations for integrating natural and social sciences. We advocate for a cyber-network of scientists, modelers, engineers, educators, and stakeholders from academia, federal state and local agencies, non-governmental organizations, residents, and the private sector. Our vision is to enhance future resilience of LECZ communities by offering approaches to mitigate hazards to human health, safety and welfare and reduce impacts to coastal residents and industries