It is one thing to have a discussion or write about a one-or two-foot rise in the ocean surface and potential impacts to a local community; it is another to show someone a map highlighting the areas that would potentially be impacted. The ability to visualize the potential depth and inland extent of water gives us a better understanding of the corresponding impacts and consequences. Mapping sea level changes in a geographic information system (GIS) gives the user the ability to overlay the potentially impacted areas with other data such as critical infrastructure, roads, ecologically sensitive areas, demographics, and economics. Providing maps on the Web via Internet mapping technologies enables the user to have an interactive experience that truly brings out the "visual" part of the map definition. Over the past several years, the lessons learned from investigating pilot sea level change mapping applications have led to the development of a next-generation sea level rise and coastal flooding viewer. In addition, new mapping techniques have been developed to use high-resolution data sources to show flooding impacts on local public infrastructure, mapping confidence, flooding frequency, marsh impacts, and social and economic impacts from potential inundation. This paper will provide a brief history of previous sea level change visualization pilot projects, detailed discussion of new methods, current status of new tool development and outputs, and future plans for expanding to the rest of the U.S.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.