The Application of WebGIS Tools for Visualizing Coastal Flooding Vulnerability and Planning for Resiliency: The New Jersey Experience

Abstract

While sea level rise is a world-wide phenomenon, mitigating its impacts is a local decision-making challenge that is going to require site-specific remedies. Faced with a variety of conflicting mandates and uncertainty as to appropriate responses, local land use planners and managers need place-based decision support tools. With the increasing availability of high-resolution digital elevation models and the advancing speed and sophistication of web-based mapping, a number of web geographic information systems (GIS) tools have been developed to map and visualize what areas of a coastal landscape will potentially be flooded under different scenarios of sea level rise. This paper presents a case study of one such WebGIS application, NJFloodMapper (www.NJFloodMapper.org), with a focus on the user-centered design process employed to help our target audience of coastal decision-makers in the state of New Jersey, USA, access and understand relevant geographic information concerning sea level rise and exposure to coastal inundation, as well as assess the vulnerability of key infrastructure, populations and natural resources within their communities. We discuss the success of this approach amidst the broader context of the application of WebGIS tools in this arena. Due to its flexible design and user-friendly interface, NJFloodMapper has been widely adopted by government and non-governmental agencies in the state to assess coastal flooding exposure and vulnerability in the aftermath of a recent destructive coastal storm. However, additional OPEN ACCESS ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2014, 3 409 decision support tools are needed to help coastal decision-makers translate the place-based information into concrete action plans aimed at promoting more resilient coastal land use decisions.

Valuing natural habitats for enhancing coastal resilience: Wetlands reduce property damage from storm surge and sea level rise

“…To the best of our knowledge, we have not found any literature that suggested specific rates of accretion for different types of wetlands, and sediment characteristics in our area of interest. Considering the inadequacy of previous literature on rates of accretion or subsidence in the study area, an average of 4 millimeters per year of accretion is applied in the model as it is the best accretion value given for the study area based on previous work done by NOAA's Coastal Services Center [88]. Using the given SLR rate, emission scenario, land elevation, tidal range and accretion, SLAMM estimated a total 0.1332m of SLR in the year 2050 for our study area.…”

Coastal decision‐makers’ perspectives on updating storm surge guidance tools

“…There is extensive literature on the value of obtaining user input in the process of developing communication tools, including computational models and tools for risk communication. User input can help developers improve the operation and comprehension of their products (Burston, Ware, & Tomlinson, 2015; Lathrop et al, 2014; Mirel, 1998; Pasquier et al, 2020) and promote product acceptance and adoption by building trust (Little, Loggins, & Wallace, 2015) and increasing credibility (Addison et al, 2013). The involvement of decision‐makers in tool development also allows assessments to be made in a timelier fashion due to their familiarization with the tool (Kolen & Helsloot, 2012).…”

“…Decision‐support tools can be designed to be more usable and better understandable by soliciting stakeholder input and incorporating their feedback during tool development (Addison et al, 2013; Lathrop, Auermuller, Trimble, & Bognar, 2014). This paper describes the use of focus groups to obtain stakeholder input on continued enhancements to two interrelated, real‐time decision‐support tools focused on coastal Louisiana, USA.…”

Building a Framework of Usability Patterns for Web Applications in Spatial Data Infrastructures

“…Studies on WebGIS or web map sites are often more complex, e.g., more test persons are interviewed or more detailed evaluation results are provided, than studies with geoportals, which often focus on data search. Some findings of these studies can still be found in available web applications: lack of clarity in user interface (UI) structures, insufficient map sizes, and interactions, e.g., missing map functions or unstructured toolbars, and inconsistent terminology [9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. In GI web applications, several usability problems exist, which can be detected easily and occur frequently.…”