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• 1. [Article] Assessing Coastal Community Adaptation Scenarios in the Face of Climate Change : A Tillamook County, Oregon Example

  Recent coastal disasters (e.g., Hurricane Sandy, Typhoon Haiyan) and chronic issues (e.g., Florida's "nuisance flooding") provide numerous examples of coastal communities struggling to adapt in the face ...

  Citation × Citation Citation Abstract Copy Title: Assessing Coastal Community Adaptation Scenarios in the Face of Climate Change : A Tillamook County, Oregon Example Author: Lipiec, Eva Recent coastal disasters (e.g., Hurricane Sandy, Typhoon Haiyan) and chronic issues (e.g., Florida's "nuisance flooding") provide numerous examples of coastal communities struggling to adapt in the face of climate change impacts. Decision-makers and the public alike must reconcile the lack of "fit" between a rapidly changing environment and the effects of sea level rise, changes to storminess patterns, and possible variations in the frequency and magnitude of major El Niño events with relatively rigid and static governance structures. Work to reduce the impacts of coastal hazards and climate change has occurred periodically in disjointed and disconnected ways in many coastal communities, including those along the Oregon coast. In this thesis, I describe the efforts of a volunteer knowledge to action network within Tillamook County, Oregon, to comprehensively examine alternative future coastal climate and policy scenarios through the use of extensive stakeholder engagement and the spatially explicit modeling framework Envision. Six co-developed coastal adaptation policy scenarios and three climate change scenarios (with 15 random sub-climate simulations each) are evaluated here through a mixed-methods approach. First, the impacts of policy scenario implementation on stakeholder-identified metrics are statistically assessed in comparison to current land use policies (Status Quo). Next, I characterize the feasibility of implementing policy scenarios by reviewing current federal, Oregon state, Tillamook County, and local regulations and by interviewing relevant coastal organizations. The combination of stakeholder engagement, a powerful modeling framework, and the robust evaluation of policy scenario statistical significance and implementation feasibility provides a compelling opportunity to inform decision-making within the coastal communities of Tillamook County and elsewhere. Title: Assessing Coastal Community Adaptation Scenarios in the Face of Climate Change : A Tillamook County, Oregon Example Author: Lipiec, Eva Recent coastal disasters (e.g., Hurricane Sandy, Typhoon Haiyan) and chronic issues (e.g., Florida's "nuisance flooding") provide numerous examples of coastal communities struggling to adapt in the face of climate change impacts. Decision-makers and the public alike must reconcile the lack of "fit" between a rapidly changing environment and the effects of sea level rise, changes to storminess patterns, and possible variations in the frequency and magnitude of major El Niño events with relatively rigid and static governance structures. Work to reduce the impacts of coastal hazards and climate change has occurred periodically in disjointed and disconnected ways in many coastal communities, including those along the Oregon coast. In this thesis, I describe the efforts of a volunteer knowledge to action network within Tillamook County, Oregon, to comprehensively examine alternative future coastal climate and policy scenarios through the use of extensive stakeholder engagement and the spatially explicit modeling framework Envision. Six co-developed coastal adaptation policy scenarios and three climate change scenarios (with 15 random sub-climate simulations each) are evaluated here through a mixed-methods approach. First, the impacts of policy scenario implementation on stakeholder-identified metrics are statistically assessed in comparison to current land use policies (Status Quo). Next, I characterize the feasibility of implementing policy scenarios by reviewing current federal, Oregon state, Tillamook County, and local regulations and by interviewing relevant coastal organizations. The combination of stakeholder engagement, a powerful modeling framework, and the robust evaluation of policy scenario statistical significance and implementation feasibility provides a compelling opportunity to inform decision-making within the coastal communities of Tillamook County and elsewhere. Close

• 2. [Article] Exploring the Impacts of Climate and Management on Coastal Community Vulnerability through Alternative Future Scenarios

  Coastal communities throughout the U.S. Pacific Northwest face heightened risk due to sea level rise and increasing storminess resulting in coastal flooding and erosion hazards. Incorporating uncertainty ...

  Citation × Citation Citation Abstract Copy Title: Exploring the Impacts of Climate and Management on Coastal Community Vulnerability through Alternative Future Scenarios Author: Mills, Alexis K. Coastal communities throughout the U.S. Pacific Northwest face heightened risk due to sea level rise and increasing storminess resulting in coastal flooding and erosion hazards. Incorporating uncertainty with respect to both climate change and policy decisions is essential to project the evolving probability of coastal inundation and erosion, and the associated community vulnerability through time. Coupled models of coastal hazards, ecosystems, development, and socioeconomics allow decision-makers to explore the effects of policy decisions in conjunction with climate forcing, land use change, and economic disturbances and can provide a means of examining the feedbacks between climate change and adaptation under uncertain climatologic and socioeconomic futures. Envision, a spatially explicit multi‐agent modelling platform that provides a scenario-based, policy centric framework for examining interactions between human and natural systems across a landscape, is used within the two papers herebelow to explore strategies that may reduce vulnerability to coastal hazards within the context of uncertainty and climate change. Probabilistic simulations of total water levels allow for representation of variability of sea level rise, wave climate, and the El Niño Southern Oscillation both as individual climate drivers and under a range of climate change scenarios through the end of the century. Additionally, stakeholder generated policy scenarios capture variability in human response. The approaches described here provide a foundation through which to explore alternative management scenarios related to coastal hazards and can be transferred to other coastal systems to further assess how hazards may be affected by both climate change and management decisions.   Title: Exploring the Impacts of Climate and Management on Coastal Community Vulnerability through Alternative Future Scenarios Author: Mills, Alexis K. Coastal communities throughout the U.S. Pacific Northwest face heightened risk due to sea level rise and increasing storminess resulting in coastal flooding and erosion hazards. Incorporating uncertainty with respect to both climate change and policy decisions is essential to project the evolving probability of coastal inundation and erosion, and the associated community vulnerability through time. Coupled models of coastal hazards, ecosystems, development, and socioeconomics allow decision-makers to explore the effects of policy decisions in conjunction with climate forcing, land use change, and economic disturbances and can provide a means of examining the feedbacks between climate change and adaptation under uncertain climatologic and socioeconomic futures. Envision, a spatially explicit multi‐agent modelling platform that provides a scenario-based, policy centric framework for examining interactions between human and natural systems across a landscape, is used within the two papers herebelow to explore strategies that may reduce vulnerability to coastal hazards within the context of uncertainty and climate change. Probabilistic simulations of total water levels allow for representation of variability of sea level rise, wave climate, and the El Niño Southern Oscillation both as individual climate drivers and under a range of climate change scenarios through the end of the century. Additionally, stakeholder generated policy scenarios capture variability in human response. The approaches described here provide a foundation through which to explore alternative management scenarios related to coastal hazards and can be transferred to other coastal systems to further assess how hazards may be affected by both climate change and management decisions.   Close

• 3. [Article] Interviews with oyster growers in Tillamook Bay with respect to damage to oysters by break through. The Bayocean spit

  In November, 1952, severe winter storms breached the protective Bayocean Peninsula at the mouth of Tillamook Bay. Before the month was out, the gap had widened to almost a mile. Subsequent sedimentation, ...

  Citation × Citation Citation Abstract Copy Title: Interviews with oyster growers in Tillamook Bay with respect to damage to oysters by break through. The Bayocean spit Author: Oregon Fish Commission, Waldron, Kenneth D. In November, 1952, severe winter storms breached the protective Bayocean Peninsula at the mouth of Tillamook Bay. Before the month was out, the gap had widened to almost a mile. Subsequent sedimentation, erosion and salinity changes damaged oyster beds in the Bay. This document recounts interviews with oyster growers about the losses they suffered when the peninsula was breached. Title: Interviews with oyster growers in Tillamook Bay with respect to damage to oysters by break through. The Bayocean spit Author: Oregon Fish Commission, Waldron, Kenneth D. In November, 1952, severe winter storms breached the protective Bayocean Peninsula at the mouth of Tillamook Bay. Before the month was out, the gap had widened to almost a mile. Subsequent sedimentation, erosion and salinity changes damaged oyster beds in the Bay. This document recounts interviews with oyster growers about the losses they suffered when the peninsula was breached. Close

• 4. [Article] Development and erosion history of Bayocean Spit, Tillamook, Oregon

  Bayocean sand spit lies along the northern Oregon coast approximately 70 miles south of the Columbia River. Work was begun on the construction of a large recreational resort on the spit in the early 1900's. ...

  Citation × Citation Citation Abstract Copy Title: Development and erosion history of Bayocean Spit, Tillamook, Oregon Author: Terich, Thomas A., Komar, Paul D., 1939-, Oregon State University. School of Oceanography Bayocean sand spit lies along the northern Oregon coast approximately 70 miles south of the Columbia River. Work was begun on the construction of a large recreational resort on the spit in the early 1900's. At the outset, the resort appeared to have a promising future. However, a three-year delay in the completion of the railroad to Tillamook created financial instability and lawsuits which continued up to the depression of the early 1930's. There soon followed severe erosion of Bayocean spit leading to its breaching in 1952 and forcing the abandonment of the deteriorated resort. The erosion appeared to have been initiated by the construction and subsequent lengthening of a north jetty to the Tillamook Bay channel. Rapid sand deposition north of the north jetty indicated that the structure had blocked a predominant north to south longshore sand transport, thus depriving the spit of sand and resulting in erosion. Similar occurrences have been documented at other coastal locations. However, analysis of historical shoreline changes and aerial photographs taken in 1971, 1972, and 1973 show that sand eroded from beaches to the north and to the south of the jetty has been transported and deposited immediately adjacent to both sides of the structure. This symmetrical pattern of erosion and deposition on both sides of the jetty indicates a reversing longshore sand transport with a near zero net annual drift. The shoreline conditions at Bayocean demonstrate that beach erosion can result from the construction of a jetty transverse to a seasonally reversing longshore sand transport with a near-zero net drift. Title: Development and erosion history of Bayocean Spit, Tillamook, Oregon Author: Terich, Thomas A., Komar, Paul D., 1939-, Oregon State University. School of Oceanography Bayocean sand spit lies along the northern Oregon coast approximately 70 miles south of the Columbia River. Work was begun on the construction of a large recreational resort on the spit in the early 1900's. At the outset, the resort appeared to have a promising future. However, a three-year delay in the completion of the railroad to Tillamook created financial instability and lawsuits which continued up to the depression of the early 1930's. There soon followed severe erosion of Bayocean spit leading to its breaching in 1952 and forcing the abandonment of the deteriorated resort. The erosion appeared to have been initiated by the construction and subsequent lengthening of a north jetty to the Tillamook Bay channel. Rapid sand deposition north of the north jetty indicated that the structure had blocked a predominant north to south longshore sand transport, thus depriving the spit of sand and resulting in erosion. Similar occurrences have been documented at other coastal locations. However, analysis of historical shoreline changes and aerial photographs taken in 1971, 1972, and 1973 show that sand eroded from beaches to the north and to the south of the jetty has been transported and deposited immediately adjacent to both sides of the structure. This symmetrical pattern of erosion and deposition on both sides of the jetty indicates a reversing longshore sand transport with a near zero net annual drift. The shoreline conditions at Bayocean demonstrate that beach erosion can result from the construction of a jetty transverse to a seasonally reversing longshore sand transport with a near-zero net drift. Close