Assessing Sea-Level Rise Impacts: A GIS-Based Framework and Application to Coastal New Jersey

The impact of sea-level rise on coastal properties depends critically on the human response to the threat, which in turn depends on several factors, including the immediacy of the risk, the magnitude of property value at risk, options for adapting to the threat and the cost of those options, and in some cases, land-use or regulatory restrictions that apply to the property. This article reports on a new effort to model the response to and economic impacts of sea-level rise on coastal properties using a spatially comprehensive Geographic Information System (GIS)-based modeling approach that considers each of the aforementioned factors. The approach is applied to a multi-county section of New Jersey's Atlantic coast to provide estimates of the costs of protection, elevation, and abandonment. The new model yields impact estimates higher than prior estimates, resulting from recent increases in the value of coastal property at risk, the spatially comprehensive nature of the approach, and our use of more recent and accurate elevation data. The approach will ultimately yield two types of results: national-level estimates of the benefits of reducing sea-level rise through control of greenhouse gas emissions; and local-level results assessing management actions that could facilitate adaptation to sea-level rise risks.