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|a Estimated Impacts of Sea Level Rise on Florida's Lower East Coast |h [electronic resource] |y English. |
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|a Please contact the owning institution for licensing and permissions. It is the user's responsibility to ensure use does not violate any third party rights. |
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|a The University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences geologist
Harold Wanless1 has estimated that sea level rise along Florida's shoreline has
accelerated to a rate of 8 to 16 inches per hundred years since 1932. This is more than six
times the rate recorded by earlier tide-gauge record and that estimated from geological
history for the past three thousand years. However, the recent accelerated rate of sea rise
is not unprecedented. Global sea level rise has been occurring at varying rates since the
end of the last major ice age fifteen thousand years ago. Average sea level rates as large
as 3 to 6 feet per century have lasted for periods of thousands years at a time. It is
generally accepted that sea level rise is associated with global warming through several
processes including the melting of mountain glaciers and thermal expansion of the ocean
waters. Past global warming was likely attributed to such factors as long-term increases in
solar energy output and variations of the earth's orbit around the sun. Scientific evidence
suggest that in the future anthropogenic activities may also contribute in a significant matter
to global warming. Regardless of the cause for the warming, the effects of sea level rise
poses a formidable challenge for water resources planning for the future.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is the lead federal agency for guiding coastal
states on planning for sea level rise2. This role is particularly difficult because of the scale
and complexity of the interaction of processes on several different scales that are involved.
However, the EPA has consulted with a large group of leading experts in the fields of
climate variability, oceanography and glaciology to estimate the most probable sea level
rise that will likely occur in the future3. The scientists that contributed to the EPA estimates
were generally experts from the National Academy of Sciences and the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change. The most probable global sea level rise for the year 2050 was
estimated to be 0.5 feet greater than the 1995 level. This EPA estimate does not include
the effects of local subsidence, erosion, compression and other tectonic instabilities that
may occur at varying rates along the Florida coastlines. These additional factors may cause
the relative rate of sea level rise at a particular location to be substantially different and
most often at a larger rate than the global rate of sea level rise.
In this regional hydrologic analysis, only the effects of the global sea level rise are being
considered. The lower east coast of Florida is generally a stable coastline. In an effort to
estimate the effects of expected sea level rise on south Florida's regional water
management objectives of the future, the South Florida Water Management Model was
modified to re-simulate the 2050 base run with the sea level boundary condition adjusted to
be 0.5 feet higher than the base condition. One of the major concerns associated with sea
level rise is the potential for saltwater encroachment into the coastal freshwater aquifers.
The SFWMM is not designed to address the full spectrum of issues that may arise related
to the potential for salt water encroachment with sea level rise scenario. However, by
making some rudimentary assumptions an estimate of the potential impacts that sea level rise may have on regional water management issues such as Everglades hydroperiod
restoration and impacts to regional water supply can be realized. It was with these
intentions that water levels maintained within key coastal canals during dry conditions were
increased by 0.5 feet. This perfunctory increase in canal maintenance levels is considered
the minimal adjustment that would be required to offset the saltwater encroachment that
would otherwise occur. Indeed, preliminary analysis with density-dependent groundwater
models suggest that the canals may need to be maintained at even higher levels to
adequately offset the projected one-half foot rise in sea level. It should also be recognized
that significant infrastructure changes may also be required. |
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|a Electronic reproduction. |c Florida International University, |d 2015. |f (dpSobek) |n Mode of access: World Wide Web. |n System requirements: Internet connectivity; Web browser software. |
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|a South Florida Water Management District. |
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|a Florida Documents Collection. |
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|a South Florida Collection. |
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|a dpSobek |c Sea Level Rise |
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|u http://dpanther.fiu.edu/dpService/dpPurlService/purl/FI15062057/00001 |y Click here for full text |
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|a http://dpanther.fiu.edu/sobek/content/FI/15/06/20/57/00001/FI15062057thm.jpg |
