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The complex scientific issues and management problems surrounding coastal ecosystems and resources in the Northeastern United States demand a research approach that is multi-disciplinary, inclusive of the four major specialty areas within the USGS, and collaborative with colleagues and partners outside USGS. In addition, a comprehensive USGS research program in the coastal zone should be regionally integrated and focused on the primary ecosystem threats and ecological responses in coastal environments. There are three practical aspects to this approach. (1) When specific studies quantifying a single process in the coastal zone are integrated with studies from different disciplines or geographic areas, a more complete view of the process emerges. (2) A more complete understanding of how the coastal ecosystem works is of value to environmental and natural resource managers, commercial users of coastal resources, and the public. (3) An integrated research effort in the northeast coastal zone will reach a wider range of stakeholders who appreciate the importance of an integrated approach to science designed to meet the current and future needs of society.
This workshop provides an opportunity to develop integrated approaches to addressing overarching coastal themes for the northeast region. Workshop participants are requested to develop an integrated science plan that utilizes existing USGS capabilities and identifies those that are needed from outside collaborators.
The Steering Committee has selected three “big issues” as the science framework for this workshop. These issues have been identified as critical scientific needs in a number of previous regional workshops. To be addressed within each issue are the primary threats to coastal ecosystems and resources, the stressors arising from those threats, and consequent ecological responses. The issues include:
These issues are broad and are meant to be inclusive of topics that can be shaped into a reasonable scope for an integrated science plan. Helping to develop the reasonable scope is one charge to the workshop participants. The science plan should have both immediate and long-term components. Pilot studies in the first two years should provide a compelling product that can be used to demonstrate the value of the integrated science approach. The product would be used to attract funding and participants for an expanded program in the following years.
Brief summaries of the “big issues” are provided below. For the purpose of this workshop, the coastal zone in the northeast includes the watersheds of the major and minor rivers, ground-water dominated portions of the coast not drained by streams, the shoreline itself, nearshore ecosystems, and the continental shelf. The northeast focus area includes New England, the Gulf of Maine, and Long Island Sound.
The coastal zone of the Northeastern United States, from New York Harbor to Maine, includes some of the most highly urbanized areas of the Nation, and is home to two of the oldest coastal cities in the U.S., Boston and New York City. The industrial revolution in the New World began on the Blackstone River in Rhode Island, with the construction in 1790 of the Slater Textile Mill in Pawtucket.
In the 375 years since European settlement, urban and agricultural development have led to profound shifts in land and water use, and have dramatically affected the material fluxes to the ocean from the region. The integrity of coastal ecosystems in the region depends in part upon the historic and present-day fluxes of fresh water, sediment, nutrients, and contaminants entering the coastal waters from the mainland, and the processing of these fluxes within the coastal zone. The USGS, as the only multi-disciplinary Federal science agency spanning the land-sea boundary, has a unique responsibility to characterize these fluxes and assess the consequences to coastal ecosystems (embayments, estuaries, tidal marshes, and near-shore waters).
There is a pressing need for USGS to address:
Public awareness of coastal hazards is heightened immediately after a hurricane or major storm impacts a populated coastal area. When cyclones hit the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta, news reports typically indicate catastrophic loss of human life. Broadcast video footage during hurricanes in the United States often show century-old beach houses being torn apart and carried away by storm waves. After such events, the public may hear that the increasing vulnerability of the coastal zone is due to sea level rise, a trend that is principally related to global warming. The rise in sea level, and the related increase in coastal erosion, is in conflict with the increasing population along the nation’s coasts. For example, The Heinz Center reported in 2000 that an explosive population shift and associated increase in development in coastal zones during the past 50 years has resulted in greatly increased risk to160 million Americans and more than $3 trillion in coastal development (Williams and Thieler, 2002). In addition, evidence suggests that in some coastal environments, marsh surfaces will not be able to keep pace with sea level rise and will become inundated during the next century. Local and state policies for development and conservation in the US coastal zone, however, are only beginning to plan for sea level change that is projected to rise an average 48 cm globally by 2100 (IPCC, 2001).
The integrated science plan developed in this workshop should include those steps necessary to improve our scientific understanding of the processes and impacts related to sea level rise and global climate change. In addition to coastal erosion, loss of wetlands and potential intrusion of sea water into coastal water supplies should be addressed. This understanding will improve the estimates of total societal costs, stimulate engineering that minimizes potential losses, and promote the public policy required to guide future coastal management. A critical additional goal is to increase efforts to educate the public and politicians with the growing body of information about these issues.
A USGS workshop focusing on sea level change was held at the Woods Hole Science Center on September 24 and 25, 2002. In their initial summary statement for this workshop, Jeff Williams and Rob Thieler (Williams and Thieler, 2002) suggest research topics for the developing national USGS science plan. Their list, reproduced below, serves as a starting point for addressing coastal hazard issues in this workshop and will accelerate our progress toward developing linkages with other disciplines and issues specific to the northeast region.
A. Development of predictive models for coastal change as a function of near future sea-level change. A natural outcome from the models will be plans for probabilistic national assessments of sea-level change effects on coastal systems.
B. The underpinnings of such predictive models will require integration of various complementary research tasks such as:
Half the population of the United States now lives in coastal areas. This coastal population is growing at a faster rate than the United States as a whole and is estimated to increase from 141 million to 166 million by the year 2015. The average population density along the coasts, 277 people per square mile, is increased with seasonal tourism. The coastal lands and waters are valued for recreation, fisheries, transportation, waste disposal, and commerce in addition to residence. In the northeastern US, recent decades have seen urban sprawl reaching out from metropolitan Boston and New York into formerly pristine regions.
Increasing urbanization of the coasts affects the natural environment on all levels. As land use changes from agricultural to urbanized, and infrastructure increases, the amount of impervious surfaces in watersheds increases and habitat is altered or destroyed. More people generate larger volumes of solid waste, greater industrial runoff, declines in water quality, and increased demands on wastewater treatment, drinking water, and energy supplies. Greater economic activity results in increased marine shipping and recreation, and may require dredging of harbors, ground-fish habitats, and offshore sand and gravel.
Coastal urbanization, and its accompanying pollution, can have widespread effects on the sustainability of plant and animal populations in the Northeast and on the region’s traditionally robust commercial and recreational fishing and shellfish economy. Urbanization affects the coastal ecosystem by increasing pressure on fisheries, introducing and facilitating expansion of invasive species, shifting community structures, altering estuarine wetlands, and changing the marine habitats of the continental shelf. It is estimated that 75% of the nation’s commercial fish and shellfish depend on estuaries at some stages of their life cycles. Tidal wetlands are critical habitat and nurseries for birds and fish, and improve water quality by filtering pollutants. Urbanization has caused loss, alteration, or fragmentation of important coastal habitats throughout the northeast. For example by the mid 1980’s, Connecticut had lost approximately 74% of its estimated original wetlands. Eutrophication, caused by excess nitrogen from increased population, has been a seasonal problem in New England, as have shellfish and fisheries closures resulting from contamination.
Increased human populations in coastal areas are subject to increased risk to health and property from both natural and human-induced changes to the environment. Global climate change could worsen coastal storms. Sea level rise may eliminate many New England beaches, increasing demand for beach nourishment projects. Greenhouse warming might affect municipal water supplies along the coast, alter the pathways of disease, and cause more algal blooms.
The integrated science plan developed as a result of this workshop should address these general questions: