Science Impact

January 15, 2009

— To reduce risk from the vagaries of the stock market and the economy, investors select financial portfolios based on their financial objectives and tolerance to risk. The USGS Land Use Portfolio Model (LUPM) was developed as a tool for communities to preserve life and property assets reflected in land use from the vagaries of nature and natural hazards. The LUPM is a modeling, mapping, and risk communication tool that can assist public agencies and communities in understanding and reducing their natural-hazards vulnerability. The LUPM builds upon financial-portfolio theory, a method for evaluating alternative investment choices based on the estimated distribution of risk and return from different investment possibilities. The conceptual model has been developed into an interactive, GIS-based decision support system (DSS) that stakeholders can use to select locations in which to invest a hazard mitigation budget, evaluate metrics such as the mean and variance of community wealth, and compare and rank policies. The model is unique in that it allows users to think through various levels of risk tolerance and hazard acceptability and allows users to compare the cost effectiveness of different policy alternatives. During FY 2005, the LUPM was applied successfully in addressing earthquake risk in the Memphis, Tennessee area (see below) and in addressing risk mitigation in the event of severe flooding in Squamish, British Columbia (see below).

Developing Tools to Improve the Application of Science Information to Inform Earthquake Risk Mitigation Decisions in the City of Memphis and Shelby County, Tennessee

— Earthquakes and associated seismic hazards, such as liquefaction and landslides, pose significant threats to the public safety and economic health of many communities throughout the world. Decision-makers, including both private citizens and elected officials, face major informational and financial challenges in their efforts to develop and prioritize mitigation strategies for their communities. In many cases, individuals require not more information, but assistance interpreting existing information and determining what is needed to make informed decisions. A multidisciplinary team of USGS economists, geologists, and geographers is working with the City of Memphis and Shelby County, Tennessee to mitigate the risk of a major earthquake. The project combines high-resolution seismic hazard maps, detailed mapping data and aerial photography, parcel maps, estimated building and land values, and the USGS Land Use Portfolio Model (LUPM), a GIS-based decision support tool that allows planners to compare alternative earthquake-hazard mitigation policies. By helping evaluate the economic consequences of alternative mitigation strategies, the LUPM will help local planning agencies make more efficient use of public funds used to lessen the risk of property damage from a major seismic event. During FY 2005, a prototype version of the LUPM software was installed on computer systems of the City of Memphis and Shelby County’s Office of Planning and Development and Office of the Tax Assessor, and staff trained in its use.

— The USGS is working with Natural Resources Canada to develop new ways for decision makers and planners in the transboundary Puget Sound area (Vancouver, British Columbia - Seattle, Washington region) to apply scientific information about natural hazards and the potential risks to communities. In FY 2005, the USGS Land Use Portfolio Model (LUPM) decision support system was used in the District of Squamish for a preliminary demonstration evaluation of risk mitigation alternatives for multiple flood events. Squamish is planning for a sharp increase in population as a result of the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games to be held in 2010. The LUPM will be used by practitioners to quantify and analyze hazard and risk scenarios to assess community vulnerability and risk to hazards and the impact that proposed mitigation strategies may have on reducing that risk. In FY 2005, initial results for the vulnerability-risk analysis framework for flood events were presented in a workshop in Squamish. The workshop objective was to pilot the multi-hazard risk assessment framework to assist the community in evaluating:

— The recent disasters in the Indian Ocean and along the U.S. Gulf Coast illustrate the importance of reducing potential losses from natural hazards in coastal communities. To reduce potential losses, decision makers must understand the hazards in their communities and their vulnerability to these hazards. The USGS is helping local and state practitioners understand how their communities are vulnerable to coastal hazards by conducting vulnerability studies and offering vulnerability assessment training opportunities. In FY05, the USGS focused on the vulnerability of Oregon coastal communities to catastrophic earthquakes and tsunamis. A geospatial database was created that includes vulnerability indicators relating tsunami hazards to land cover distributions, demographic characteristics, business and employment patterns, and level of resilience planning. Results to date indicate the presence of a significant seasonal and workforce population in high hazard zones; therefore, a combination of census data and local knowledge is needed to understand population risk in coastal communities. Results also indicate that many businesses in high tsunami-hazard zones are the primary employers and economic drivers in coastal communities, suggesting that a tsunami would drastically impact the regional economy. In addition to the case study of community vulnerability to tsunamis, the USGS has created and delivered multi-hazard vulnerability assessment workshops focusing on communities in the Willamette Valley. The USGS is delivering this training opportunity in collaboration with the Oregon Partners for Disaster Resistance and Resilience, a statewide initiative that involves the Oregon Natural Hazards Workgroup and Oregon Emergency Management, as well as local and state land use and emergency planners. Results of this project help coastal communities to understand the consequences and implications of their land use decisions and provide information that will help practitioners meet requirements of the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000. The primary customers for research results and training opportunities are local and state public officials with land use and emergency management responsibilities. Local officials have applied methods from vulnerability assessment workshops to help them complete FEMA-approved hazard mitigation plans.

— USGS is working with MIT, BLM, USFWS, and the DOI Office of Collaborative Action and Dispute Resolution through the MIT-USGS Science Impact Collaborative (MUSIC) to develop tools and methods for more effective use of science in collaborative processes that bring diverse stakeholders together to solve resource management problems. In FY 2005, research focused on developing: 1) a negotiated rule making process for the designation of offshore wind farms given the new responsibilities of the Minerals Management Service under the National Energy Legislation, 2) a regional approach to the placement of coastal and offshore LNG facilities using a joint fact finding (collaborative) process, and 3) guidelines for incorporating joint fact finding and adaptive management in collaboration with BLM.

Using Science in Developing and Applying Environmental Indicators in the Colorado Front Range

— The Colorado Front Range is a rapidly changing region where land use change, energy development, and public lands management policies overlap and sometimes conflict. In spite of considerable effort, barriers remain to the application of multi-disciplinary science by decision makers to human and environmental issues. The USGS worked with Colorado State University to understand why barriers exit and to guide development of regional natural resource and quality of life indicators to describe the state of the Colorado Front Range. The goal was to identify objective, credible, and non-partisan indicators to serve as an unbiased core around which regional environmental and quality-of-life policies can be debated and decisions made. A workshop on this topic was help in November 2004 including farmers, water providers, state and local government representatives, private companies and not-for-profit groups as well as scientists from state institutions and federal agencies, including the Departments of the Interior and Agriculture. The first-cut list of indicators is posted to: http://rockyweb.cr.usgs.gov/pulse/. A Fact Sheet (2005-3021), and a poster presented at a regional meeting of grassland managers are also available on the website. The 44 workshop participants agreed that indicators of condition are useful only if they pass a stringent set of scientifically rigorous tests, including relevancy, measurability, repeatability, understandability, and cost-effectiveness. A workshop report and proposed data assessment methods have been circulated to environmental decision-makers across the Front Range.

— The federal, state, and local agencies responsible for managing and monitoring aspects of the Lake Tahoe Basin in California and Nevada (the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board, Nevada Division of Environmental Protection, and Forest Service) have formed the collaborative Pathway 2007 Planning Process to define the desired future environmental and economic conditions for the Tahoe Basin and to create a 20-year plan to achieve these conditions. The USGS, funded in part through the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act, has been developing the Tahoe Decision Support System to aid decision-making as part of Pathway 2007. The USGS has developed population-growth and land-use-change models, as well as gathered insights, data, and models that will be necessary to fulfill the project’s larger long-term vision: to construct a fully-integrated and well-quantified decision support system software tool. The decision support system will be used in 2007 by the Pathway 2007 Planning Process to project outcomes of various management strategies, regulations, and project implementations (referred to as scenarios) and provide a means to consider multiple factors in the selection of the best management plan. In FY 2005, the USGS created a scenario reflecting current conditions and assuming no change to management strategies, then projected land-use and population under the scenario and analyzed what can be determined about the future condition of the Tahoe Basin given the projections and existing data and models. The USGS presented its findings to the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency’s Advisory Planning Committee and Governing Board, and summarized them in an article for the Journal of the Nevada Water Resources Association.

Incorporating Uncertainty into Mercury Mitigation Decisions in the Sacramento River Watershed

— Water quality regulatory agencies in the Sacramento River watershed have the difficult task of devising strategies for reducing mercury levels in fish. Elevated mercury levels in fish may ultimately result from the erosion of materials from local legacy gold and mercury mining operations, but other environmental factors may be important. For example, there is significant uncertainty about the importance of other mercury sources (including atmospheric deposition and geothermal inputs) and the influence of “hotspots,” areas that have localized environmental conditions that greatly promote the formation of the toxic organic form of mercury. Because of these significant uncertainties and the difficulty in finding and mitigating hotspots, choosing a watershed-scale strategy for reducing mercury levels in fish is very complicated and the possibility of failure is significant. In particular, decision-makers risk choosing an expensive mitigation strategy that has negligible impact on mercury levels in fish. USGS researchers, in collaboration with Stanford University, USEPA Region 9, California Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board staff, and the Sacramento County Regional Sanitation District, have developed a decision model that incorporates the various uncertainties in this complex water quality decision problem, allowing decision-makers to consider tradeoffs between the risks of not meeting various environmental targets and the significant strategy costs. This decision support approach has been described in a report to USEPA, “Incorporating Uncertainty into Mercury-Offset Decisions with a Probabilistic Network for National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Permit Holders” (http://pubs.usgs.gov/ of/2004/1408/) and on the website, “Mercury and Decision Support in California” (http://geography.wr.usgs.gov/science/mercury/). This effort supports the USGS Geography Science Strategy goals of credible decision support (Goal 5) and information synthesis and knowledge creation (Goal 9).

Integrating Science with Resource Management through Collaborative Approaches and Adaptive Modeling Systems

— Federal land managers are called upon to make science-based decisions and to manage multiple resources under intense public scrutiny. The goal for resource managers is to optimize the management of multiple resources while minimizing negative impacts of any given decision. They also need an adaptive management framework to accommodate changing conditions. The USGS partnered with NPS, BLM, and USFS to develop a transportable collaborative modeling approach for adaptive management of ecosystems in Mesa Verde National Park (MEVE). This research addresses the following question: How do we more effectively link the appropriate USGS science with natural resource management decision making? The research strategy was to bring together collaborative problem-solving approaches with modular modeling tools applicable to multi-objective resource management needs in an adaptive management framework. Through efforts to couple the adaptive capabilities of the modular modeling system (MMS) with accepted principles of collaboration, the research is establishing a transportable methodology to link USGS science to the adaptive management needs of DOI land management agencies applicable across a wide range of ecosystems. This approach has been adopted for a newly developed BLM Partnership Series Course to be taught throughout the Western Interior entitled “Science in the Service of Stewardship.”

—The USGS will continue its efforts to refine the LUPM and to improve its effectiveness as a tool for community decision making when natural and environmental hazards exist. In FY 2006, the LUPM will be enhanced to incorporate: a temporal component, the ability to assessing interdependent multi-hazards probabilities, a spatial covariance term, and a capability to evaluate environmental issues.

—During FY 2006, the USGS will continue to work with the City of Memphis and Shelby County, TN to analyze risk associated with alternative earthquake mitigation plans so that risk reduction strategies can be developed for earthquakes. The database will be refined and policy scenarios will be selected for evaluation in cooperation with local officials.

The USGS will continue to work with Natural Resources Canada to develop new ways for decision makers and planners in the transboundary Puget Sound area (Vancouver, British Columbia - Seattle, Washington region) to apply scientific information about natural hazards and the potential risks to communities. During FY 2006, a vulnerability and risk analysis will be conducted. In addition, the Land Use Portfolio Model approach for developing land use plans will be compared with the approach currently used by planners in Whatcom County, WA. In the Squamish District, a multi-hazard earthquake, flood, and landslide risk analysis will be conducted.

— In FY 2006, the USGS will continue to focus on the vulnerability of Oregon coastal communities to catastrophic earthquakes and tsunamis. Geospatial information gathered in FY 2005 will be analyzed in FY 2006 to determine regional metrics of vulnerability to tsunamis. Results to date indicate the presence of a significant seasonal and workforce population in high hazard zones; therefore, a combination of census data and local knowledge is needed to understand population risk in coastal communities. Results also indicate that many businesses in high tsunami-hazard zones a re the primary employers and economic drivers in coastal communities, suggesting that a tsunami would drastically impact the regional economy. In FY 2006, the USGS will deliver results of this study at a post-tsunami recovery forum to be held in Cannon Beach, Oregon. In addition, the USGS will provide technical content for vulnerability assessment training to support pre-disaster mitigation planning in communities along the Columbia River. The USGS is conducting this research and training opportunity in collaboration with the Oregon Partners for Disaster Resistance and Resilience, a statewide initiative that involves the Oregon Natural Hazards Workgroup.

— Recent events suggest that we may be entering a period of increased hurricane frequency and intensity, making the need for reliable, useful, and understandable scientific information on community vulnerability to hurricanes even more critical than in the past. Storm surge-- water that is pushed onshore by the advancing storm has the greatest potential for loss of life and property from hurricanes. The USGS investigates the susceptibility of coastal areas to storm surge by documenting and predicting coastal change and produces maps, videos, photographs and digital elevation products in near-real time during hurricanes. The information is used widely by the media, officials from federal, state and local agencies, and the general public. However, very little is understood about the characteristics of the user communities for these products, how effective the products are for hurricane response, recovery and mitigation, or how these products might be improved. During FY 2006, the USGS will investigate how information on storm surge was used during the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons to understand better how scientific information and data affect community vulnerability and resilience to hurricanes. The results will be used to help develop methods for improving information products and for using alternate delivery methods.

Integrating Science and Economics in South Florida DOI Land Acquisition/ Stewardship Decisions

— South Florida’s national parks and wildlife refuges are threatened by accelerated growth of the surrounding built environment which alters the natural hydrology and ecology, and introduces harmful levels of sediment, nutrients and toxins. DOI scientists and land managers are faced with major informational and financial challenges and conflicting stakeholder interests in their efforts to manage and protect resources to fulfill their stewardship responsibilities. The primary objective of this effort is to develop an ecosystem portfolio model (EPM) for DOI scientists and managers to use to develop and prioritize strategies to restore and preserve the ecological health of South Florida parks and refuges in the face of intense population growth and development pressures. The EPM, a spatial decision support tool, will integrate natural science and economic information in a portfolio framework to assist with land use planning, l and acquisition, and land management decisions. The economic portfolio framework will allow DOI resource managers and decision makers to consider multiple objectives, while considering the quality of the scientific and economic information supporting the decision. Ultimately, success will depend on well coordinated, collaborative, and integrated efforts among participating agencies and stakeholders to implement a reasonable balance between human needs and the needs of the ecosystem. The USGS Priority Ecosystem Science ( PES) program, the DOI Critical Ecosystem Studies Initiative (CESI), and the USGS Science Impact Program have contributed to this effort. This effort supports USGS Geography Science Strategy goals of understanding past, present, and future environmental consequences of land change to support better management criteria (Goal 3), improving the scientific basis for vulnerability and risk assessment (Goal 4), credible decision support (Goal 5), providing timely, intelligent access to new and archive USGS geographic data for decision support (Goal 8), and providing information synthesis and knowledge creation (Goal 9).

—During FY 2006, the USGS will continue research through the MIT-USGS Science Impact Collaborative (MUSIC) on developing methods and tools for using science in collaborative processes to help solve resource management problems. New research efforts will focus on water allocation issues in Hawaii , mountaintop mining in West Virginia , sage grouse ecosystem restoration and development issues in Colorado and Nevada , the designation of multi-use trails in Saguaro National Park , development a collaborative process approach to NEPA, and new approaches to joint fact finding in the Tomales Bay watershed, CA.

—The USGS will continue to work with the collaborative Pathway 2007 Planning Process in the Lake Tahoe Basin in California and Nevada during FY 2006. The USGS is currently developing a set of scenario-generation software tools to translate user-defined scenarios into projected land-use extent and type, and projected population by segment (overnight visitor, seasonal resident, permanent resident, etc.) using the already developed land-use-change and population-growth models. The projections will be used during FY 2006 as inputs to water clarity and nutrient loading models under development by the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board.

Carl D. Shapiro, Ph.D.
U.S. Geological Survey
516 National Center
Reston, VA 20192
(703) 648-4446 (Voice)
cshapiro@usgs.gov

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About USGS || Science Topics || Maps, Products & Publications || Partnerships || Education || Newsroom || Jobs