This research seeks to understand the chemistry and hydrology of contaminant transport within the context of anticipated sea level rise, the engineering solutions available, and the way humans process the risks. The projected interaction of sea level rise and contaminated sites is a poorly understood problem, but a significant one, positioned at the interface of natural science and social science. The scientific problem is complex, given factors such as the chemical effects of salinity, pH, redox, the physical effects of changes in hydraulic gradients, rising water tables, marsh drowning, new areas inundated by storm surges, and the risk that currently-immobilized constituents may be released. Economic choice experiments and laboratory experiments provide a way to incorporate this complexity and to understand how humans may respond.
An exploratory team at the University of Delaware is investigating how water sustainability needs are impacted by the joint impacts of contaminated sites and anticipated sea level rise. Concerns about climate change and sea level rise extend beyond traditional issues of human adaptation, such as reinforcing buildings and roads, building water barriers, health impacts of climate change, changing agricultural land use, and insurance issues. Alterations in hydrology and chemistry of contaminated soils in urban areas, industrial sites, and waste disposal sites, as the result of sea level rise, could enhance release and mobility of contaminants, threatening drinking water supplies, and food sources. The project analyzes how the joint risk of sea level rise and contamination may affect the economic opportunities, ecosystems, water quality and quality of life in the coming decades for coastal zone populations. The research ultimately seeks to compare the benefits and costs of different remediation alternatives, resulting in direct policy advice. The policy implications of this research may include a different prioritization of technological solutions for remediation, including options for abandonment, containment, and human adaptation. This advice depends on the human processing of perceived risks, and the distributional patterns of received benefits and costs across different populations. Understanding how the public responds to risk, including research on responses when the risk is communicated in different ways, will provide insights toward improving risk management.
An exploratory-research team at the University of Delaware investigated how water sustainability needs are impacted by the joint impacts of contaminated sites and possible sea level rise. Concerns about climate change and sea level rise extend beyond traditional issues of human adaptation, such as reinforcing buildings and roads, building water barriers, health impacts of climate change, changing agricultural land use, and insurance issues. If sea levels rise, then those surface and subsurface lands nearest rising waters will change; for instance, the salinity of groundwater and soil moisture may increase. These land changes would trigger changes in hydrology and chemistry of any contaminated soils in urban areas, industrial sites, and waste disposal sites, which could enhance release and mobility of contaminants, threatening drinking water supplies and food sources. Although these resources may be protected today, the risk is that they may become contaminated in the future, and thus planning today can be a cost effective way of solving future problems. The project defines and analyzes this new threat—a joint risk—of possible sea level rise and contamination, seeking to assess how it may affect the economic opportunities, ecosystems, water quality and quality of life in the coming decades for coastal zone populations. Preliminary data collection showed that many contaminated sites in the mid-Atlantic United States are in urban areas near water bodies and are therefore low-lying. In addition, some of these urban sites represent abandon industrial facilities and are near low-income populations. The research project was "exploratory" in that it sought to describe an emerging problem, establish current scientific knowledge and knowledge needs about this new set of risks, and then conduct a scientific review of how this problem could be studied in the future with a large-scale research grant. Several steps were required to accomplish this goal. The multidisciplinary research team first identified the gaps in expertise to conduct a full, integrated research project, and then recruited additional personnel. The team then reviewed the scientific literature to establish current knowledge and knowledge gaps. The team held a workshop in which nine experts presented current knowledge on these joint risks to a diverse audience of state and federal agency planners and scientists, private-sector environmental consultants, university researchers, and students. Workshop participants then shared information and research needs associated with the joint risks. All the research culminated in a research report, which establishes the state-of-the-art scientific knowledge on the joint risks, frames the knowledge gaps as hypotheses for future research, and defines a series of possible integrated research projects that could provide insight into the problem. The ultimate impact of this research will be seen in future research, although some members of the research team have begun new studies. However, the research team anticipates that the research will lead directly to policy analyses that compare the benefits and costs of different remediation alternatives. The policy implications of this research may include a different prioritization of technological solutions for remediation, including options for abandonment, containment, and human adaptation. This advice depends on the human processing of "perceived" risks, and the distributional patterns of received benefits and costs across different populations. Understanding how the public responds to risk, including research on their responses when the risk is conveyed to them in different ways, will provide insights into approaches that society can use to communicate about, and prepare for important changes in the environment, to optimize response to projected risks.
