Presenter
James C Gibeaut, Ph.D.
Endowed Chair for Geospatial Sciences
Director, Gulf of Mexico Research
Initiative Information and Data Cooperative
Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies
Texas A&M University at Corpus Christi
Description
Texas is developing its 2023 Coastal Resiliency Master Plan (TCRMP) for addressing vulnerabilities affecting society, ecology, and economy. Through elicitation from a Technical Advisory Committee (TAC), analyses of environmental change, and modeling of future sea level rise and storm surge impacts, action plans are developed to address one or more of eight vulnerabilities: gulf shoreline change; degraded or lost habitat; storm surge; bay shoreline change; degraded water quality; inland flooding; tidal flooding; and degraded water quantity.
TAC members scored the importance of each vulnerability for each coastal HUC 10 watershed. This information plus data and model analyses and information on how projects provide societal benefits, direct and indirect economic benefits, and ecosystem services are used by the TAC and TCRMP team to assess how well a project may improve resiliency. In addition to presenting worthy projects, the TCRMP provides information and data that describe the dynamics of the Texas coast and linkages between natural and human systems. Geohazards maps showing current critical environments and processes, historical change, and how systems are projected to shift by 2100 will transfer knowledge to stakeholders.
