Study to Examine Rising Sea Level's Impact on Estuaries, Coastal Communities

A new University of Central Florida study will examine how rising sea level could harm estuaries and coastal communities along the Florida Panhandle and Alabama and Mississippi coasts.

The research, led by Scott C. Hagen, an associate professor of Civil Engineering, is a response to scientific studies that show sea level is rising along most of the U.S. coasts. Hagen’s research also could potentially be linked with models of how remaining oil from the BP Deepwater Horizon spill would be expected to travel through and impact sensitive ecosystems.

The areas to be studied are part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Estuarine Research Reserve System and, coincidentally, overlap with the region most directly impacted from the spill.

The UCF-led team has received more than $725,000 of an anticipated $3 million, five-year grant funded by NOAA. The project will use computer modeling and simulation techniques to understand the long-term impacts of rising sea level, which threatens barrier islands, beaches, wetlands and critical habitats for commercially valuable species such as oysters.


NOAA officials believe these coastal environments will be in jeopardy without changes in coastal resource management and land planning. The agency’s goal is to use data collected in the field and via remote sensors, along with simulation models, to provide policy makers needed information to plan for a changing coastline.

Hagen, the director of UCF’s Coastal Hydroscience Analysis, Modeling & Predictive Simulations Laboratory (CHAMPS Lab), said the project is the culmination of years of studying and modeling tidal activity and the impact of phenomena such as wind, storms and hurricanes.