Tracing shoreline flooding: Using visualization approaches to inform resilience planning for small Great Lakes communities

Abstract

Planning for increasing flood occurrences due to climate variability is posing new challenges to traditional master planning approaches in small Great Lakes communities. This paper calls for the incorporation of a wider range of visualization techniques as a critical component of local planning efforts to improve shoreline resiliency in the face of climate uncertainty. We utilized multiple visualization techniques to examine and illustrate diverse data sources as part of a community-based scenario planning process for three Lake Michigan coastal communities—Ludington, Grand Haven, and St Joseph, Michigan, USA—between 2013 and 2015. The outcomes demonstrate the localized impacts of climate variability on Lake Michigan's eastern shoreland dynamics over time and visualize a range of future scenarios impacting inland land use. The results show that utilizing a range of visualization techniques in public engagement platforms offers communities a more detailed and complete understanding of climate variability, shoreland dynamics, and the trade-offs involved in community-based resilience planning. To support ongoing efforts advancing resilience planning in the State, many of the visualizations and a toolkit for the Michigan Association of Planners which provides a step-by-step guide for community-based master planning.