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Coastal Issues and Research to be Highlighted at The Geological Society of America Annual Meeting
All 35 coastal states, including the Great Lakes, and Pacific and Caribbean island territories, home to more than 160 million Americans, are experiencing widespread and increasingly severe coastal erosion, as well as a variety of other coastal hazards (e.g., major storms, sea-level rise, subsidence, landslides, tsunamis). Most of these coastal hazards are the result of natural processes, but many coastal regions face increased risk due to unwise coastal development and poorly designed manmade alterations such as engineering structures (e.g., seawalls, jetties, groins, levees), fluid withdrawal, and floodplain developments. All of the coastal issues that America faces are common to many other coastal regions of the world as well. Projections show that the explosive population growth and development in the coastal zone over the past 50 years will continue over the next several decades, at the same time that the number and magnitude of coastal hazards increase as well. Credible, objective and relevant geoscience data and information are critically important in order to educate the public and Congress as well as planners and managers about the long-term environmental and economic implications of this looming coastal crisis. Shea Penland (University of New Orleans) and Jeff Williams (WHFC) have organized a day-long session to be held on November 5th at the GSA Annual Meeting in Boston, MA. Entitled "America's Coastal Crisis-Providing the Geoscience Information Needed to Conserve and Protect Coastal Resources," the session is designed to bring attention to the growing risk of coastal hazards. A focus will be on current research by the USGS and by others, and will address how science information and results get transmitted to the non-science community by books and newspapers. The session will consist of 16 oral papers in the morning and 19 papers during the poster session that afternoon. Abby Sallenger (SPFC) is the invited keynote speaker and will talk on "Challenges to Quantifying Coastal Change Hazards." Cory Dean (NY Times Science Editor) will conclude the morning session with "Constituency of Ignorance," highlighting her career experiences in reporting science and writing her insightful new book, "Against the Tide." The other 14 papers and the 19 posters will present research results addressing a wide range of coastal issues. Information on this coastal session as well as on the rest of the GSA Annual Meeting can be found on GSA's Web site: http://www.geosociety.org. Information on the USGS Coastal and Marine Geology Program is located at http://marine.usgs.gov.
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in this issue:
MRIB to Host Digital Library of Gulf of Maine Coastal Issues at GSA Gulf of Mexico Integrated Science
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U. S. Department of the Interior | U.S. Geological Survey
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