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 [...]
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 approach for evaluating options – as a tool for making coastal restoration management decisions. Researchers solicited input from project stakeholders, scientists, and engineers and incorporated this information, along with modeling and quantitative analysis, into a framework to inform decision-making, should the island incur storm damage while the restoration is underway.
Ultimately, the structured decision-making process yielded management recommendations that can be quickly and effectively implemented during the Ship Island construction, while helping participants maximize the island’s future resilience. It also led to a general decision framework and process that could be expanded and adapted for use by future barrier island restoration projects.
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SE-2013-6_GulfIslandsNatlSeashore_freshwater_pond_AlanCressler2.jpg “Gulf Islands National Seashore freshwater pond - Credit: Alan Cressler”
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SE-2013-6_GulfIslandsNatlSeashore_AlanCressler1.jpg “Gulf Islands National Seashore - Credit: Alan Cressler”
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SE-2013-6_GulfIslandsNatlSeashore_AlanCressler3.jpg “Gulf Islands National Seashore - Credit: Alan Cressler”
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SE-2013-6_GulfIslandsNatlSeashore_saltmarsh_AlanCressler4.jpg “Gulf Islands National Seashore saltmarsh - Credit: Alan Cressler”
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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
projectStatus
Completed
Budget Extension
annualBudgets
year
2013
totalFunds
13438.82
totalFunds
99696.55
totalFunds
113135.37
Preview Image
Gulf Islands National Seashore freshwater pond - Credit: Alan Cressler