Floridian Coastline Recession

Rising sea levels are of significant concern as global temperatures continue to mount. Predicted increases in sea level place coastal regions and cities in danger. This danger is far from uniform; many factors contribute to the relative infiltration of water and its consequent effect on land. Naive considerations of elevation alone would result in a poor model of what happens in real life. This is especially true for the state of Florida, whose low elevation, extensive coastal regions, and variety of shoreline development make it particularly susceptible to inhomogeneous effects due to climate change. To evaluate these effects in their full extent and diversity, we present a model that considers a broad range of factors, taking into account such parameters as coastal convexity, drainage characteristics, and vegetal population densities. Furthermore, our model accounts for the dynamic nature of evolving coastlines by constructing a field of vectors normal to the coast at any given time, and utilizing this field to direct the evolution of the coast over the next time step. Coastal recession, as directed by these vectors, is then scaled by local hazard factors, to obtain a refined model of coastline change. The results and implications of this model are evaluated in this paper.