This presentation is part of the Rock: It's Not Just for Revetments Anymore organized session.
Rock can be a useful tool for habitat creation and to protect Great Lakes shorelines from storm surges and fluctuating water levels. Here we will highlight how rock has been used for restoration in the past, as well as new and innovative uses for rock in restoration. We will also showcase several restoration projects funded through the NOAA Restoration Center.
This presentation is part of the Rock: It's Not Just for Revetments Anymore organized session.
Climate change, changes in Great Lakes water levels, shoreline armoring, invasive species and many other factors have had significant impacts on the resilience of nearshore habitats and species. This talk will focus on the Great Lakes Reef Restoration Working Group, the purpose of the group, who participates, and goals. In addition, a brief overview on several reef restoration projects will be highlighted in a short presentation.
This presentation is part of the Rock: It's Not Just for Revetments Anymore organized session.
The Township of Chesterfield, Michigan had a tough decision to make regarding a failing seawall along one of their public parks. The choice was to replace the seawall with another or find an alternative solution. In partnership with the Great Lakes Commission and NOAA, an alternative solution was designed to naturalize the shoreline and install offshore habitat shoals for protection. Implementation of this project has resulted in 740 feet of softened shoreline and 3.2 acres of restored nearshore habitat.
This presentation is part of the Rock: It's Not Just for Revetments Anymore organized session.
Historically, rock substrate was available in the Detroit River as spawning and feeding habitat for Great Lakes fish and other aquatic organisms. This presentation will briefly describe the loss of habitat in the Detroit River and how the use of rock and other habitat restoration techniques can provide habitat as well as provide resilient protection from erosion and the impacts of a changing climate.
This presentation is part of the Rock: It's Not Just for Revetments Anymore organized session.
Ralph Wilson Park is a 100+ acre park located on the shore of Lake Erie in downtown Buffalo. Rooted in a multi-year community visioning process, the generational transformation of the park is world-class in its approach to resiliency, sustainability and equity. Located at the confluence of the Niagara River and Lake Erie, the park's hardened cement sea wall endures the full brunt of 180 miles of momentum gained as winds and storms cross shallow Lake Erie. Designed by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, in partnership with the City of Buffalo and multiple stakeholders, the renovation's scope includes extensive habitat enhancement, removal of the cement seawall and replacement with a resilient mix of armored stone and native plantings. This presentation will focus on the use of armored stone as a means to increase shoreline resiliency/lessen storm impact and flooding in the renovated park. We will also highlight habitat restoration efforts created to enhance fish spawning opportunities and wildlife habitat.
Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) works toward enhancing our region’s natural environment while protecting our land, water and communities from the impacts of flooding, erosion and increasingly extreme weather. One key component in this process is the design and implementation of remedial erosion control/protection and slope stabilization works to protect human life and property. TRCA’s Erosion Risk Management Program (ERMP) monitors the condition of all TRCA-owned waterfront erosion protection structures on an annual basis, allowing for priority ranking. This helps determine whether detailed study, maintenance or remedial works, or further monitoring are recommended. Various factors that may be vulnerable to climate change implications, such as depth and crest height of a structure, known wave climate in the area, etc., are considered.
Several structures in Bluffer’s Park, monitored since 2006, were identified through the ERMP as failing following high lake level events in 2017 and 2019, and a severe wind storm weather event in 2018. These structures protect Bluffer’s Park, which is an artificial landform built in the 1970s at the base of the Scarborough Bluffs, located within the City of Toronto on the north shore of Lake Ontario. The park is owned by TRCA and managed by the City, with TRCA maintaining these structures that protect the park and nearby bluffs.
The extreme weather and lake events prompted initiation of the planning process to develop designs, acquire permits and approvals, and complete major maintenance. Climate change and opportunities for aquatic habitat enhancement were key components of the design. TRCA’s objective was to restore and enhance the original erosion protection capability of these structures, thereby protecting Bluffer’s Park from wave energy and continued erosion. Improvements, to increase resiliency and address climate change impacts, included increasing the structure crest height, using larger material, incorporating splash pads behind structures to account for wave overtopping during extreme events, as well as moving trails and public viewing areas to safe distances. Major Maintenance on four (4) structures within the Park was completed between 2018 and 2022. Construction is currently ongoing on a headland structure, scheduled to be complete in 2024, with planning and design underway for another adjacent series of structures. TRCA has undertaken this work to improve resiliency and address climate change factors, and will continue to plan and implement similar projects along the Toronto waterfront within the same framework.
n the southern shore of Lake Ontario, the sediment transport processes are complex due to a highly dynamic environment, complex shoreline configuration, and large range of sediment fractions which includes silt/clay to cobbles and boulders. Generally, the nearshore environment is supplied by sediments released through the natural erosion and retreat of the bluffs which are found in long stretches along the shoreline ranging from several hundred meters to kilometers in length. The retreat of these shoreline bluffs can result from a variety of processes that operate at different rates and that respond to different triggering mechanisms. For example, wave erosion at the toe of the bluff is a primary cause of bluff retreat, and brief, intense storms that generate large waves can trigger large amounts of bluff retreat in a matter of a few hours or days. Longer term basin-wide or eustatic increases in lake water level can also increase long-term rates of bluff erosion and recession by exposing bluffs more directly to wave action. Surface erosion at the bluff crest from overland runoff can also contribute to bluff recession. Once eroded from the bluffs the material is naturally sorted by the waves and nearshore hydrodynamics and subsequently these materials are transported both in an alongshore and cross-shore direction. Eroded materials are distributed throughout littoral cells and sub-cells or alternatively permanently lost from the system in offshore environment. Depending on the sediment fraction, the response in the nearshore environment differs.
To improve the understanding of coastal processes on the southern shore of Lake Ontario, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) initiated a Project titled: Engineering & Analysis for Coastal Resilience & Ecosystem Restoration Projects. The Project’s primary focus is to study the coastal processes to better inform coastal planning to reduce the risk from flooding and erosion while protecting the coastal ecosystem.
To support the Project, a detailed understanding of hydrodynamics, waves and sediment transport is required. As such, the Project involves a range of activities such as research and data analysis; field services to investigate physical processes, material properties, and shoreline features; desktop assessments; geographic information system analysis (GIS); and a comprehensive numerical modelling program of coastal processes. The key outcomes from the study include wave, hydrodynamic and sediment transport models as well as a detailed sediment budget from Great Sodus Bay to Oswego, which considers fine sediment (silt and clay), sand, and the coarse sediment fractions (pebbles and cobbles) which has not been done in the past due to the lack of data relating to the coarse sediment fractions.
This presentation will describe the overall Project and the latest results with a focus on the numerical modelling including waves, hydrodynamics, and sediment transport. In particular, the presentation will discuss the various sediment sources and sinks, the estimated rate of sediment bypassing at the long jetty structures at Sodus Bay and Little Sodus Bay, and how this information feeds into the sediment budget for the reach of shoreline from Great Sodus Bay to Oswego.
Efforts to restore habitat and manage fisheries often have specific outcomes or objectives related to the occurrence, abundance, biomass, or ecology of target species. But, what constitutes a realistic, achievable goal under current environmental conditions, given the dramatic changes to the Great Lakes in recent decades? To highlight attainable biological goals rather than historical baselines, we used an approach that couples contemporary (1990 - present) fish data and spatially referenced habitat to generate predictions of relative habitat suitability for several native fish species. The resulting spatial benchmarks (locations with high habitat suitability) have utility for planning restoration and management actions and evaluating outcomes. To showcase this work, we use the Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat Framework (GLAHF) Explorer and several tools therein for this workshop. GLAHF is a spatially-consistent framework and database developed by regional collaborators to facilitate basin-wide work on the Great Lakes. The GLAHF Explorer is a publicly available web GIS viewer that allows users to explore habitat maps and other spatial outputs such as modeled habitat suitability and ecosystem types.
The village of Sodus Point, nestled along the southern shores of Lake Ontario, has faced significant flooding challenges that threatened its infrastructure, homes, and community well-being. This panel session will delve into the transformative journey of Sodus Point as it identified its vulnerabilities and implemented robust strategies to enhance its flood resilience. Through strategic planning, community engagement, and strong partnerships, Sodus Point has emerged as a leader in coastal resilience.
The session will kick off with an in-depth look at the visioning workshop that catalyzed Sodus Point's resilience initiatives. This workshop brought together residents, business owners, stakeholders, and experts to brainstorm and prioritize actions needed to address the village's flood risks. By fostering a sense of community and shared purpose, this initial step was crucial in laying the groundwork for subsequent efforts.
Following the discussion on the visioning workshop, the panel will explore the vital partnerships that have been instrumental in advancing Sodus Point's resilience projects. From collaborations with state and federal agencies to alliances with academic institutions and non-profit organizations, these partnerships have provided the technical expertise, funding, and resources necessary for the village to implement innovative solutions.
Key initiatives to be highlighted include the development of improved drainage systems, the construction of protective barriers, and the integration of green infrastructure to mitigate flood impacts. Additionally, the panel will discuss the community's ongoing commitment to resilience through continuous education, policy advocacy, and adaptive management practices.
By examining Sodus Point's comprehensive approach, attendees will gain valuable insights into the processes and strategies that can be applied to similar coastal communities facing the challenges of flooding.
Join us to learn from Sodus Point’s exemplary efforts and explore how community strength and collaboration can drive successful resilience initiatives in coastal regions.
This presentation is part of the Supporting Sediment Transport organized session.
A littoral cell is a conceptual sediment compartment that defines the supply, longshore transport, and deposition of sand and gravel along the coast in the Great Lakes. Within a littoral cell, there is typically an updrift supply area that features a long-term erosion trend, a net direction of longshore sediment transport (LST), and historically a downdrift depositional area that features a positive sediment budget and accretion trend. Understanding the sediment dynamics in littoral cells and the role of these natural physical processes have on protecting coastal ecosystems, beaches, and infrastructure is critical to developing equitable and sustainable long-term adaptation strategies to natural hazards and climate change.
The presentation will provide examples of littoral cell boundaries and sub-cell boundaries, which occur when artificial barriers are constructed that reduce the natural flow of sediments in the nearshore. New sources of sediment from shore erosion and riverine systems will be reviewed, including anthropogenic influence. The role of lake levels and storms in re-distributing sediment in the cells will be highlighted, along with potential impacts of climate change. Finally, characteristics of depositional sinks in littoral cells and examples will be highlighted.
This presentation is part of the Supporting Sediment Transport organized session.
Coastal erosion and the impacts associated with it such as infrastructure damage and habitat loss are ubiquitous issues throughout the Great Lakes region. During periods of high lake level, these issues are at the forefront of management concerns within coastal communities. While decades of coastal change research have been conducted throughout the Great Lakes region and our scientific understanding of the driving processes of coastal erosion continues to grow, we generally lack the ability to accurately predict future coastal changes. This stems primarily from the challenge in predicting future lake levels, which are inherently tied to weather patterns that cannot be reliably forecasted beyond 6 months. While an understanding of the predictive limitations helps to set realistic expectations for coastal managers, it does not provide meaningful planning assistance which is requisite for working towards coastal resilience. To address this, our recent research has focused on developing simple methods for predicting the likelihood of beach recovery following high lake levels at coastal sites along the Great Lakes. The foundation of our approach is to utilize publicly available datasets, such as NOAA lake level data and the USACE Wave Information Studies hindcast wave data, and simple to collect beach and nearshore morphology data that can be generated either by research teams or community scientists. With these data, we utilize fundamental morphodynamic relationships to predict the active zone of coastal sediment transport under past and present wave and water level conditions. The likelihood of sediment transport can then be estimated for varying morphodynamics conditions (e.g., erosive, accretionary) and compared to present morphology to infer whether beach recovery is probable for a site. Case studies along the eastern coast of Lake Michigan were used to develop and evaluate this approach and revealed that moderately erosive conditions that preferentially pull sand lakeward are the most dominant morphodynamic condition. Accretionary conditions that lead to beach recovery occur less frequently (generally less than 25% of the time) and only operate on a narrow portion of the nearshore, within 100 m of the shoreline. These results mechanistically explain why shoreline armoring leads to the loss of beach area and minimizes beach recovery as armoring drives sand lakeward of the zone where accretionary waves operate. This approach provides coastal managers with a probabilistic tool for predicting future coastal change and is currently being scaled up and operationalized throughout the State of Michigan.
This presentation is part of the Supporting Sediment Transport organized session.
This presentation will cover some recent examples of work around the Great Lakes that prioritizes more sensitive and contextual approaches to sediment management that aim to work with coastal forms and processes to protect, enhance, and leverage the ecological and cultural values that make coastal landscapes valuable. These approaches address the tendency for coastal management decisions to “improve” toward the most efficient and transferrable possible outcomes as opposed to the most strategic and contextually sensitive. Coastal management features and initiatives should instead be understood as an extension of the cultural attitudes of a particular place in response to a set of coastal conditions or challenges specific to that place. Otherwise, coastal management, understood as a universal and transferrable collection of efficiency-motivated strategies, threatens to sacrifice the local conditions that make places special to residents and visitors. This one-size-fits-all motivation also closely aligns with the prevalent funding mechanisms that prioritize large capital projects designed and scaled to address a worst-case modeled scenario. While often providing the protection planned, these strategies are large, expensive, and often lack monitoring or adaptation funding needed to both demonstrate efficacy or respond to unplanned conditions. By way of example, this presentation will look at a collection of projects that have attempted to prioritize more strategic and adaptive practices of coastal management, particularly in relationship to existing coastal processes such as sediment transport, and including practices understood as “natural and nature-based approaches”. Additionally, it hopes to set the stage for a larger conversation about the challenges to such approaches and how they can be addressed. Underpinning all of this is a simple assumption that coastal landscapes are not just important things, but what makes them important is the relationships these places engender. Coastal management is not something done to protect something else, but instead is part of the important thing itself and would benefit from acknowledging its place as a cultural and ecological project – a project that has the ability to reinforce and celebrate what we all love about coastal landscapes and what makes them different from one another.
This presentation is part of the Supporting Sediment Transport organized session.
Given what we now understand about the dynamism of Great Lakes coasts, we ask: “How could the policies governing management of these coasts empower communities to think and act in a way that maintains the ecological health of the coastal zone?” Through a comprehensive review of federal, state and local policies governing coastal management in the Great Lakes States, we have evaluated the matrix of protections across states. While this review has revealed gaps in protections, contradictory intents, inherent conflicts between the public trust and private property rights, and tensions between state and local rule, we also have discovered model policies. This presentation will briefly summarize the matrix of policies that govern shoreline protections, dredging and coastal placement, coastal wetlands and beach nourishment highlighting model policies and opportunities for their expansion as urgency grows to increase climate resiliency for people and nature.
This presentation is part of the Supporting Sediment Transport organized session.
Because of a confluence of development pressures and irrepressible physical dynamics, growing numbers of Great Lakes shoreland properties and structures, built on shifting sandy shores, are at heightened risk of loss from coastal storm surge, inundation, erosion, and shoreline recession—a phenomenon akin to sea level rise on ocean coasts. In response, property owners often install (or seek to install) extensive hardened shoreline armoring structures like seawalls and revetments to arrest those erosional processes. Those structures, however, substantially impair, if not ultimately destroy, natural coastal beaches and other shoreland resources, as well as accelerate erosion of neighboring shoreland properties. The clash of imperatives to protect shoreland properties versus conserving coastal resources signifies a wicked dilemma that Great Lakes coastal states and communities cannot avoid: armor or withdraw? More precisely, should a state or locality allow the continued armoring of Great Lakes shorelines in an attempt to fix in place shoreland properties, at great and ongoing private and public expense, and ultimately risk the loss of public trust resources? Or alternatively should it allow—and should it compel shoreland property owners to allow—natural processes to proceed, even though doing so will result in the natural conversion of privately owned shorelands into state-owned submerged bottomlands sooner than would otherwise occur? In many places, states and communities cannot hope to simultaneously protect both the beach and the beach house along naturally receding Great Lakes shorelines; they must choose which interest to prioritize first, recognizing the cost of doing so by losing the other. Given that conundrum, this presentation will provide a survey overview of the institutional arrangements that shape federal, state, and local management of Great Lakes coastal shorelands; key planning methods and policy options that states and localities can employ to reconcile competing demands between development pressures, public and private investments, property rights, and natural systems; and legal doctrines that authorize and constrain state and local actions, including especially the public trust doctrine. The presentation will also briefly identify and consider litigation that will likely arise given growing pressures to armor and—potentially—enhanced natural shoreline protection efforts that states and localities might undertake in response, along with the potential adjudication of those claims.
This panel is part of the Supporting Sediment Transport organized session.
When Great Lakes’ shorelines are able to function naturally and dynamically, they can provide multiple ecosystem benefits to the Great Lakes Basin and surrounding communities – including protection from the impacts of storms, fluctuating water levels and eroding lands – benefits that are increasingly important with changes in climate. Longshore sediment transport refers to the cumulative movement of sand, gravel, and cobble (i.e. coarse sediments) along the shoreline by the combined action of shore-parallel currents, wind, and waves. This mobilization of new sand and gravel from naturally occurring coastal erosion provides nearshore sediment-dependent protective features such as beaches, barrier bars, and dunes with the materials they need to persist and rebuild. These natural features host critical coastal habitat, provide the protected conditions that support wetlands and embayments, and provide flood protection and attenuation to surrounding properties and communities. Without these raw materials, these protective natural features and their associated wetlands disappear, impacting resiliency for coastal communities and ecosystems, as well as recreational opportunities.
Shoreline hardening is the primary method of addressing erosion on Great Lakes shorelines currently used by landowners and coastal managers. Hardening shorelines decreases the amount of sediment flowing along our shores, changes the hydrodynamics, and often increases the degree of erosion experienced by adjacent and down drift properties. Property owners who are experiencing more erosion from reduced sediment availability due to updrift shoreline hardening, find themselves in a position of either hardening their shoreline too, or losing their property investment due to increased erosion.
Join us for a moderated discussion with our session presenters, experts on the many facets of coastal management, to consider how we might come together to address this complex and challenging problem and what questions we still need to answer before we can count on resilient Great Lakes shorelines.
Since the City of Buffalo’s inception, it has been impacted by Lake Erie storm surges, including the infamous 1844 event that topped a 14-foot seawall and caused extensive loss of life and property along the City’s waterfront. These surges are caused by powerful winter storms blowing along the long axis of Lake Erie and providing a low atmospheric pressure environment, which together drive water towards the east end of Lake Erie and the City of Buffalo waterfront. Climate change may increase the City of Buffalo’s exposure to storm surges by reducing ice coverage, which would otherwise suppress storm surges, and by increasing Lake Erie water levels, which reduces the freeboard available to accommodate surges when they occur.
The City of Buffalo Coastal Resiliency Study (BCRS) is a comprehensive effort to evaluate flood risks and to identify solutions to protect public and private assets. It grew out of the Imagine LaSalle initiative, a community-driven program to develop a resilient design for LaSalle Park (now called Ralph Wilson Park), which often takes the brunt of Lake Erie storm surges. The success of that program; major Lake Erie storm surges in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022; as well as concern for climate change underscored the need to broaden that community-driven framework to the City of Buffalo waterfront.
The BCRS is supported by a lake-wide hydrodynamic model which informs a high-resolution (4 m) over- bank flood model as well as a sewer backup model. This approach enables evaluation of climate change scenarios on Lake Erie surges while also enabling detailed understanding of flooding outcomes at the neighborhood scale. The BCRS models complement ongoing modeling and coastal assessments by filling a gap in the types and scale of information needed.
The modeling is supported by extensive review of historical data and literature, including Lake Erie water levels, meteorological data, the latest climate change research and projections of lake conditions, Buffalo River and Scajaquada Creek discharge data, regional and local bathymetric and topographic surveys, land-use data, infrastructure databases, proposed land development plans, and evidence of historical flooding. Ten simulation scenarios evaluated past and projected flood risk. Extreme water levels were selected based on a joint-probability analysis of measured surge and static lake levels for return periods ranging from 1- to 500-years. Four of the scenarios include climate change considerations for the 2050- and 2080-time horizons.
Information gained from modeling will be used to support an asset risk assessment, enabling stakeholder-driven selection of project priority areas and development of shoreline resiliency projects. The BCRS is supported by a GIS-based online presence, creative use of time-lapse imagery, and virtual reality tools to help stakeholders understand Lake Erie storm surges and their impacts.
Lake Erie Eastern Basin is already experiencing the effects of climate change—trending warmer weather, less ice cover, more erratic weather events, and more frequent and bigger storm events. These conditions lead to increased stormwater runoff, which results in erosion, flooding, damaged infrastructure and more sewage overflow into our lakes and rivers. Toxic algae blooms are on the rise, due in part to excessive run-off of nutrient-rich stormwater, and ecosystems and habitats may be permanently altered. New York State is responding to the Climate Crisis with a series of legislative actions such as the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act and the Environmental Bond Act to name a few.
Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper is working with local government and community partners to build resiliency to the impacts of climate change, like flooding and erosion, within the WNY and Great Lakes regions. As guardians of New York’s freshwater coast, Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper works to identify opportunities to enhance community and ecosystem resilience through policy, partnerships, and nature-based solutions.
Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper is working to enhance understanding and public awareness of Western New York’s Lake Erie coastline and nearshore environments and foster stewardship in WNY’s Lake Erie watershed through our project titled, “Ecosystem Assessment towards the Prioritization of Coastal Resiliency Projects in Lake Erie’s Eastern Basin Communities”. Data gathered through this project is contributing to a greater understanding of the state of WNY’s recreational waters to protect human health, inform pollution prevention, and identify potential priority areas for coastal and climate resiliency investments.
Through this project, Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper undertook a detailed literature review of data and research focused on the Eastern Basin of Lake Erie water quality. The literature review has informed opportunities to expand and develop a more robust water quality and ecosystem monitoring program through additional water quality sampling sites, including offshore water sampling via boat. Coupled with this additional water quality data, Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper implemented a shoreline visual assessment tool (using the NYS Department of State Coastal Visual Assessment Tool as a model) to identify opportunities for increased coastal resilience efforts. Data gathered through our water quality monitoring program and visual shoreline assessments will guide our municipal engagement. Collaboratively, with municipal officials, we will identify potential priority areas for shoreline and coastal resiliency projects based on municipal priorities and identified opportunities to increase resiliency, mitigate flooding, improve water quality and create valuable habitat.
Under the Remedial Action Plans for the Great Lakes, the Toronto and Region AOC lists the Beneficial Use Impairment (BUI) of Loss of Fish and Wildlife Habitat and Degradation of Fish and Wildlife Populations as impaired. A Prioritization Tool is needed to guide aquatic habitat restoration along the waterfront to achieve delisting targets for Beneficial Use Impairment (BUI) 14 Loss of Fish and Wildlife Habitat and BUI 3 Degradation of Fish and Wildlife Populations and support ongoing restoration efforts post-delisting. Ecosystem restoration planning requires an integrated approach considering many components of the natural system when prioritizing where and what to restore. Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) and partners are developing a strategic approach to restoration planning, using the concept of applied science to inform meaningful implementation decisions focusing on priority areas rather than opportunism. TRCA has amassed a wealth of knowledge and data on terrestrial biodiversity, aquatic ecosystems, lake processes and hydrology. Consolidating these data sets to compare discrete areas based on different parameters and thresholds has helped direct future restoration initiatives. The Waterfront Integrated Restoration Prioritization (WIRP) framework uses existing data to reflect different restoration goals, ensuring important habitats and corridor linkages are protected, enhanced or rehabilitated. This is achieved by identifying where impairments to ecological function are located and prioritizing restoration opportunities that could contribute most to improving the existing habitat along the Toronto waterfront. This approach has been used in watershed planning and has proven successful for garnering support and new partnerships which has resulted in measurable improvements to the natural system. This presentation will outline WIRP methodology and demonstrate how it can be used as a tool to successfully achieve different natural resource planning objectives.
Great Lakes coastal wetlands are diverse and dynamic ecosystems that have developed to function under disturbances from both terrestrial and aquatic systems. Climate change is projected to alter these disturbances outside their historical ranges, subjecting coastal wetlands to warmer temperatures, more extreme precipitation events, greater variability in lake levels, and increased wind and wave action. These anticipated changes pose as an uncertain risk to coastal wetland habitats and are therefore challenging for natural resource managers, who must contend with limited resources for wetland management, preservation, and adaptation efforts. Using Lake Superior as a pilot, we are developing a framework to quantify the relative sensitivity of Great Lakes coastal wetland habitats to the anticipated effects of climate change. Data from the Coastal Wetlands Monitoring Program (CWMP) and state databases are used in conjunction with published literature, the Wisconsin Initiative on Climate Change Impacts (WICCI), and expert opinion of regional and state-wide wetland professionals to assign sensitivity scores to each wetland. Here, we present the frameworks developed and share initial sensitivity rankings for vegetation, fish, and bird habitats of coastal wetlands within the Lake Superior basin of Wisconsin. By combining sensitivity and adaptive capacity scores, estimates of wetland resiliency will assist in the prioritization of coastal wetland management efforts and inform site-specific adaptation strategies, which can then be replicated on other Great Lakes systems.
Often when we talk about coastal resilience, we are diving right into solutions that enhance or otherwise protect shorelines from the natural process. On low- and sometimes medium-energy shorelines, nature-based solutions lend themselves to positive environmental enhancements. However, on high-energy shorelines typical of Great Lake’s coastline, erosion and wave protection requires greyer infrastructure. Interrupting the natural process with rock or steel isn’t always the best solution and can be costly. We also know that climate change is resulting in periods of higher intensity storms and more extreme high and low water levels which puts valuable coastal property and infrastructure at risk.
Considering relocation for existing infrastructure and planning for higher water levels in the future are a necessary step in the planning process. It is a difficult shift to make for many communities and homeowners but can result in significant cost savings by being proactive and developing comprehensive alternatives analyses. Adapting the way projects are approached and considering all options takes a mindset shift. We will look at the planning process and execution of a Michigan State Park project where a hybrid solution was developed to save a historic building and protect prime public access to the Lake Michigan shoreline. Successful resilience requires not only innovative design, but a willingness to adapt the human emotional response as well.
