App shows sea level rise, flooding in local areas

About two dozen people gathered for a presentation on Thursday, March 16, at the Talbot County Free Library for a presentation from Department of Natural Resources planner Kate Vogel and St. Michaels Climate Change/Sea Level Rise Commission member Andrew Thaler.

Thaler, a deep-sea ecologist, began the presentation with the introduction of the the new St. Michaels Floodwatch website, the online home of an interactive map intended to demonstrate different rising sea levels and the impact of flooding.

Kate Vogel explained the Maryland MyCoast app, a tool for capturing and uploading images of flooding to help scientists and government officials understand the extent of floodwater.

Thaler showed multiple photos of flooding in the town, including photos from a high water event three days prior to the Thursday presentation.

He explained that the GIS map platform of the Floodwatch site would allow users to view what different levels of flooding events combined with projected sea level rise would be.

The site overlays shaded areas on the topographical map to reflect water levels of 2.3 feet, 3.4 feet and 4.0 feet. Users can scroll to view other portions of the county and zoom in and out to see different perspectives of the projected water levels.

“The projections you’re about to see can look pretty scary, but I actually find them very hopeful,” Thaler said while introducing the projected view of the information.

He continued and explained his overall optimism.

“None of the flooding issues facing critical areas in St. Michaels seem insurmountable. We’ve got plenty of lead time, we’ve got a team of concerned citizens working on identifying solutions, and we have the support of the town and its residents. There’s nothing in these projections that would lead me to believe that the town of St. Michaels won’t be able to rise to this challenge,” Thaler said.

The prospect of increased frequency and extent of flooding might be daunting, but Vogel said citizens aren’t without recourse to help in the efforts to plan mitigations for the problem.

“MyCoast exists as a way to help document things, to start telling your story and really capturing these photos so we can plan,” Vogel said while introducing the app.

The MyCoast app used on a cell phone can take pictures of high or low tides, flooding and extreme water events, or even an average day, and capture the data of time and location to give scientists and planners more information on the actual conditions.

Photos may be uploaded on the app when they are taken, and MyCoast can also scrape metadata from older photos to determine the time and location of the image.

Vogel said the photos can be used to correlate tidal data in specific locations with other important factors like storms, wind conditions and moon phase to tell the story of the flooding, a story that can be used to best steer future protective and corrective measures.

The utility of the photos and information gathered by MyCoast for emergency planners, scientists and even grant writers seeking funds for shoreline projects is extremely useful, and Vogel said one of her priorities is to promote more use of the app by more people.

St. Michaels Floodwatch interactive map can be found online at http://stmichaelsfloodwatch.com/. The Maryland My Coast app can be accessed online at https://mycoast.org/md.

More information about ongoing meetings and updates of the Climate Change/Sea Level Rise Commission can be found on the Town of St. Michaels webpage www.stmichaelsmd.gov.