USGS Southeast Region Workshop: Documenting the multiple facets of a subsiding landscape from coastal cities and wetlands to the continental shelf

The USGS SPCMSC hosted the Southeast Region (SER) FLEX-funds workshop on subsidence research September 26th and 27th, 2018. Land subsidence is a natural hazard that occurs throughout the southeast region and is often observed as ground collapse in karst environments (sinkholes), coastal wetland loss, and flooding in urban areas. Human activities such as fluid extraction and landscape alteration contribute to these processes; however, a systematic approach to recognize and develop informed responses to the drivers of subsidence has not been fully developed. FLEX-funds are provided by the SER to support the gathering of an interdisciplinary team of scientists, "flex-teams," to promote regional communication and scientific collaboration. The goal of the workshop was to review subsidence-related research and technologies and create a unifying framework for describing the processes driving land subsidence and its impacts on the environments and coastal communities. This workshop brought together USGS scientists from a variety of disciplines to identify current strengths and weakness in subsidence-related research and to develop a robust approach for informing management decisions affecting coastal communities and infrastructure.

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