SLAMM 2.0 Models Possible Impact of Rising Sea
The application, unveiled by Image Matters, confines itself to specific coastal wetlands such as Chesapeake and Delaware bays.
The newest version of a Web application enables researchers, managers, policymakers, and the public to explore impact scenarios of sea-level rise on specific coastal wetlands, including Chesapeake and Delaware bays and areas near Chincoteague refuge.
The user-friendly and visually dynamic Web application, Sea-Level Affects Marshes Model (SLAMM), was unveiled recently at NOAA’s Coastal GeoTools conference by Image Matters LLC, an award-winning provider of geospatial IT solutions, in partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, sea level is rising along most of the U.S. coast and around the world. Rising sea levels inundate wetlands and other low-lying lands, erode beaches, intensify flooding and storm damage, and increase the salinity of rivers, bays, and groundwater tables.
SLAMM-View 2.0 presents two types of predictions from studies of sea-level rise on coastal wetlands: "regional" and "site-specific". Up to this point in time, only SLAMM output from regional simulations have been available: for the Chesapeake, Georgia / South Carolina, and Puget Sound / Northwest Coast study regions.
In 2009, site-specific results for the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge and surrounding area were made available through SLAMM-View. Note that although the entire Chincoteague study site lies within the Chesapeake study region, the results from the site-specific study originate from completely separate model runs.
More recently, SLAMM results from the Aransas / Whooping Crane Winter Habitat and Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve projects were made accessible through SLAMM-View 2.0.
To learn more about the tool, visit the Chesapeake Bay Field Office and test the tool at SLAMM's website.
Source: U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service