In April, more than 230 coastal engineers, geologists, managers, planners, oceanographers and other coastal professionals ventured to the north shore of Oahu for the third Solutions to Coastal Disasters Conference, traveling from as far as Europe, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Australia and Vietnam. Guided by the knowledge that coastal areas worldwide are experiencing increasing population and development pressures and thus have critical coastal management needs, conference plenary sessions addressed community resilience, sea level rise, lessons from the Indian Ocean tsunami and coastal science applications within hazard mitigation programs. Technical sessions addressed all aspects of disaster management with a special emphasis on tsunamis.
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| Scenes from the Solutions to Coastal Disasters Conference include (from top): A tsunami siren; the Turtle Bay Resort with tsunai-specific engineering; a cove observed during the Turtle Bay Walking Tour; and statue on the conferece site grounds. |
Throughout the discussions participants and authors noted the importance of hazard warning systems and better predictive tools to help coastal populations survive coastal disasters– warnings for tsunamis, observations of rising sea level, predictions of tsunami run-up, levee breaching, storm or cyclone intensities and landfall sites. Discussions also covered ways to move scientific information from the research stage to use in coastal management and into community awareness and education.
Sea level rise and climate change also took center stage. Technical program planning committee members noted that coastal managers are still trying to come to grips with how to incorporate some acceleration of sea level rise into land use planning and community resilience. At the same time, scientists are trying to assess coastal vulnerabilities to erosion and storm damage in light of current and future trends in sea levels.
Conference goers had the chance to hear about Maui County, Hawaii’s 2003 implementation of erosion-based setbacks. Now, the county is developing a shoreline prioritization and management model using scientifically derived data layers which assess vulnerability to such coastal hazards as erosion, waves and rising sea level. Then, combining this with the social and cultural values of the shoreline, it can tailor management options to the unique shoreline characteristics.
Thanks to committee member Bruce Jaffe’s outreach, this year’s conference featured more than two days of sessions on tsunamis and also incorporated historic tsunami data into one of the field trips. The discussions spanned at least five decades of work – from early recordings of water levels, paleo-deposits, and field investigations to the latest numerical models and concepts in tsunami resilient communities. Vigorous discussion was generated by Japan's Port and Airport Research Institute Tsunami Research Center study in which people were exposed to increasingly strong currents and rising water levels to determine the conditions that would cause them to lose their footing and be at risk from drowning.
Even the history of the conference venue, The Turtle Bay Resort, contributed to the tsunami discussion. Providing details of research by Professor Bob Wiegel of the University of California, Professor Billy Edge, Texas A&M University, noted that the original building has three wings of concrete block bearing wall construction above the main lobby, lateral load resisting reinforced concrete frames down to grade and break-away walls along all the lower level. The surge run-up for design purposes was selected as 45 feet, with a maximum tip velocity from 45 to 60 fps and the tsunami preparedness plan called for evacuation to the upper floors of the building. Participants had only to walk around the grounds to see a possible coastal disaster solution.
COPRI is especially grateful to the speakers, local organizing committee and technical committee for providing the exciting conference program. Conference plenary speakers included: Westley Chun, ASCE Region 8 Chair; Margaret Davidson, Director of the NOAA Coastal Services Center; Chip Fletcher, Chair of the University of Hawaii, Manoa, Department of Geology and Geophysics; Costas Synolakis, University of Southern California Tsunami Research Lab; and, Dennis Hwang, an affiliate faculty member of the University of Hawaii Sea Grant College Program and an attorney at Reinwald, O’Connor & Playdon.
Thanks also go to the volunteers, exhibitors and sponsors: Moffatt & Nichol, Tetra Tech, Oceanit, Tensar, FYFE, Dewberry, Zephyr Insurance, URS, NOAA, USGS, FEMA, State of Hawaii Dept. of Land and Natural Resources, and University of Southern California Sea Grant. Proceedings are now available at http://pubs.asce.org/books.
Congratulations also go to Saumya-Ranjan Swain, S.M.ASCE. Swain, a student at Hanyang University in South Korea, won the conference's Student Essay Contest with his paper "Sustainable Development and Global Role of Engineers in Building a Peaceful World for Humanity in the 21st Century." His paper echoes the call for a "permanent sustainable development solution" to combat the growing list of deteriorating infrastructure, and recognizes the importance of cultivating a collaborative effort between all sectors of society to reach this goal.
While 2011 may seem far off, it’s not too early for planning technical papers or volunteering with the next Solutions to Coastal Disasters Conference.
