Coastal Environments

Key Findings

In its research on the relationship between climate and Pacific Northwest (PNW) coastal environments, the Climate Impacts Group (CIG) has:

Climate change on the Washington coast will trigger significant physical hazards for Washington State. We expect substantial impacts on coastal systems from bluff erosion, shifting beach berms, shoreline armoring, and inundation of coastal lands. One broad conclusion is that SLR impacts on coastal beaches and unstable bluffs will endanger housing and other structures (including ports and marinas) built near the shore or near the bluff edges. Also, shellfish may be harmed by increasing ocean temperatures and acidity, due to shifts in disease and growth patterns, and to more frequent Harmful Algal Blooms. (Huppert et al. 2009, Canning et al., in review)

CIG research has found that river flooding is more common on unmanaged coastal rivers during La Niña (as compared to El Niño) years, especially during the cool phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. (Hamlet and Lettenmaier 1999)

The PNW coastal management system is generally not very adaptable to either climate variability or climate change. State and local officials are, to varying degrees, slow to incorporate a response to climate change into their management of coastal resources, hazards, or land use (Johnson 1998; Canning et al., in review)

Trial efforts to model the influence of climate variability on water quality in South Puget Sound estuaries and their watersheds found that climate-induced changes in streamflow, sunlight intensity, dissolved inorganic nitrogen loading, and ocean water temperatures appear to be the most essential drivers of changes in water quality that could potentially lead to water quality degradation in South Puget Sound’s Budd Inlet. (Engoltz 2002)