OOS 28-3 - Envisioning Equitable and Resilient Coastal Futures for Oregon

Oregon coastal communities are inextricably tied to the services afforded by the unique and dynamic ecosystems within the Cascadia. In addition to climate change, co-seismic land-level changes associated with Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ) earthquakes can result in the equivalent of decades-to-centuries of sea-level rise (SLR) and associated morphologic changes. Further, estuarine, sandy beach, and dune habitats are the first to experience changes from SLR, changing patterns of storminess, and sediment budget changes associated with acute and chronic coastal hazards. Coastal community residents, decision makers, and other stakeholders have broadly communicated the need to expand resilience planning to mitigate hazard impacts by exploring adaptation options that are cost effective, equitable, and, for some, maximize ecological restoration goals.
Through the Envisioning Oregon’s Coastal Futures research project (Oregon Sea Grant) and the Cascadia Coastlines and Peoples Hazards Research Hub (National Science Foundation), we have co-developed with coastal community residents and stakeholders a variety of adaptation scenarios to increase resilience of coastal communities and ecosystems, as well as a comprehensive list of metrics to gauge the how each adaptation option performs in terms of cost effectiveness, ecosystem protection/improvements, and equity (e.g., how benefits of different adaptation options are distributed among coastal residents). Using an agent-based model, Envision, we can model these convergent chronic (SLR) and acute (earthquake/tsunami) landscape processes with specific socioeconomic information for Oregon coastal communities to explore future conditions that may exist if a variety of adaption policies were to be implemented. These adaptation policies include restoration of coastal environments, or retrofitting or realigning (e.g., managed retreat) of the built environment (e.g., critical infrastructure, community assets, residential). Each adaptation policy modeled in Envision is evaluated for its performance on a variety of metrics including ecosystem restoration, safe beach access, cost of the adaption, damage to the built environment, and socioeconomic characteristics of who is benefiting from the adaptation policy.
In this presentation, we will provide an overview of the modeling framework, particularly our community engagement practices to co-produce adaptation policies and performance metrics, as well as sample results from the model.