Coastal Zone Management and Water Resources

Transcription

1 Coastal Zone Management and Water Resources Dr. Eric J. Fitch Assoc. Prof. of Environmental Science and Leadership, Marietta College, Marietta, OH & E.i.C. Water Resources IMPACT SESSION 37: Special Session Panel: AWRA at 50-3: The Future of Water AWRA Annual Water Resources Conference Nov. 5, 2014 Tysons Corner, VA

2 Coastal Issues and Water Resources Climate Change Related Issues Sea Level Rise Ocean Thermal Impacts Ocean Acidification Coastal Storms Coastal Development Impacts Saltwater Intrusion Coastal Pollution Impacts: Dead Zones Impacts from Flood Control and Channelization Erosion increases, Deposition/Sedimentation Decreases or Relocation Seabed Resource Extraction and Related Physical and Pollution Impacts Estuarine Impacts Barrier Islands Impacts Coastal Wetland Loss and other Biological Impacts

3 Coastal Population U.S. and Globally: 44% + World Population; 52%+ U.S.Population lives in the CZ and both population and coastal concentration are growing.

4 Anthropogenic Climate Change is Real and Happening Sea Level Rise is happing with a major portion on the increase attributable to Climate Change. Increases in liquid water volume from melting of glaciers and ice caps and heat expansion of H 2 O Sea Level Rise Projections indicate severe direct and indirect impacts from Sea Level Rise: Indirect impacts including increases in storm surge heights. Projection of coastal impact by 2100 from ~1m. And ~ 6m. increases

5 Ocean Warming: Figure 1: Total Earth Heat Content anomaly from 1950 (Murphy 2009). Ocean data taken from Domingues et al Land + Atmosphere includes the heat absorbed to melt ice. Figure 2: Land, atmosphere, and ice heating (red), meter OHC increase (light blue), 700-2,000 meter OHC increase (dark blue). From Nuccitelli et al. (2012). Impacts: Severe Coastal Storms: Increase in Frequency and/or intensity Ecosystem Stress esp. Coral Reefs Decrease in Productivity of microalgae and O 2 Production

6 Ocean Acidification When carbon dioxide (CO2) is absorbed by seawater, chemical reactions occur that reduce seawater ph, carbonate ion concentration, and saturation states of biologically important calcium carbonate minerals. These chemical reactions are termed "ocean acidification" or "OA" for short.

7 Tsunamis, Earthquakes, Volcanos, and Landslides Coastal areas often have heightened vulnerability/ susceptibility to earth movements and eruptions. Global forecasting of these threats has been improved since the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami

8 Saltwater Intrusion Saltwater intrusion is the movement of saline water into freshwater aquifers, which can lead to contamination of drinking water sources and other consequences. Saltwater intrusion occurs naturally to some degree in most coastal aquifers, owing to the hydraulic connection between groundwater and seawater.

9 Coastal Development and Pollution Increasing development leads to increasing runoff, development of urban heat islands, increased stress on water treatment facilities, increased degradation and destruction of terrestrial (including barrier island), estuarine and salt water life zones.

10 Channelization, Loss of Coastal Wetlands and increases in Dead Zones Hypoxic Zones in the Gulf are new normal

11 Near-shore and Off-shore Resource Extraction Overfishing, extraction of oil and natural gas from progressively deeper and deeper wells, mineral extraction, sand mining for beach renourishment and other exploitive industries are having their impacts.

12 The Future of Coastal Management It is a curious situation that the sea, from which life first arose should now be threatened by the activities of one form of that life. But the sea, though changed in a sinister way, will continue to exist; the threat is rather to life itself. Rachel Carson, The Sea Around Us