Barrier Island Evolution - Applied Research Completed

Sources/Usage: Public Domain. Visit Media to see details.

The applications of our research can be generalized to production of a variety of assessments that include explanations of what happened in the past, status updates of the current environment, updated vulnerability assessments, and predicted scenarios for the future. These assessments can include depiction of trends (the past points to the future), updated observations (topography/bathymetry), and predicted sensitivity of barrier island evolution to possible climatologies and restoration plans.

Objectives

• Provide support information to coastal resource managers, including FWS, NPS, ACOE, NASA, AF, State, and local authorities.
• Test the relevance of decision-support information.
• Share and integrate data collected by different agencies.
• Update decision-support information so that it is timely and accurate.

Methodology

Chandeleur Island

• Chandeleur Island is both a research focus area and a coastal management focus. Data collection will support management by generating updates of topo bathy and establishing evolution trends.
• Modeling to generate evolution scenarios reflecting the residual berm and data updates will be used to present future scenarios that depict future morphologic configurations.
• Data will be disseminated via data series reports and assessment updates on the web.

Mississippi-Alabama-Florida barriers

• These locations are the sites of restoration efforts and ongoing response to residual buried Deep Water Horizon oil. Management needs include understanding the integrated response to the medium-term change processes considered in the BIER project and applying this understanding to adaptive management.
• Updated topo-bathy data and modeling are supported by other agencies. We can integrate this information with historical data and update medium-term predictions. The data updates can be used to evaluate assessments and identify gaps in understanding.