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Browse abstracts
Modeling the coupled evolution of barrier landscapes and communities
The newly developed CoAStal Community-lAnDscape Evolution (CASCADE) model couples physical processes (storm erosion and sediment redistribution, dune growth, sea-level rise, shoreface and shoreline change, and gradients in alongshore sediment flux) and the effects of management strategies (e.g. overwash removal and dune maintenance, highway relocation, and beach nourishment). Using this model, we examine the outcomes, over decades, of the coupling between natural dynamics and commonly employed management strategies. Modeled outcomes depend on sea-level-rise rate, storm sequences, and initial barrier topography, and they range from developed barrier systems that can be sustained for over a century before becoming uninhabitable (effectively drowned), to scenarios in which highways and/or communities need to be abandoned within decades. Subsequent barrier recovery depends on the final state of the developed system before abandonment, as well as stochasticity in the timing of storms. When different management strategies are employed at different locations alongshore, their effects are coupled via the redistribution of sediment along a curved coastline.
We are also using CASCADE in a participatory modeling collaboration involving managers and planners with the Cape Hatteras National Seashore and the North Carolina Department of Transportation, as well as community representatives. Together, we will examine the range of outcomes, under different climate scenarios, of the strategies being considered for managing a critically threatened transportation corridor along a barrier within the National Seashore.