NJ Flood Mapper

From the Asbury Park Press to the Wall Street Journal there has been lots of talk lately about the NJ Flood Mapper that CRSSA has made with JCNERR and NOAA CSC. It was also featured at last week's Climate Change Workshop.

The Flood Mapper let's you take a pretty close look at the Jersey Shore and see how much impact storms and sea level rise will have on different areas. There is no denying that this is scary stuff. But Rick Lathrop, stressed to the Wall Street Journal that this is not about scare tactics:

"We are not trying to unduly frighten people," said Rick Lathrop, director of the Grant F. Walton Center for Remote Sensing and Spatial Analysis at Rutgers, who led the map's development. "This is providing people a look at where our vulnerability is."

 The tool is very customizable, with slider bars letting the user pick their own scenarios for sea level rise. And it maps more than just SLR. Visitors to the site can also map storm flooding, marsh retreat and social impacts.

Much of our campus here at Rutgers is on hilltops, but these maps shows areas that are still most vulnerable.

 Looks like it might be time for folks on the north side of the river to give up on soccer in Johnson and Donaldson Parks and building a boathouse for rowing instead.

The marsh retreat maps around Cape May seem like they have good news, in that they show some areas where future marshes might retreat, although the pink areas are of some concern.

 But this flooding map suggests that there may not be as many area residents to see them.

Years and years ago (2010) our students studied sea level rise scenario design alternatives for Cape May County, and this all seemed like a distant possibility. But subsequent Nor'easters and hurricanes have made the fiction look rather tame. Remember Nor'Ida?