Assessing National Park Asset Flood Risk: Retreat, Adapt, Fortify?

Climate Adaptation Data Week
April 13	Localizing Sea Level Rise Projections for Decision-Makers
April 14	Assessing National Park Asset Flood Risk: Retreat, Adapt, Fortify?
April 15	Cultural Heritage and Climate Change
April 16	Bridging the Gap Between Science and Decision-Making
April 17	Weather and Social Data to Inform Participatory Planning Initiatives
Climate Adaptation Data Week Overview

The National Park Service owns thousands of buildings and other infrastructure at risk from coastal flooding and sea level rise. Dr. Rob Young, Director of Western Carolina University’s Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines, led a project to map and evaluate the vulnerability of each coastal NPS asset—from the Statue of Liberty to remote roads in Alaska—in order to help park managers decide what should be protected, what should be abandoned, and what should be moved further inland.

 

 

HIGHLIGHTS

 

Rob Young, Director, Western Carolina University’s Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines

Download briefing transcript

• The Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines (PSDS) sits at the nexus of coastal science and policy, and works to translate science into recommendations for coastal management. It has produced resources such as the Beach Nourishment Database and the Storm Surge Viewer.
• The PSDS has partnered with the National Parks Service (NPS) to develop vulnerability assessments for infrastructure in coastal parks to guide resilience policies.
• Through this project, researchers developed a standardized protocol to assess the vulnerability of individual park assets and compare the vulnerability of assets within and between parks.
  • The protocol was designed to generate actionable information for park managers. Vulnerability data is built into existing infrastructure databases, allowing for easy access for decision-makers.
  • Currently, the project is focused on integrating assessment results into short and long-term planning.
• Vulnerability is a function of exposure to natural hazards, sensitivity to those events, and adaptive capacity. The adaptive capacity of built structures depends on a variety of factors that are difficult to quantify, such as political will, so the protocol uses exposure and sensitivity to quantify vulnerability.
  • Exposure is calculated using a set of coastal hazard and sea level rise exposure indicators measured using a variety of data sources, including federal datasets (e.g., FEMA Flood Zones), internally-generated data (e.g., storm surge SLOSH models), and historical data (e.g., historical flood records).
  • Sensitivity is a measure of damage potential and storm resistance, or how the structure will respond to a flood or storm event. Sensitivity scores were calculated using elevation data, field visits, and park worker questionnaires.
  • Park managers can see the vulnerability of each individual asset to each hazard as well as total scores for exposure, sensitivity, and vulnerability. Results of the assessment can be viewed as a spreadsheet and as a Geographic Information System (GIS) map.
• Assessments are broken down by each exposure and sensitivity indicator, making it easy for decision-makers to create a menu of adaptation actions for each asset.
• The assessments provide clear, science-based guidance on the best ways to use limited funds. The data can also be used to support funding proposals.
• The same protocol can be used to create assessments for municipalities, like in the case of Duck, North Carolina.

 

Q&A Session

 

What specific actions have parks been taking based on the vulnerability assessments your team developed?

The assessment has been used in the decision-making process in Cumberland Island National Seashore as they are figuring out how to incorporate local perspectives on the value of historical villages into vulnerability assessments. In Florida, planners have used vulnerability assessments to reduce the sensitivity of new buildings by raising utilities out of the flood zone, which requires relatively small expenditures for a large reduction in sensitivity.

 

Has your work attracted interest from other federal agencies? Which agencies would benefit from something like the NPS protocol?

Most vulnerability assessments do not include a detailed sensitivity analysis. I would encourage all agencies doing vulnerability assessments to think about the level of detail needed, and whether the information will be easy to access when making spending decisions. PSDS has engaged with a number of non-federal partners, and there is a need and an interest for such assessments at all levels.

 

What is the baseline sea level risk assumed in the reports, and how was it determined?

The assessments use sea level rise models prepared for the NPS, projected out to 2050. However, it is important to keep in mind that for most coastal parks, the majority of the exposure score comes from hurricanes that could happen at current sea levels.

 

How does the protocol account for whether an asset is critical to a park’s mission? Is that factored into the assessment, or is it something a park manager decides?

The vulnerability assessment is based purely on exposure and the physical characteristics of the structure. Mission importance is part of the follow-up discussion on adaptation and resilience.

 

Are the NPS vulnerability assessments publicly available, and where?

Some are available internally within the NPS, but they are currently being prepared for full public distribution.

 

How replicable is the protocol to other vulnerability analyses, for example mapping saltwater intrusion risk?

If it can be mapped on a regional scale, it can be included in the protocol. The protocol currently does not include saltwater intrusion because that data has not yet been consistently mapped.

 

If the NPS received more infrastructure and maintenance funding, how could park managers use the PSDS analyses to build out infrastructure in a cost-effective manner?

Park managers understand the value of federal dollars, want to make wise decisions, and are interested in doing the right thing. If infrastructure funds were made available to the NPS, they would be leaders in developing adaptation and resilience projects that would use our information. Parks’ ability to maintain infrastructure is limited by the availability of funds, and they do not have the funds to make the best possible decisions all of the time.

 

How are other climate factors (e.g., changing temperatures, vegetation viability, erosion...) integrated into your analysis?

In our case, we are not assessing the impacts of other climate change factors. Our mission is specific to physical coastal hazards, but this does not imply that other climate stressors will not be important in the future.

 

How do these asset-level vulnerability assessments engage with the topic of retreat, and are there any ways that they could inform that conversation?

If a park has an asset deemed low priority to the park’s mission that is highly vulnerable, the park probably should not spend any more money there and may want to think about decommissioning it. If an asset is mission critical and highly vulnerable, managers should explore possibilities for it to serve its purpose somewhere else. Moving things is cheaper than many would expect, and almost anything can be moved.