REGIONAL COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH IN THE SOUTHEASTERN US: PROGRESS TOWARD A NEW COASTAL HAZARD VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENT TOOL

The Governors’ South Atlantic Alliance (GSAA) was established in 2009 by North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida to provide a forum within which regional issues could be identified and addressed in an effort to regionally sustain the environmental, natural resource, economic and social environments of the southeastern states. With support from the NOAA Regional Ocean Partnership Program, the GSAA is funding the development of geospatial approaches and tools to assist state coastal managers in supporting multi-scale coastal and ocean management decision-making.

A team of coastal scientists and managers, representing each of the partner states, is developing and applying a new hazard vulnerability assessment (HVA) geospatial tool for performing regionally consistent evaluations of coastal hazard vulnerability. HVAs are being conducted using a heavily modified version of a recently developed, advanced shoreline change analysis geospatial tool (AMBUR, Jackson et al., 2012). The HVA takes into account multiple hazards (e.g., flooding, erosion, storm surge), leverages existing and newly created geospatial data, and incorporates both natural environmental and social vulnerabilities. Each state technical and management team has identified a pilot study area within their state and is conducting an HVA analysis of their site. Results from these tests and analyses, as well as progress toward a final HVA geospatial tool, will be presented and discussed.