How to improve the relevance of NC coastal science advice
Include diverse expertise. Ask better questions. Create options.
North Carolina coastal policymakers are seeking updates from their science advisors on the state’s rates of sea level rise (SLR) and inlet hazard areas (IHA) to inform coastal ‘planning and development.’ This oft repeated somewhat vague decision making context obscures the bitterness of coastal development politics, the weak position of its regulators, and the specific decisions regulators look to inform.
Coastal ‘planning and development’ decisions require significant value trade-offs in the area of private property rights, public and environmental well being, and economics.
About 20 years after the Federal government directed the states to create bonafide coastal regulations, the Supreme Court hamstrung coastal regulators’ efforts to meet policy goals. The decision in Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council (1992), found beach management regulations that eliminated economically beneficial uses of beachfront property violated Constitutional protections against takings,
“[W]hen the owner of real property has been called upon to sacrifice all economically beneficial uses in the name of the common good...he has suffered a taking.”
South Carolina owed Lucas $850k in “just compensation.” To recoup the losses, the state permitted the land for development and sold it off.
Since then, states have been terrified of creating takings “exposure.'“
Busy work for the Science Panel?
Since the 1990’s, the North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission (CRC), has saugh to update boundaries of the Inlet Hazard Areas (IHA) designated in the 70s. IHA’s have special management guidelines because they are “especially vulnerable to erosion” due to proximity to ocean inlets. In 2019, the Science Panel created a new methodology for updating IHA boundaries. In some places, the IHAs grew in size, in some places they shrank.
Historically, defining IHA are tied to the vegetation lines determined by visual inspection by staff of the Division of Coastal Management (DCM). These lines are shown in green below. The Science Panel finds the vegetation line is not a “reliable reference” near the inlets.
The new methodology, called the Hybrid Vegetation Line (HVI), “is significant because in an inlet environment where erosion and accretion can occur rapidly, it represents the landward-most position of where the hazard once existed.” The HVI is shown in red.
The image demonstrates the implications for coastal development depending on the method chosen for defining the IHA. Vegetation lines (green), if you catch them at the right time, have the potential to suggest less erosion risk.
The CRC/DCM rejected the new methodology,
Staff has had extensive additional discussions about using the Hybrid Vegetation Line as the starting point for measuring setbacks, as recommended by the Science Panel, but has concluded that the Hybrid Line would present significant implementation and communications issues. Staff also stated during the public workshops that the Commission was not at the time considering using the Hybrid Line as the starting point for measuring setbacks. Staff continues to support retaining the first line of stable and natural vegetation as the measurement line (emphasis added).
Ocean Isle Beach is one example of homeowner push back and interrogation of Science Panel’s methods.
Now, there is reluctance among the Science Panel to do the work needed to create a 5 year update of the IHA if the most “reasonable science”- the HVL- will not be used to inform builders. The update will take a lot of time and the Science Panel works pro bono.
SLR Rates or Symbolic Politics?
There is a sordid history around the Science Panel’s projection of SLR rates using climate change assumptions. The panel is in a challenging position for developing its update because commonly used emission scenarios are implausible but politically symbolic.
Previous Science Panel SLR reports were based on upper bound temperatures and extreme emission scenario. The 2010 report made passing reference to emission scenarios, but its inclusion of ice sheet melt was based on the IPCC’s A1FI with a 2100 temperature of 5°C.
The 2015 SLR update, the Science Panel compared SLR under an extreme albeit common emission scenario RCP 8.5 and a low scenario RCP 2.6. There are multiple problems with this setup, but I’ll focus on the extreme scenario.
Today, it is widely recognized that RCP 8.5 and its successor SSP5-8.5 is woefully extreme and implausible. Even the IPCC has backed away from them. While none of the scenarios were ever associated with a likelihood, AR6 acknowledged that
“likelihood of high-emissions scenarios such as RCP8.5 or SSP5-8.5 is considered low in light of recent developments in the energy sector.”
The upper bound of plausibility is found to be RCP4.5/SSP2-4.5 which means the new IPCC high, SSP3-7.0, is also extreme.
Contemporary projections by the International Energy Agency consider current policies and energy markets showing the world with far lower emissions than the other emission scenarios at midcentury1. The IEA does not project out to 2100; a lot can change by then and energy markets are unpredictable.
To better understand how profoundly messed up the IPCC emission scenarios are, see here and here.
Unsolicited, free advice
Coastal management decision making is done in the context of a high degree of social value disagreement and varying degrees of uncertainty.
Expertise is found in aligning knowledge and uncertainty with the development of policy options; it is not just in technical know-how. The Science Panel can demonstrate its expertise by bringing transparency and accountability to the decision making process through recommendations that broaden the scope of policymaker options. It should map options to coastal management prioritizations to make value-trade offs apparent.
The Science Panel is right to be skeptical of the usefulness of updating its politically infeasible IHA methodology. CRC/DCM has stated that their problem is rooted in policy and political processes- specifically, “implementation and communication”- and not in scientific knowledge.
The Science Panel acknowledges that regulators are under no obligation to accept their advice. Said one member, “We are asked to convey the science; we don’t set the policies.”
But, their further discussion recognizes the normative implications of their work. Says another member, there is a “fundamental conflict” between CRC’s lack of power and “good risk management.”
The IHA is, apparently, a politically negotiated area of which science may only modestly inform. The CRC/DCM should be more clear in what it is trying to accomplish by amending its IHA boundaries, a science panel with a diverse range expertise including social sciences and conflict management, can provide options for getting there.
Projecting SLR rates using climate change is dependent on emission scenarios that are uncertain and controversial. As for extreme emission scenarios- the cat is out of the bag; people know there is a problem.
Roger Pielke, Jr. makes an important observation,
The longer the climate community ignores our changing expectations for the future, the greater the risks to the community’s credibility as people are not fools, and don’t appreciate being fooled.
This goes for state science advisors, too.
The Science Panel should explain controversy about emission scenarios and their different socioeconomic and technological assumptions. The Science Panel should then develop SLR rates using plausible scenarios.
Limiting factors in adaptation actions are likely to be cost and regional economics. Observed rates of change plus a community determined reasonable ‘hedge’ given uncertain climate changed SLR rates is a practical policy option.
This issue is a pet peeve of mine. As a coastal native and family going back 300+ years on the coast, no one in their right mind would build a permanent structure on a barrier island. That was for fishing or hunting camps that could be moved or if destroyed no great loss.
A simple fix would be to end Federal Flood insurance for these areas and local municipalities to institute a policy that once a home is destroyed due to natural erosion or hurricane no structure can ever be built back on that site.
Good luck with this though....
As far as the Supreme Court decision concerning the matter, when those properties have been rebuilt at the cost of the tax payer, not the owner or the owners insurance company, the department of interior, EPA,BLN, or any other justified federal land use consumer protection agency should be able to effectively stop any rebuilding on it and environmentally pre-requisite entity. Restoring eco-habitats and saving the proletariat billions.