Re-plumbing the coast: Untangling the effects of climate change and water management on vulnerability of coastal landscapes to saltwater incursion
Abstract
The Atlantic Coastal Plain of the United States has been altered drastically in the past century to support agriculture, real estate, and recreational activities. In a landscape with minimal hydraulic gradients and potentially large fluctuations in sea level, the effects of introducing artificial drainages (e.g., ditches and canals) on hydrological properties are often drastic and sometimes unpredictable. In this study, we focus on a portion of the outer coastal plain of North Carolina that ranges in elevation between 6 to -5 meters a.m.s.l. To this end, we use a high-resolution, Lidar-derived digital elevation model to study the effects of artificial drainages on landscape elevation, flow accumulation, and drainage density within an 800-km2 study area. Specifically, we use image-processing techniques to filter artificial drainages from the region and compare hydrologically relevant landscape metrics with and without these features. In general, artificial drainages lower land elevation, short-circuit otherwise natural flow paths and lead to increased ( 3 times) drainage density across the landscape. We also calculate a saltwater intrusion vulnerability index (SIVI), with and without canals and ditches, to investigate the contribution of this infrastructure to saltwater intrusion vulnerability in this low-lying coastal region. The SIVI represents the ability of the freshwater to impede the inland migration of saltwater during drought periods or as sea level rises. Our results show that the construction of artificial drainages would in fact lead to an increase in vulnerability to saltwater intrusion and this pattern is consistent across all four major land-cover (wetlands, agriculture, shrub and forest) in our study area. Thus, combined with extant saltwater impacts on freshwater-dependent landscapes across our study area, our findings are immediately relevant to this region and to similar coastal regions worldwide.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2016
- Bibcode:
- 2016AGUFMGC23F1294B
- Keywords:
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- 0416 Biogeophysics;
- BIOGEOSCIENCESDE: 0429 Climate dynamics;
- BIOGEOSCIENCESDE: 1630 Impacts of global change;
- GLOBAL CHANGEDE: 1641 Sea level change;
- GLOBAL CHANGE