Skip to main content
  1. ScienceBase Catalog
  2. National and Regional Climate Adaptation Science Centers
  3. Southeast CASC
  4. FY 2013 Projects
  5. Structured Decision-Making as a Tool for Coastal Restoration: A Case Study on Ship Island, Mississippi

Structured Decision-Making as a Tool for Coastal Restoration: A Case Study on Ship Island, Mississippi

Structured Decision-Making to Facilitate Multi-Stakeholder Coastal Conservation and Restoration under Climate Change Uncertainties: Case Study on Barrier Islands of the Northern Gulf of Mexico: A Southeast CSC Funding Opportunity 2013 2014 Project

Dates

Start Date
2013-06
End Date
2015-05
Release Date
2013

Summary

Barrier islands protect mainland areas from storm surge, but can erode over time and require restoration. Ship Island, a barrier island off the coast of Mississippi, provides an example of this: the island was battered by Hurricane Camille in 1969 and split into two separate islands. As part of the Mississippi Coastal Improvements Program, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plans to use approximately 22 million cubic yards of sand to close the gap between East and West Ship Islands. This will restore both the island’s physical integrity and habitat for important species such as sea turtles, shorebirds, and Gulf sturgeon. This project served as a case study to test the usefulness of structured decision-making – a systematic, formal [...]

Child Items (3)

Contacts

Principal Investigator :
Gregory D Steyer
Co-Investigator :
P. Soupy Dalyander, Mark Byrnes, Brady Mattsson, Michelle Meyers
Funding Agency :
Southeast CSC
CMS Group :
Climate Adaptation Science Centers (CASC) Program

Attached Files

Click on title to download individual files attached to this item.

SE-2013-6_GulfIslandsNatlSeashore_AlanCressler1.jpg
“Gulf Islands National Seashore - Credit: Alan Cressler” 		thumbnail 270.79 KB image/jpeg
SE-2013-6_GulfIslandsNatlSeashore_AlanCressler3.jpg
“Gulf Islands National Seashore - Credit: Alan Cressler” 		thumbnail 242.42 KB image/jpeg
SE-2013-6_GulfIslandsNatlSeashore_freshwater_pond_AlanCressler2.jpg
“Gulf Islands National Seashore freshwater pond - Credit: Alan Cressler” 		thumbnail 844.68 KB image/jpeg
SE-2013-6_GulfIslandsNatlSeashore_saltmarsh_AlanCressler4.jpg
“Gulf Islands National Seashore saltmarsh - Credit: Alan Cressler” 		thumbnail 316.92 KB image/jpeg

Purpose

Under the Mississippi Coastal Improvements Program (MsCIP), the US Army Corps of Engineers will place up to 22 million cubic yards (MCY) of sand to restore the physical integrity of Ship Island. In this project, structured decision making (SDM) was utilized to provide a formal process for analyzing decisions about repairing storm-related damages that may arise during island construction to maximize post-construction sustainability of the restoration effort. Decision support tools were developed to link restoration objectives and management options while accounting for tradeoffs between objectives and uncertainties such as storm events during and after construction. Expert elicitations, predictive models, and quantitative analysis were incorporated into a decision network to represent the relationships between storm impacts on the constructed island footprint (i.e., breaching, narrowing, and/or lowering) and consequences for restoration objectives including mitigation of shoaling; wave attenuation; avoiding loss of habitat for sea turtles, shorebirds, and Gulf Sturgeon; maintaining salinity levels in Mississippi Sound; and preserving funds for subsequent MsCIP restoration projects. The SDM process yielded not only management recommendations that could be quickly and effectively implemented during the Ship Island construction, but it also led to a general decision framework and process that could be expanded and adapted for use by future barrier island and restoration projects.

Project Extension

projectStatusCompleted

Budget Extension

annualBudgets
year2013
totalFunds13438.82
totalFunds99696.55
totalFunds113135.37

Gulf Islands National Seashore freshwater pond - Credit: Alan Cressler
Gulf Islands National Seashore freshwater pond - Credit: Alan Cressler

Map

Map Preview

Spatial Services

ScienceBase WMS

Communities

  • National and Regional Climate Adaptation Science Centers
  • Southeast CASC

Associated Items

Tags

Provenance

Additional Information

Identifiers

Type Scheme Key
RegistrationUUID NCCWSC c3b4dd65-9282-4e6d-b126-741502e5c8e0
StampID NCCWSC SE13-SG839

Item Actions

View Item as ...

JSON ATOM ISO XML

Save Item as ...

JSON FGDC MODS XML ISO XML

View Item...

Metrics