四海Coastal science –

issues and potentials

Hans von StorchInstitute of Coastal Research

Helmholtz Zentrum GeesthachtGermany

15-17 September 2015 – YantaiInternational Workshop on Land-Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone and Sustainable Development,

Four Seas/ 四海The memorandum “Four Seas/ 四海” was formulated by H. von Storch, Luo Y. 骆永明 , Jiang W. 江文胜 and D. Schulz-Bull on the occasion of a Sino-German Symposium on Coastal Research in October 2014. It was signed by various colleagues from the two countries.The title refers to the marine complexes Bohai/Huang Hai and North/Baltic Sea.

Coasts - that are those parts of the ocean which is significantly influenced by the

neighboring land, be it in terms of currents, winds, temperatures, sea ice, salinity,

suspended matter, specific species anthropogenic substances, touristic value

including aesthetics; but coasts are also that part of the land which is significantly

influenced by the neighboring sea, be it opportunities for transport, risks related to

flooding, tsunamis, storm surges and oil and gas extraction opportunities for

fishing, offshore activity.

Not surprisingly therefore, the science in coastal dynamics and management

extends far beyond oceanography. Certainly oceanography is an important

component of the interdisciplinary mix of scientific efforts dealing with coasts, but

other fields such as coastal engineering, land use planning and management,

freshwater hydrology and ecology, climate, sociology and cultural science are also

needed for constructing holistic views of the subject of coasts.

Four Seas/ 四海

What makes the issue of coasts special is not only the presence of the “other”

counterpart, i.e., the sea versus land and land versus sea, but also the presence

of a often dominant factor modifying or even constructing the coast - humans

who use the coasts in various ways, conditional upon temporally and culturally

varying preferences, who make use of opportunities and try to deal with often

great dangers.

Because of both, the culturally conditioned values and preferences, and the

different geophysical, morphological and ecological set up, the various coasts of

this world are very different, face very different challenges, risks and

opportunities. As a consequence coastal science is a fragmented into regional

research communities; in some regions coastal sciences considered a mere

variant of oceanography, and others it is essentially coastal engineering, and in

others human geography.

Four Seas/ 四海

The challenge is to bring these different communities, disciplines, challenges and concepts together, not only within the scientific community but also in a trans-disciplinary effort by bringing together the real world, in which the coast is subject to competing practices and decisions, with the body of scientific knowledge.

Four Seas/ 四海

What is expected from science as a societal service is left to societies – they fund this social activity “science”. Within a certain mandate given by society, scientists develop their services.

This mandate may be different in different societies, but the joint element would be that science generates knowledge (Wissenschaft) with the scientific method (a.k. Merton). This knowledge aims at best explanations of complex phenomena, consistent with the presently available overall knowledge.

Scientifically constructed knowledge is considered superior to culturally constructed knowledge because of the scientific method, not because of the utility. However, socially constructed knowledge is closer to societal preferences; it leads in most cases to wanted societal conclusions; this is often not so with scientifically constructed.

Thus, good scientific results are not always useful, but in many cases they may be or may become so. The issue is to identify those capabilities and knowledges, which may be useful.

Here, I present a series of such potentially useful areas – all from the Institute of Coastal Research of Helmholtz Zentrum Geesthacht, and touch upon the circumstances which allow the potential usefulness transform into real utility.

Obviously, these cases do not span the full range of coastal science.

Science, knowledge, and utillity

Issues in Coastal Research with the potential of societal utility:

1. Making Sense 2. Marine Spatial Planning (MSP)3. Monitoring4. Hazards, Risks and Opportunities 5. Scenarios6. More …

Based upon:von Storch, H., K. Emeis, I. Meinke, A. Kannen, V. Matthias, B. W. Ratter, E. Stanev, R. Weisse and K. Wirtz, 2015: Making coastal research useful - cases from practice. Oceanologica 57, 3-16 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.oceano.2014.09.001

Making sense refers to the scientific understanding of complex phenomena, and its use for supporting societal framing and decision making.

Examples are consequences of eutrophication, the manifestation of natural system variations, and anthropogenic climate change.

Novel or recurrent but threatening events in complex coastal environments can attract considerable attention in stakeholder groups and the public. Meaning-providing frames, which allow for causal interpretation and understanding, satisfy not only curiosity, but allow for engineering preparedness and options for specific stakeholders.

Storm surges as recorded at the tide gauge St Pauli in Hamburg. The green horizontal bars indicate stipulated dike heights. Dike failures are marked by red stars. The color codes mark surge heights. Data provided by Gabriele Gönnert.

Making sense

What is the process behind the marked increase of storm surge heights in Hamburg since the 1970s?

Difference betwenn peak heights of storm surges in Cuxhaven and Hamburg

Main cause for recently elevated storm surges in Hamburg is the modification of the river Elbe – (coastal defense and shipping channel deepening) and less so because of changing storms or sea level.

Consistency of recent local change:Storm surges in Hamburg

von Storch, H. and K. Woth, 2008: Storm surges, perspectives and options. Sustainability Science 3, 33-44

Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) describes the “public process of analyzing and allocating the spatial and temporal distribution of human activities in marine areas to achieve ecological, economic and social objectives that have been specified through a political process”.

MSP is an approach for deciding about competitive concepts of usage of coastal space. This process needs mostly quantitative information from natural sciences for project-specific technical planning exercises, but in addition social science needs to provide mainly qualitative information concerning societal and political context and structures to inform decision makers in strategic planning.

Coastal science is not doing MSP as such, but in research in conditions of how to implement MSP.

Monitoring aims at the assessment of the current status of the coastal environment and short term trends, and their (deterministic) short-term forecasts.

Such assessments are based on observations and related (model-guided) data analysis. The process of making data, assessments and forecasts available for users is also a challenge.

Coastal science is not doing the routine of monitoring as such, but in research on how to implement the process of monitoring.

Enabling MonitoringHow can we mix dynamical and empirical knowledge about surface currents in the German Bight?

Comparison of HF radar determined surface currents with an analysis using STOI, and a simulation with the same dynamical model, which is used in STOI, but without constraint with HF data.A snapshot in time of the 2-current field.A time series of radial velocities at a grid-point. (Stanev et al., 2014)

Assessments of hazards, risks and opportunities are needed for almost any kind of onshore and offshore operation.

An important component of this activity is the determination of ongoing long-term changes. For the assessment of negative outlooks and positive perspectives comprehensive and homogeneous data are needed.

The situation is particularly challenging, when too short, too fragmented or only inhomogeneous observed data are available. Then, sometimes, model-derived estimates can be used.

Hazards, risks and opportunities

How much of the lead, which was added to gasoline has ended up in the Baltic Sea?

Estimated annual depositions of lead into the Baltic Sea (black curve) plus estimated depositions derived from a number of limited observations. (von Storch et al., 2003)

Wave Energy Flux [kW/m]

Currents Power [W/m2]

Some applications of

- Ship design- Navigational safety- Offshore wind- Interpretation of measurements- Oils spill risk and chronic oil pollution- Ocean energy- Scenarios of storm surge conditions- Scenarios of future wave conditions

Scenarios, differently to forecasts, address questions of the type “What may happen, if … and nothing else”.

Such projections provide a useful outlook for assessing consequences of possible future developments and uncertainties. Therefore scenarios have become increasingly popular in various scientific and decision making contexts.

ScenariosHow may ocean wave statistics change at the end of the century (2071-2100), compared to “today” (1961-2990)?

- general pattern: increase of HS from W / NW to E / SE; often decrease of HS in the N and W parts

- differences in both magnitude and details of spatial patterns

A1B_1C A1B_2C

B1_2CB1_1C

A2_E A2_H

B2_E B2_H

climate change signals (CCS) of significant wave height (m, long-term 99 percentiles)

isolines: long-term 99 percentiles of reference period

Grabemann, pers. Comm.

Nordsee

Watt

Marsch

Insel

Hauptdeich Brack- und SüßwasserÜberflutbarer Deich KompaktsiedlungEingedeichte Marsch Wohnhügel (Warft/Wurt)Überflutbare Marsch Hausboot

Marsch

1 km

Karsten Reise, pers. comm.

Science-Stakeholder exchange

Science-stakeholder interaction …

… entails not only information provision and contextualization of research findings, but also a self-reflection of the scientific actors. Science-stakeholder interaction becomes multifaceted and complicated.

Social and cultural science knowledge is urgently needed for a successful participation of science in the process of advising decision making.

How strongly do you employ the following sources of information, for deciding about issues related to climate adaptation?

Regional administrators in German Baltic Sea coastal regions.

Lund and Stockholm

Two different construction of „climate change“ – scientific and cultural – which is more powerful?

Cultural: „Klimakatastrophe“

Scientific: man-made change is real, can be mitigated to some extent but not completely avoided

Storms

Tem

pera

ture

An institution set up to enable communication between science and stakeholders

• that is: making sure that science understands the questions and concerns of a variety of stakeholders

• that is: making sure that the stakeholders understand the scientific assessments and their limits.

Provision of stakeholders with relevant knowledge, information and data about regional climate change, its perspectives and probable causes

Regional climate service

Regional climate service comprises …1. Building a dialogue with public and deciders

2. Dealing with the issues of- present change (consistency with scenarios)

- perspectives (projections vs. predictions)- reality of culturally constructed knowledge about climate, climate change and climate impact

- confusion because of differently used terminology- discrimination between legitimate scientific knowledge and politically motivated knowledge claims- post-normal conditioning of climate research

3. Provision of - robust (homogeneous) data - robust knowledge about recent, ongoing and possible future climate change.

von Storch, H. and I. Meinke, 2008: Regional climate offices and regional assessment reports needed. Nature geosciences 1 (2), 78

The Institute of Coastal Research (IfK) of HZG was confronted with knowledge needs on the side of decision takers (administration, companies) and the regional public – concerning coastal climate issues (mostly storm surges, storms, waves).

The effort for transferring knowledge is challenged by:. • Knowledge is capacity to understand and act, is not access to information.• The science-policy/public interaction is not an issue of the linear model of

demand & supply. The „empty vessel“-model of knowledge transfer is flawed.

• Scientific(ally constructed) knowledge does not necessarily “win” the competition with alternative knowledge systems.

As a consequence, we built a cooperation with social scientists, set up the dialogue platform „Norddeutsches Klimabüro“ in 2006, established Mini-IPCC reports for mapping the available scientifically legitimate knowledge about regional climate, and developed suitable information provision systems.

- for the recent past (200 years), for present change and possible future change- consensus of what is scientifically documented- documentation of contested issues.for+ Baltic Sea (BACC) – BACC I in 2008, II in 2015)+ Hamburg region (#1 November 2010; #2 just initiated)+ North Sea (in final phase)+ BOHCC (Bo Hai, Yellow Sea region; first steps taken)Full reports and condensed reports for general public.

A tools for regional climate servicing: con/dis-sensus reports: Assessments of knowledge about regional climate change

Reckermann, M., H.-J. Isemer and H. von Storch, 2008: Climate Change Assessment for the Baltic Sea Basin. EOS Trans. Amer. Geophys. U., 161-162

Coastal research deals with that part of the sea, which is significantly affected by the land, and the part of the land, which is significantly affected by the sea. Coasts are in most cases densely populated, and the activities of people are shaping and changing the land/seascape of the coast. Thus, coast encompasses the coastal sea, the coastal land, coastal flora and fauna, and people. Since peoples’ economic and political preferences change and compete, the human impact on the coast changes is contested and subject to societal decision making processes.

While some coastal research can help informing and constraining such decisions, many legitimate scientific efforts have little bearing on society.

All decision making processes are political, so that scientific knowledge is not the dominant driver in such processes.

Using cases from the Institute of Coastal Research of Helmholtz Zentrum Geesthacht, we described some of these potentially useful parts of science, and touched upon the circumstances which allow the potential usefulness transform into real utility. These cases do not span the full range of coastal science.