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US Army Corps of Engineers Agency Briefing

With Coastal Emphasis

Kate White, PhD, PEUS Army Corps of EngineersInstitute for Water Resources

Kathleen.D.White@usace.army.mil

Panel 3: The Built Environment

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Outline

• A Little History• USACE 101• Accomplishments

– Interagency Report– Guidance on Sea Level

Change

• Activities– ARRA Project– Brief Review

• Upcoming Activities

Outline

MG Riley with 6,000 year-old ice core, USACE ERDC-CRREL, October 2007

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First, A little History

• Between 1950’s and 1980’s, USACE was involved in drilling polar ice cores in Greenland and Antarctica

• 1952-1955: USACE exploration of Greenland for Air Force– Carl Benson’s work basis for using

oxygen isotope ratio measurements in a continuous mode to reliably determine annual accumulation cycles

– Henri Bader transformed Sorge’s 1930’s data into a mathematical expression

• Ice cores led to other proxies for climate change: tree rings, sediment cores, glacier lengths, others

http://www.crrel.usace.army.mil/library/technicalreports/ERDC-CRREL-TR-08-1.pdf

Camp Century Greenland 1964

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Proxies

2000-Year Temperature Reconstruction

NRC 2006, Surface temperature reconstruction for the last 2000 years: Washington, DC: National Academy Press

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USACE 101

• Largest water resources operating agency in the United States, with approximately – 12 million acres of land and water resources– $2T infrastructure – portfolio includes over 600 dams, 1000 coastal

structures, 250 locks, 300 major seaports, and over 600 smaller harbors, 2nd largest number of recreational users

• The entire portfolio of USACE Civil Works water resources infrastructure and programs, including the regulatory program, could be affected by climate change and adaptation to climate change

• 75 major hydropower projects, with nameplate capacity of more than 20.72 GW, supply more than 24% of US hydropower (or about 3% of US electricity)

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Interagency Workgroup on Climate Change

• The four major US water resources agencies:– Operating Agencies:

USACE, Bureau of Reclamation– Science Agencies:

USGS, NOAA

• Mission: – To evaluate practices of federal

agencies to incorporate climate change considerations into activities related to Nation's water resources

– Provide foundation for future policies

• Released February 2009http://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/1331/

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Interagency Report Highlights

• Key Point 9: Adopting alternatives that perform well over a wide range of future scenarios could improve system flexibility. Water resources planning and management requires an appreciation of existing and potential future uses of water resources, particularly when public health and safety are involved

• Key Point 10: Adaptive management is an approach where decisions are made sequentially over time and allows adjustments to be made as more information is known. This approach may be useful in dealing with the additional uncertainty introduced by potential climate change

• Key Point 11: Adaptation options include operational, demand management, and infrastructure changes

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Guidance on Sea-Level Change: Approach

• Technical background on sea-level change (SLC)

• Use multiple scenario approach• NOT SLC impacts and how to plan/engineer

for them, to be the subject of future guidance

IPCC 2007 AR4 WG2 Figure 6.1. Climate change and the coastal system showing the major climate change factors, including external marine and terrestrial influences.

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Guidance on Sea Level Change: Status

• Proposed April 2008 to apply to Planning, Engineering and Construction

• Interagency PDT members:– USACE, NOAA National Ocean Service, USGS– Case studies by Alaska and Baltimore Districts

• Internal Peer Review Aug 2008 by USACE, USGS, NOAA• External Peer Review October – Dec 2008 >300 comments

– Followed USGS peer review practice– Additional USACE districts, HQ, ASA/CW, NOAA, USGS, EPA,

Federal Highway Administration, Coastal States Organization– Robert Nicholls, Middlesex University, UK and coordinating lead

author, IPCC AR4 WGII, Chapter 6: Coastal systems and low-lying areas

– External Comment Resolution Dec 08 - Mar 09

• Implementation Team Dec 2008 – May 2009• Routed through HQ May – June 2009• Engineer Circular 1165-2-211, tentative date 15 June 2009

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Sea Level Change Scenarios

• High: modified (updated) NRC 1987 curve III

• Intermediate: modified (updated) NRC 1987 curve I

• Low: extrapolation of historic trend

• Key is to ask When is this likely to occur

(i.e., look across the curves)

Note: IPCC 2007 does not provide intermediate data points, high and low SRES scenarios shown for reference to intermediate (modified) curve I

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American Reinvestment and Recovery Act:Climate Change Downscaling Projections

• Builds on CMIP3 archive for US domain• Bias Correction/Spatial Downscaling (BCSD)

– Uses fine-scale climate observations to 1. Adjust future climate projections based on errors in

simulations of historical climate, and 2. Add spatial detail to the coarse-resolution results

– Described by Wood et al. (2002 and 2004)

• Bias-Corrected/Constructed Analogs (BCCA)– Obtains fine-scale information from observations– Uses empirical relationships between observed large-scale

and fine-scale daily weather patterns to add detail to coarse simulations

– Described by Hidalgo et al. (2008), Maurer and Hidalgo (2008)

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Ongoing Activities

• Continued international collaboration– International Polar Year activities– Permanent International

Association of Navigation Congresses

– Australia’s National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility

• Research and development – Basic science → applied engineering– Improvements to numerical models

for reservoir simulation– Climate impacts to USACE projects–

• FY10-14 Climate Adaptations Program– Adaptation is adjustments or changes in decision-making to

enhance resilience or reduce vulnerability to observed or expected changes in climate

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Time series of patch structures (metapopulation topology)

Metapopulation model

Demographic data: survival, fecundity, variability, dispersal

RA

MA

S G

IS

Patch recognition

Viability analysisSensitivity analysis

Management options

Time series of habitat suitability maps

Lasndscape maps:Human land-use Land-coverHydrologyElevation

Climatic input:Sea-levelHurricane freq.Heavy rain freq.

Static (current) habitat suitability map

Habitat data: requirements for breeding, wintering, and stopover habitat

Decision Problem Formulation and Structuring

Criteria Weighting and Alternatives Scoring

Sensitivity and Uncertainty Analysis of the Model

Decision Making

RAMAS simulation

experts and stakeholders interviewing

Example: Climate Change and Ecological and Infrastructure Risks

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Ongoing Activities

• Participation in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment reports

• Integrated Water Resources Management approach – Incorporate new information throughout life cycle – Proactive adaptive management – Framework recommended by IPCC for climate change

adaptation

• Great Lakes studies for the International Joint Commission) considering climate change in developing plans to improve the management of Great Lakes water levels and outflows

• Risk analyses for new and unexpected climate

impacts• Collaboration, collaboration, collaboration

Activities

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Upcoming Activities

• Planned carbon cycle study – Identify carbon sources– Implement methods to measure and value carbon

uptakes and emissions for USACE activities• Workshop on nonstationarity fall 2009• Evaluation of coastal vulnerabilities

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Questions?