100-YEAR SEA LEVEL RISE DECISION MODEL IN DEVELOPMENT

According to scientific projections, global seas are projected to rise noticeably in the next 100 years as the climate warms and polar ice caps melt.

Hampton Roads will be one of the urban areas in the United States most affected by rising seas. But what does that mean for agriculture? How will this impact the energy grid? And where should we build hospitals to serve a population that's likely to migrate throughout the region as areas are affected by high water?

Researchers at Old Dominion University's Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center (VMASC) are looking at these issues from a multidisciplinary perspective. With the aid of a $45,000 seed grant from ODU's Climate Change and Sea Level Rise Initiative (CCSLRI), the researchers and students have designed a continuously running simulation of the next 100 years, which decision-making authorities can use to help guide urban planning, health care and emergency preparedness decisions.

"The main idea is we're trying to construct a parallel universe," said Saikou Diallo research assistant professor at VMASC and a co-PI of the project. "You model an area, and anything that you can see you try to model, including people."

The result is CoRSE, the Continuously Running Simulation Environment sea level rise decision model. The model takes publicly accessible data in 17 domains - from agriculture and food, to energy, to emergency services, to water - and models the interconnections among those interests on a map of Hampton Roads, over a 100-year time period.

CoRSE isn't meant to be a crystal ball, but rather a tool for local and national leaders to make sure decision-makers are mindful of potential impacts that choices might have, even on completely different areas of interest.

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