New tool can help planners prepare for climate change

Old Lyme - Coastal town planners, members of land use boards and other municipal officials have a new tool at their disposal to help with decisions about how to prepare their communities for climate change.

On Wednesday, the Nature Conservancy's Connecticut chapter will introduce the Coastal Resilience Tool it developed in partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Columbia University's Earth Institute, NASA and the Association of State Floodplain Managers.

It is an online, web-based tool that can be used for free by communities in coastal areas of Connecticut, Long Island and Westchester County, N.Y., and along some major rivers, said Adam Whelchel, director of conservation programs for the conservancy. While it is intended mainly for government officials involved in planning, emergency management and infrastructure, it could also be useful for businesses such as real estate, insurance, transportation and construction, as well as individuals.

"Now we have to get people to actually use it," Whelchel said.

Wednesday's meeting will be from 1 to 4:30 p.m. at the Old Lyme Town Hall.
The tool enables planners to see how different sea level rise and storm scenarios would affect their town's critical infrastructure, such as police and fire stations, sewage treatment plants and hospitals, as well as its natural resources such as salt marshes and eel grass beds, Whelchel said.

It will help towns identify open space that should be preserved to serve as flood buffers and areas where salt marshes can move into as sea levels rise, he said. It includes population data and identifies whether particular neighborhoods comprise primarily owner-occupied or rental housing. Overall, its purpose is to project what the economic, social and ecological impacts would be from various climate change scenarios and to foster decisions that will minimize damage and help communities adapt.

Whelchel said the creation of the tool is an expansion of the conservancy's traditional mission of preserving important habitats and natural resources into also working to protect the human environment.

"We're in the business of preserving life, and one of the principal threats we see (to both wildlife and humans) is climate change," he said. "We can't just be talking about natural resources."

As part of developing the tool, conservancy staff interviewed dozens of municipal officials to ask them whether they had begun to consider climate change impacts on their towns. Few had, Whelchel said.

"We're trying to change the way they think about future development, emergency management, contingency plans," he said. "The real test will be to see whether people will have the fortitude" to use the tool in decision making.

www.coastalresilience.org

j.benson@theday.com

Large Scale Conservation Planning in Marine Systems

One of the most challenging initial and reoccurring steps for a "spatially dependent" organization is the definition of where to work and on what. I had the great privilege of participating in a large scale marine planning exercise this week. The purpose was to define in a broad sense where the organization would invest capacity towards either directly or effectively conserving high priority marine areas across an expansive seascape - estuaries to the shelf/slope break. Unlike terrestrial conservation, the definition of place - those areas worthy of conservation focus - in the marine realm is dominated by a fluid medium that is in fact a habitat; the water column. The terrestrial equivalent would be the air column both within and above a forest block. This adds a certain complexity to defining place in a seascape.

What really struck me about the process of defining place is that in the terrestrial realm we are all very comfortable with assigning and identifying with the names given to "place". The same is true and does happen for places in seascapes, but we rarely really experience those places and are largely unable to identify with those names/places. The water gets in the way for the average practitioner. This must become problematic when one is asked to commit resources to something they don't really identify with regardless of all the ecological justification.

That being said, the exploration of new frontiers and the ability to collectively think and organize around new marine places in new ways that transcend existing organization structure is truly exhilarating. However, the areas are so vast, what with 70% of the planet under salt water, that the "where" and "what" remain critical issues if we think about conservation of the whole.

Came across a wood carver and his son working a piece of rose wood for the tourist trade somewhere on the road between Nairobi and Amboseli National Park, Kenya, Africa. Raises the issue of balance between the "right" to make a living and the alternative use of natural resources.

Geothermal Water Still Video

Fish Scaling along Lake Naivasha, Kenya

Local fishermen scaling his fish for market. The availability of fish in Lake Naivasha has declined due to the severe drought conditions, excessive extraction of water from the Lake by international flower farms and reduction of indigenous forest cover in the Mau Forest Complex.

The continued livelihood of these fishing communities depends on a equitable allocation of water resources and the restoration of the watersheds within the Mau Forest Complex.

Freshwater from Geothermal in Kenya Africa

Came across this impressive use of human ingenuity to solve a common problem - lack of freshwater. In the village of Eburro Market in the Lake Naivasha region (Kenya, Africa), the local folks have figured out how to harness geothermal steam released up to through vents. In the adjoining photo you can see the apparatus. Basically, what they do is drive a corrugated pipe to approximately 10 feet down one of these steam vents. The steam rises up through the pipe and condenses in a 55 gallon drum on a 15% slant. Excess steam continues rising up and out the vent while the condensed water streams out the barrel into the upright catchment barrel. Low tech means of safely securing all the water they need.

As the children return from school, they fill up water containers at the family's "steam-trap water-converter" and hurry home.

Land Protection in the Quinebaug Highlands

"The Nature Conservancy in Connecticut has received a federal grant to protect a large tract of land in the northeast corner of the state. It includes habitat for bird species that nest in wetlands and forests.
The Nature Conservancy has been awarded one million dollars through the North American Wetlands Conservation Act to prevent the development of about 1100 acres in an area known as the Quinebaug Highlands. This includes parcels in the towns of Woodstock and Eastford. The Nature Conservancy’s Adam Whelchel says the land includes some of the last remaining inland nesting habitat for the American black duck in the state --- as well as unfragmented forests that support the largest number of breeding pairs of Cerulean warblers in Connecticut.
“Really the purpose of the program is to not only protect breeding habitat for important waterfowl species, but it’s also plays into the idea of trying to protect intact forest as well as fresh water ecosystems.”
The funds will go towards protecting 268 acres of wetlands, about seven miles of streams and more than 800 acres of forest." - text by WNPR's Nancy Cohen (4/07/08) - link below

http://www.cpbn.org/nature-conservancy-receives-1-million-protect-land-northeastern-ct