EVR1001 Sea level rise assignment

Posted: March 24th, 2022

For this assignment, you will be asked to investigate what sea level rise will mean for your life in South Florida. Will your house flood? What about your office? How about your path to the grocery store? This is structured as a quiz for the sake of grading and ease of submission, but the questions are provided in advance in this description and in a pdf posted in conjunction with this quiz link.

 

*If you do not live in South Florida, pretend you live at FIU BBC.

A pdf of these instructions can be found here
.

NOTE: I will only be grading the most recent submission, but you may submit as many times as you wish. Your answers will not transfer between submissions. I recommend answering the questions ahead of time on a separate document, then copy/pasting your answers in to the provided spaces.

Instructions:

Visit http://citizeneyes.org/app/
(Links to an external site.)
. This is a free app, developed at FIU, that simulates what sea level rise will look like in Florida.

About this app (taken from the app itself):
The Sea Level Rise Toolbox is part of Eyes on the Rise
(Links to an external site.)
, a project of Florida International University School of Journalism and Mass Communication
(Links to an external site.)
professors Susan Jacobson, Robert “Ted” Gutsche, Kate MacMillin and Juliet Pinto, and their students.

The goal of the Sea Level Rise Toolbox is to inform citizens of South Florida about the potential impact of sea level rise in their neighborhoods. We want to help our fellow Floridians adapt to sea level rise and better understand what local governments, including Miami Beach and Miami-Dade County, are doing to adapt to sea level rise. To this end, FIU Journalism students have produced a video series on Sea Level Rise Impact for WPBT2
(Links to an external site.)
, and we have partnered with journalists from Fusion
(Links to an external site.)
, whose reporting on the Miami Beach Centennial
(Links to an external site.)
and sea-level rise adaptation efforts
(Links to an external site.)
helps provide this context to the app.

Using elevation data from the Google Elevation Service
(Links to an external site.)
, and based on sea level rise calculations created by Peter Harlem
(Links to an external site.)
, a scientist at FIU’s Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Center
(Links to an external site.)
, the app visualizes the possible impact of rising seas on South Florida. The app’s main feature is an interactive sea level rise viewer where users can enter an address to visualize how up to a 6ft increase in sea level may affect their neighborhoods. Currently, the app focuses on locations within Miami-Dade County.

As development on the Sea Level Rise Toolbox continues, it will also include a database of flood reports from both government and citizen sources in South Florida. Miami-Dade County recently launched an open data portal that includes flood reports, which will be included in the flood database. The flood report database will help residents identify the incidence of what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration calls ‘nuisance flooding,’
(Links to an external site.)
a phenomenon that is increasingly common as coastal sea levels rise.

 

Click the i and review the “how to use the app” instructions.

Use the app to fill in the following tables using your home address as the point of reference, and exploring the surrounding area under each sea level rise scenario.
Column 1: this is the scenario you select from the app.
Column 2: the app will give you this information when you enter your address.
Column 3: Sea level scenario – ground elevation
Column 4: If column 3 is positive, then yes. If negative, then no.
Column 5: explore the map in the app, zoom in and out a couple of times to reset the display (it can be a little quirky). Look at your normal travel routes (ex. To school, to work, to your girlfriend/boyfriend’s house, etc.). If a road has blue on it, it’s flooded. If not, it’s not.

 

Sea level rise scenario
(ft relative current levels)

 

Ground elevation of your home (ft relative current sea level)

 

Sea level with respect to ground level (ft)

 

 

Will the property be flooded?

 

 

Will roads you frequently travel be flooded?

Example: 5

1

 

5-1= 4

 

Yes

 

Yes

 

0

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pick a location in Miami Beach, repeat the exercise from above.
What is the address of the location you chose?

 

Sea level rise scenario

 

Ground elevation

 

Sea level with respect to ground level

 

Will the property be flooded?

 

Will major roadways be flooded?

 

0

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pick a location in the Homestead/Florida City area, repeat the exercise from above.

 

Sea level rise scenario

 

Ground elevation

 

Sea level with respect to ground level

 

Will the property be flooded?

 

Will major roadways be flooded?

 

0

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are a series of ‘webisodes’ discussing various aspects of sea level rise and climate change on the website: http://www.eyesontherise.org/documentaries/
(Links to an external site.)
. Most are less than 10 minutes long. Select 3 videos, watch them, and in one paragraph for each (3-5 well-reasoned sentences) summarize the key messages of the videos.
Name of webisode:
Key message:

 

 

Name of webisode:
Key message:

 

 

Name of webisode:
Key message:

 

Contemplative writing: answer the following questions in 250-500 word essays each. Be sure to provide citations for any information that you yourself do not generate (hint: there should be some data presented in your argument, and this needs to be cited properly). Use citationmachine.net to form citations if you do not know how to do so.

Using all you’ve learned in class, and from this assignment, why should personally you care about climate change?

 

 

Will everyone be influenced equally by climate change?

 

 

Even if we stopped using all fossil fuels now, we have several decades of climatic change ‘baked in’ to the atmosphere. Sea levels will continue to rise. Temperatures will continue to increase. We can’t change that now, so we need to build climate resilient infrastructure. Using all you’ve learned in this exercise, how could YOUR community be protected from sea level rise?