Integrated Modeling to Mitigate Climate Change Risk Due to Sea Level Rise

Climate change is expected to significantly alter low-lying coastal and intertidal areas, which provide significant seasonal habitats for a variety of shoreline-dependent organisms. Many coastal military installations in Florida have significant coastal habitats and shoreline-dependent bird data strongly illustrate their seasonal importance for birds. Potential land use changes and population increases, coupled with uncertain predictions for sea level rise, storm frequency, and intensity have created a significant planning challenge for natural resource managers. This paper provides a framework to integrate multiscale climate, land cover, land use, and ecosystem information into a systematic tool to explore climate variability and change effects on habitat and population dynamics for the state-threatened residential Snowy Plover, and the migratory Piping Plover and Red Knot, on selected coastal Florida military sites in Northwest Florida. A proof-of-concept study is described that includes climate data, species distribution and a coastal wetland land cover model coupled with global sensitivity/uncertainty analysis methods. The results of these integrated models are used to explore habitat dynamics and management options within an uncertain world.