An integrated approach for evaluating coastal vulnerability in a changing climate

Coastal hazards such as flooding and erosion threaten many coastal communities and ecosystems. With documented increases in both storm frequency and intensity and projected acceleration of sea level rise, incorporating the impacts of climate change and variability into coastal vulnerability assessments is becoming a necessary, yet challenging task. We are developing an integrated approach to probabilistically incorporate the impacts of climate change into coastal vulnerability assessments via a multi-scale, multi-hazard methodology. By examining the combined hazards of episodic flooding/inundation and storm induced coastal change with chronic trends under a range of future climate change scenarios, a quantitative framework can be established to promote more sciencebased decision making in the coastal zone. Our focus here is on an initial application of our method in southern Oregon, United States. (PDF contains 5 pages

Assessing societal vulnerability of U.S. Pacific Northwest communities to storm induced coastal change

Progressive increases in storm intensities and extreme wave heights have been documented along the U.S. West Coast. Paired with global sea level rise and the potential for an increase in El Niño occurrences, these trends have substantial implications for the vulnerability of coastal communities to natural coastal hazards. Community vulnerability to hazards is characterized by the exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity of human-environmental systems that influence potential impacts. To demonstrate how societal vulnerability to coastal hazards varies with both physical and social factors, we compared community exposure and sensitivity to storm-induced coastal change scenarios in Tillamook (Oregon) and Pacific (Washington) Counties. While both are backed by low-lying coastal dunes, communities in these two counties have experienced different shoreline change histories and have chosen to use the adjacent land in different ways. Therefore, community vulnerability varies significantly between the two counties. Identifying the reasons for this variability can help land-use managers make decisions to increase community resilience and reduce vulnerability in spite of a changing climate. (PDF contains 4 pages

WAVE ENERGY DISSIPATION BY INTERTIDAL SAND WAVES ON A MIXED-SEDIMENT BEACH

Abstract: Within the surf zone, the energy expended by wave breaking is strongly influenced by nearshore bathymetry, which is often linked to the character and abundance of local sediments. Based upon a continuous, two year record of Argus Beach Monitoring System (ABMS) data on the north shore of Kachemak Bay in southcentral Alaska, we model the enhancement of wave energy dissipation by the presence of intertidal sand waves. Comparison of model results from simulations in the presence and absence of sand waves illustrates that these ephemeral morphological features can offer significant protection to the backing beach and sea cliff through two mechanisms: (1) by moving the locus of wave breaking seaward and (2) by increasing energy expenditure associated with the turbulence of wave breaking

Vegetation control allows autocyclic formation of multiple dunes on prograding coasts

We investigate the formation of multiple dunes using a >15 yr record of dune growth from Long Beach Peninsula, Washington State (USA), and a recently published coastal dune model modified to include a feedback between vegetation growth and local dune slope. In the presence of shoreline progradation, we find that multiple dune ridge formation can be autocyclic, arising purely from internal dune dynamics rather than requiring variations in external conditions. Our results suggest that the ratio of the shoreline progradation rate and the lateral dune growth rate is critical in determining the height, number, and form of multiple dunes, allowing the development of testable predictions. Our findings are consistent with observations and imply that caution is required when using dune ridges as proxies for past changes in climate, sea level, land use, and tectonic activity because the relationship between external events and the formation of multiple dunes may not be one to one as previously thought

Is the intensifying wave climate of the U.S. Pacific Northwest increasing flooding and erosion risk faster than sea level rise?

The relative contributions of sea level rise (SLR) and increasing extra-tropical storminess to the frequency with which waves attack coastal features is assessed with a simple total water level (TWL) model. For the coast of the U.S. Pacific Northwest (PNW) over the period of wave-buoy observations (~30 years) wave height (and period) increases have had a more significant role in the increased frequency of coastal flooding and erosion than has the rise in sea level. Where tectonic-induced vertical land motions are significant and coastlines are presently emergent relative to mean sea level, increasing wave heights results in these stretches of coast being possibly submergent relative to the TWL. While it is uncertain whether wave height increases will continue into the future, it is clear that this process could remain more important than or at least as important as SLR for the coming decades, and needs to be taken into account in terms of the increasing exposure of coastal communities and ecosystems to flooding and erosion.Keywords: Vertical land motions, Coastal flooding, Wave height increases, Sea level rise, Total water level, Coastal erosion, Storminess, Coastal hazards, Oregon, Pacific Northwes

nzeb target for existing buildings case study of historical educational building in mediterranean climate

Abstract A key element of the Energy Performance of Building Directive 2010/31/EU is the introduction of nearly zero energy building (NZEB) standard for new constructions. However, considering the very low rate of new built volume, the major change for achieve the sustainable grow of the European economy, appears to be the renovation of existing building stock. But, is it possible to reach very low or nearly zero energy standard during refurbishment design? Proposed paper tries to answer this question, evaluating if the refurbishment of historic architectures to very low energy need is possible and economically feasible. With reference to a case study, this paper investigates the cost-optimal energy refurbishment of a Renaissance-style palace, located in the center of Naples, South Italy. The adopted methodology consists of various steps. Firstly, a model of the building has been accurately built and calibrated. Then, it has been used to evaluate possible interventions concerning both the envelope and the energy systems. The best solutions, chosen according to the European methodology of cost-optimality, have been combined in a last simulation. The results show that great energy savings as well as economic and environmental improvements are possible, although heritage buildings present a less flexibility in the proposal of energy efficiency measures

Simulating extreme total water levels using a time-dependent, extreme value approach

Coastal flood hazard zones and the design of coastal defenses are often devised using the maximum recorded water level or a ‘‘design’’ event such as the 100 year return level, usually projected from observed extremes. Despite technological advances driving more consistent instrumental records of waves and water levels, the observational record may be short, punctuated with intermittent gaps, and vary in quality. These issues in the record often preclude accurate and robust estimates of extreme return level events. Here we present a total water level full simulation model (TWL-FSM) that simulates the various components of TWLs (waves, tides, and nontidal residuals) in a Monte Carlo sense, taking into account conditional dependencies that exist between the various components. Extreme events are modeled using nonstationary extreme value distributions that include seasonality and climate variability. The resulting synthetic TWLs allow for empirical extraction of return level events and the ability to more robustly estimate and assess present-day flood and erosion hazards. The approach is demonstrated along a northern Oregon, USA littoral cell but is applicable to beaches anywhere wave and water level records or hindcasts are available. Simulations result in extreme 100 year TWL return levels as much as 90 cm higher than those extrapolated from the ‘‘observational’’ record. At the Oregon site, this would result in 30% more coastal flooding than the ‘‘observational’’ 100 year TWL return level projections. More robust estimates of extreme TWLs and tighter confidence bounds on return level events can aid coastal engineers, managers, and emergency planners in evaluating exposure to hazards

Regional scale sandbar variability: Observations from the U.S. Pacific Northwest

Understanding sandbar dynamics and variability is integral to developing a predictive capacity for nearshore flows, sediment transport, morphological change, and ultimately for determining coastline exposure to damaging storm waves. Here we report on a nearshore bathymetric data set from the U.S. Pacific Northwest (PNW) that stretches from Point Grenville, Washington to Cascade Head, Oregon, over approximately 260 km in the alongshore and includes 8 distinct littoral cells. We describe and quantify the morphological variability of sandbars on a regional scale, using 560 individual cross-shore transects, as well as attempt to explain the inter-littoral cell variability via relationships to various environmental parameters. The cross-shore extent of the bar zone extends over 1km from the shoreline in the northern part of the study area, but only to about 600m from the shoreline in the southern part. Maximum bar crest depths are typically 7m below MLLW. Bar heights range from a step in the cross-shore profile to over 3m from crest to trough. The northernmost littoral cells typically have two or more subtidal sandbars per cross-shore profile whereas the littoral cells in the southern part of our study area have only one bar. The mean depths of the bars, however, are much more consistent across littoral cells even while the upper shoreface slope significantly increases from north to south, requiring that the maximum bar distance from the shoreline decreases from north to south. Results from a limited study of the temporal variability suggest that while data collected over large spatial scales captures significant amounts of overall sandbar variability, it does not completely characterize the variability over the entirety of the net offshore migration cycle.This is an author's peer-reviewed final manuscript, as accepted by the publisher. The published article is copyrighted by Elsevier and can be found at: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/continental-shelf-research/Keywords: Sandbars, Littoral cell, Nearshore morphodynamics, Large-scale coastal behavior, U.S. Pacific Northwest, Alongshore variabilit