Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Advancing Estuarine Shoreline Change Analysis Using Small Uncrewed Autonomous Systems, Thomas R. Allen, Devon Eulie, Mariko Polk, George Mcleod, Robert Stuart, Alexandra Garnand, A. J. Manning (Editor)

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

Estuarine shorelines face the threats of accelerating sea-level rise, recurrent storms, and disruptions of natural sediment and ecological adjustments owing to historic human interventions. The growing availability and technical capability of uncrewed systems (UxS), including remote or autonomous aerial and surface vessels, provide new opportunities to study and understand estuarine shoreline changes. This chapter assesses the state of the technology, interdisciplinary science and engineering literature, and presents case studies from the Chesapeake Bay, Virginia, and coastal North Carolina, USA, that demonstrate new insights into coastal geomorphic processes and applications to managing complex and dynamic estuarine shorelines. These technologies enhance the …

The Impact Of Climate Change On Environmental Sustainability And Human Mortality, Xingzhi Mara Chen, Andrew Sharma, Hua Liu

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

Climate dictates the critical aspects of human environmental conditions. The frequency and intensity of extreme weather conditions due to human-induced climate change have alarmingly increased. Consequently, climate change directly affects environmental sustainability and human mortality in the short term and creates prolonged and complicated long-term indirect grave risks. This paper examines three-level environmental impact risks associated with climate change on human mortality. It proposes a conceptual framework for developing an empirical event-based human mortality database related to climate change and communication strategies to enhance global environmental adaptation, resilience, and sustainability.

Anticipating And Adapting To The Impacts Of Climate Change On Low Elevation Coastal Zone (Lecz) Communities, Lynn Donelson Wright, Thomas Allen, Kiki Caruson, Alain Hénaff, Jaia Syvitski

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

[Scholarcy Abstract] The rates of sea level rise in coastal Virginia and the Chesapeake Bay significantly exceed the global rate and weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation adds to the annual rates.

The original vision was to enhance future resilience of Low-Elevation Coastal Zone communities by advancing understandings and approaches to better anticipate and mitigate hazards to human health, safety and welfare and reduce deleterious impacts to coastal residents and industries. The goal of the thematic Research Topic has been to assemble interdisciplinary papers that contribute to better understanding of the couplings among physical, ecological, socioeconomic, management and policy …

A Global Ecological Classification Of Coastal Segment Units To Complement Marine Biodiversity Observation Network Assessments, Roger Sayre, Kevin Butler, Keith Van Graafeiland, Sean Breyer, Dawn Wright, Charlie Frye, Deniz Karagulle, Madeline Martin, Jill Cress, Tom Allen, Rebecca J. Allee, Rost Parsons, Bjorn Nyberg, Mark J. Costello, Peter Harris, Frank E. Muller-Karger

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

A new data layer provides Coastal and Marine Ecological Classification Standard (CMECS) labels for global coastal segments at 1 km or shorter resolution. These characteristics are summarized for six US Marine Biodiversity Observation Network (MBON) sites and one MBON Pole to Pole of the Americas site in Argentina. The global coastlines CMECS classifications were produced from a partitioning of a 30 m Landsat-derived shoreline vector that was segmented into 4 million 1 km or shorter segments. Each segment was attributed with values from 10 variables that represent the ecological settings in which the coastline occurs, including properties of the adjacent …

Anticipating And Adapting To The Future Impacts Of Climate Change On The Health, Security And Welfare Of Low Elevation Coastal Zone (Lecz) Communities In Southeastern Usa, Thomas Allen, Joshua Behr, Anamaria Bukvic, Ryan S.D. Calder, Kiki Caruson, Charles Connor, Christopher D'Elia, David Dismukes, Robin Ersing, Rima Franklin, Jesse Goldstein, Jonathon Goodall, Scott Hemmerling, Jennifer Irish, Steven Lazarus, Derek Loftis, Mark Luther, Leigh Mccallister, Karen Mcglathery, Molly Mitchell, William Moore, Charles Reid Nichols, Karinna Nunez, Matthew Reidenbach, Julie Shortridge, Robert Weisberg, Robert Weiss, Lynn Donelson Wright, Meng Xia, Kehui Xu, Donald Young, Gary Zarillo, Julie C. Zinnert

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

Low elevation coastal zones (LECZ) are extensive throughout the southeastern United States. LECZ communities are threatened by inundation from sea level rise, storm surge, wetland degradation, land subsidence, and hydrological flooding. Communication among scientists, stakeholders, policy makers and minority and poor residents must improve. We must predict processes spanning the ecological, physical, social, and health sciences. Communities need to address linkages of (1) human and socioeconomic vulnerabilities; (2) public health and safety; (3) economic concerns; (4) land loss; (5) wetland threats; and (6) coastal inundation. Essential capabilities must include a network to assemble and distribute data and model code to …

The Role Of Traditional Knowledge In Coastal Adaptation Priorities: The Pamunkey Indian Reservation, Nicole S. Hutton, Thomas R. Allen

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

Coastal reservations are increasingly vulnerable to hazards exacerbated by climate change. Resources for restoration projects are limited. Storm surge, storms, tidal flooding, and erosion endanger artifacts and limit livelihoods of tribes in coastal Virginia. GIS offers a platform to increase communication between scientists, planners, and indigenous groups. The Pamunkey Indian Tribe engaged in a participatory mapping exercise to assess the role of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) in coastal management decision-making and its capacity to address flooding. Priorities and strategies were spatially referenced using maps of potential sea level rise for 2040, 2060, and 2080, input into a resilience matrix to …

Should We Expect Each Year In The Next Decade (2019–28) To Be Ranked Among The Top 10 Warmest Years Globally?, Anthony Arguez, Shannan Hurley, Anand Inamdar, Laurel Mahoney, Ahira Sanchez-Lugo, Lilian Yang

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

Annual rankings of global temperature are widely cited by media and the general public, not only to place the most recent year in a historical perspective, but also as a first-order metric of recent climate change that is easily digestible by the general public. Moreover, all annual NOAAGlobalTemp anomalies from 1880 (the earliest reading available) through the mid-1970s are well below anomalies of the top 10 warmest years in Table 1, even when considering the uncertainty of the NOAAGlobalTemp time series values. While we expect the algorithm's performance to be largely independent of any changes made to the way that …

A New 30 Meter Resolution Global Shoreline Vector And Associated Global Islands Database For The Development Of Standardized Ecological Coastal Units, Roger Sayre, Suzanne Noble, Sharon Hamann, Rebecca Smith, Dawn Wright, Sean Breyer, Kevin Butler, Keith Van Graafeiland, Charlie Frye, Deniz Karagulle, Dabney Hopkins, Drew Stephens, Kevin Kelly, Zeenatul Basher, Devon Burton, Jill Cress, Karina Atkins, D. Paco Van Sistine, Beverly Friesen, Revecca Allee, Tom Allen, Peter Aniello, Irawan Asaad, Mark John Costello, Kathy Goodin, Peter Harris, Maria Kavanaugh, Helen Lillis, Elonora Manca, Frank Muller-Karger, Bjorn Nyberg, Rost Parsons, Jusrin Saarinen, Jack Steiner, Adam Reed

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

A new 30-m spatial resolution global shoreline vector (GSV) was developed from annual composites of 2014 Landsat satellite imagery. The semi-automated classification of the imagery was accomplished by manual selection of training points representing water and non-water classes along the entire global coastline. Polygon topology was applied to the GSV, resulting in a new characterisation of the number and size of global islands. Three size classes of islands were mapped: continental mainlands (5), islands greater than 1 km² (21,818), and islands smaller than 1 km² (318,868). The GSV represents the shore zone land and water interface boundary, and …

The Mortality Response To Absolute And Relative Temperature Extremes, Scott C. Sheridan, Cameron C. Lee, Michael J. Allen

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

While the impact of absolute extreme temperatures on human health has been amply studied, far less attention has been given to relative temperature extremes, that is, events that are highly unusual for the time of year but not necessarily extreme relative to a location's overall climate. In this research, we use a recently defined extreme temperature event metric to define absolute extreme heat events (EHE) and extreme cold events (ECE) using absolute thresholds, and relative extreme heat events (REHE) and relative extreme cold events (RECE) using relative thresholds. All-cause mortality outcomes using a distributed lag nonlinear model are evaluated for …

Temporal Trends In Human Vulnerability To Excessive Heat, Scott C. Sheridan, Michael J. Allen

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

Over recent decades, studies have examined various morbidity and mortality outcomes associated with heat exposure. This review explores the collective knowledge of the temporal trends of heat on human health, with regard to the hypothesis that humans are less vulnerable to heat events presently than in the past. Using Web of Science and Scopus, the authors identified all peer-reviewed articles that contained keywords on human impact (e.g. mortality, morbidity) and meteorological component (e.g. heat, heatwave). After sorting, a total of 71 articles, both case studies and epidemiological studies, contained explicit assessments of temporal trends in human vulnerability, and thus were …

Enhancing The Teaching And Learning Of Biometeorology In Higher Education, David R. Perkins Iv, Jennifer Vanos, Christopher Fuhrmann, Michael Allen, David Knight, Cameron C. Lee, Angela Lees, Andrew Leung, Rebekah Lucas, Hamed Mehdipor

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

Information about the annual meeting organized by the organizations the International Society of Biometeorology (ISB) and the Students and New Professionals (SNP) held in Norfolk, Virginia from July 28 to August 1, 2016 is presented. The event was organized to improve the teaching methods of teachers and learning of students on high education biometeorology and the presentations, practical sessions and group discussions participated by attendees.

Coastal Groundwater Watch: A Citizen Science Project - Report No. 477, Alex Manda, Thomas Allen

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

The goals of this study were to utilize citizen scientists in groundwater research in a coastal community where groundwater plays a large role in sustainable water resources management, and assess the extent of groundwater and marine inundation in response to future sea-level rise scenarios. A total of 7 citizen scientists participated in the study by measuring water levels from 15 groundwater monitoring wells using water level meters once a week over a 10-week period. Automated water level loggers were deployed in three of the same wells to assess the quality of the data collected by the citizen scientists. Additional water …

Climate Change Mitigation, Technological Innovation And Adaptation: A New Perspective On Climate Policy, Michael J. Allen

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

The book Climate Change Mitigation, Technological Innovation and Adaptation outlines the complexities associated with addressing climate change including economic structure, technological innovation, and geopolitical willpower. By focusing on global economics, the text considers barriers to climate policy and future energy transformation away from carbon to more renewable sources. Additionally, the authors highlight the role of innovation in mitigation and adaptation.

Spatiotemporal Analysis Of The January Northern Hemisphere Circumpolar Vortex Over The Contiguous United States, Thomas J. Ballinger, Michael J. Allen, Robert V. Rohli

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

January 2014 will be remembered for the sensationalized media usage of the term "polar vortex" which coincided with several polar air outbreaks. A United States polar vortex (USPV) perspective is presented to better understand the January spatial and temporal variability of this regional component of the Northern Hemisphere circumpolar vortex. Use of the monthly mean 5460 m isohypse to represent the location of the USPV extent and area revealed that the spatial features of the January 2014 USPV were not extreme relative to certain 1948–2013 Januaries. Furthermore, the Arctic Oscillation (AO), Pacific-North American (PNA) Pattern, and Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) …