A great article by Scott Maier highlighting the process of creating the Aftershock web app: http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2015/05/turning-data-into-civic-tools-journalists-coders-students-collaborate-in-portland/
Another great article by Yumei Wang! Check it out: http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2015/05/oregonians_must_prepare_for_th.html
Check out this web app I helped create that is meant to help Oregonians prepare for the impending Cascade Subduction Zone earthquake: http://www.opb.org/aftershock/.
Coastal Oregon and the west coast are particularly vulnerable to ocean acidification (OA) and hypoxia. Increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere are absorbed into our oceans and change the ocean’s chemistry by decreasing the pH, causing increased acidity. Naturally occurring seasonal upwelling of waters from deep in the ocean bring CO2 rich waters to the surface and exacerbates this acidification phenomenon. In these highly acidic environments there is less carbonate, a component of seawater, for many sea animals to use in their formation. Some examples of impacted sea animals include oysters, clams, mussels, corals and some plankton. OA is already negatively impacting Oregon’s economy due to failed shellfish larval production, namely at Whiskey Creek Shellfish Hatchery. With significant impacts already occurring to larval shellfish and plankton species, scientists are also concerned about amplified impacts to species higher in the food web that prey on these organisms. While wild fishery population impacts have not yet been linked to OA, as OA and hypoxic zones increase in frequency and intensity, experts anticipate that linkages will emerge.
It is with this knowledge and understanding that managers and scientists from Oregon joined their counterparts from Washington, California, and British Columbia in Seattle in mid-April. The meeting, convened by the Pacific Coast Collaborative, was intended to build lines of communication and collaboration among ocean decision makers in state, federal, and tribal governments and scientists on the West Coast Ocean Acidification and Hypoxia Science Panel. Meeting attendees worked together to identify the state of the science from across the region, and to join forces to address OA. The meeting included science presentations and management brainstorming about OA impacts and adaptation strategies. Between June and October 2015 the West Coast OA and Hypoxia Science Panel will be releasing their findings for OA and hypoxia on the west coast. Moving forward, meeting attendees have agreed to translate these findings into actionable management decisions to build a more robust and effective state, federal, and tribal effort to understand, adapt, and build resiliency to OA and hypoxia and to determine additional needs for research and monitoring at a regional scale.
I was able to not only attend this meeting, but assist in the planning, conducting, and post-meeting follow-up actions. It was clear at the meeting that all attendees have a deep concern for the causes of OA and its impacts. Changing ocean chemistry will undoubtedly continue to be a focus for ocean resource managers and scientists in the coming years as CO2 concentrations increase in the atmosphere and the ocean, and pH continues to drop.
A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend a build-a-thon at the Agora Journalism Center. During this 3-day event, I worked with web designers, map makers, journalists, and subject area experts to create a web app that will help Oregon residents prepare for the Cascadia Earthquake. The app allows the user to enter any address in Oregon in order to receive a personalized story about what you should expect to experience if the Cascadia Earthquake occurred while you at that specific location. Your personalized story tells you what you should expect when the earthquake occurs (shaking intensity, soil liquefaction, landslides, etc.); how long your community will have to go without resources such as electricity, fuel, and running water; and how you should prepare yourself for the earthquake. In the end, our app produces over 300 individualized stories that help inform Oregon residents how to prepare for the Cascadia Earthquake based on location. Last week, I returned to the Agora Journalism Center to talk about this app as part of my presentation at the “What is Journalism?” Conference. Currently, OPB is working to finalize the app, and it should be available to the public very soon.
Here is a promotional video about the app: https://vimeo.com/125524401. Please forward it to anyone who might be interested.
Then, this past Monday, I got to head up to Seattle to present about the Seismic Rehabilitation Grant Program (SRGP) at the American Planning Association’s 2015 National Convention. Not only did I get to learn about community planning and emergency management efforts taking place around the country, I also got to promote the SRGP to a ton of APA attendees.
So, stayed tuned for the new Cascadia Earthquake web app and more updates about the SRGP.
On my last post, I mentioned that we were breaking down the 90-day experiment, where we exposed mussels to environmentally relevant levels (0, 0.3, 3.0, 30.0, and 300 ng/L) of fluoxetine. We had measured mussel length and width as well as mass and water clearance rates, so see if fluoxetine had an effect on mussel physiology. After some preliminary analyses, we found that mussels grew at a slower rate when exposed to the highest levels of fluoxetine (30 and 300 ng/L). While all mussels survived the exposure, some did exhibit negative growth with respect to total mass. I am currently looking at the other data to see if there were similar trends. We are also assessing body condition using a condition and gonadosomatic indices. These indices assess mussel health by measuring the the dry weight of mussel tissue over the length and width of its shell and the proportion of gonad and somatic tissues for each individual mussel, respectively. Once we get the dry weights of each individual mussel, we will have the results from comparing the values between treatments.
The next exciting part of this study is how fluoxetine may affect mussel shell thickening in response to a predator cue. The experiment is designed to test four fluoxetine treatments (0, 0.3, 3, and 30 ng/L) with and without the presence of whelk predator cues (+/-). In total there are 8 treatment types with 10 mussels per treatment, and 2 whelks per (+) treatment. Our facilities have limited space and holding tanks, so I decided to construct an experimental water table to house 800 mussels and 40 whelks that will be used in the experiment (Figure 1). This water table holds fresh water that is chilled at 12.5 °C, and has an air manifold that connects to each vessel housing mussels and whelks (n=80, 10 replicates per treatment).
Figure 1. Experimental Water Table set up. Each vessel houses 10 mussels and is independent from the neighboring vessels.
The individual vessels are simply a 32 oz. wide mouth mason jars. This was a cost effective way to increase replication and ensure independence between replicates. To each fluoextine treatment jar we will add 0.75L of filtered saltwater and the appropriate volume of fluoxetine. In (+) predator cue jars, we cage the whelks in plastic 50mL perforated sample vials (Figure 2).
Figure 2. Example of individual vessel. This treatment will be dosed with Fluoxetine to maintain a concentration of 0.3 ng/L and will include predator cues from 2 whelks.
We will be monitoring this experiment over the next few months. I will be inform you on our progress when it has completed. If you would like to follow my more frequent posts, please visit my new personal website: josephrpeters.weebly.com. Also, please comment here if you have have questions or suggestions about the experiment.
Back in December, I posted a blog about how I think about and apply resilience to my research on hazards and the business community. From the high-level questions of “resilience of what” and “resilience to what,” this post will drill down into specific principles of resilience, and how they are applied to this topic.
The Stockholm Resilience Centre has developed seven resilience principles, which form the basis of my evaluation of economic resilience to hazards. Economic resilience to hazards is the ability of the local business community to handle natural hazards. By focusing in on how resilience principles can be applied to that specific intersection of stress and system, we can identify targeted ways to increase resilience and therefore reduce the vulnerability of the business community. This post will look at the first three resilience principles, and how they apply to the more narrow focus of economic resilience to hazards.
The first principle is “maintain diversity and redundancy.” Diversity helps because not all things are impacted in the same way by the same disruption when they have different qualities. Redundancy helps because functions are covered by multiple elements. If one system fails, the function is not completely lost; there are backups. From an economic resilience to hazards perspective, this becomes “support multiple types of businesses and back-up resources.” A community with different industries, locations and sizes of businesses can withstand hazards better. A community with multiple sources of power, water, and transportation options can get back on its feet sooner.
The second principle is “manage connectivity.” Connectivity is tricky, because you want enough connectivity for mutual support, but not such tight connections that breakdowns spill over. For economic resilience to hazards, this principle became “strengthen supportive networks.” By thinking about the networks that provide resources and support to businesses, we can focus on the connections that will serve businesses around hazards.
The third principle is “manage slow variables and feedbacks.” When systems change slowly, it can be hard to notice it happening, and even harder to determine the point at which the change is irreversible. Declining populations of fish or the pollution levels in a river are examples of this type of change. Another challenge is that there are infinite systems in our communities, and we cannot track all of them. This principle, when applied to economic resilience to hazards, became “identify and track areas of vulnerability.” By focusing on areas of vulnerability, the particular systems that businesses rely on, we are more likely to catch shifts that will have significant impact.
These three principles focus on the outcomes that resilience planning seeks to accomplish. The principles in my next post will focus on the process of pursuing those outcomes. Both are important in creating resilience.
Four years after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, we still have a lot to learn as we prepare for a Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake:
http://www.opb.org/news/article/four-years-later-japans-earthquake-still-offers-lessons-for-oregon/
There are some moments in this fellowship that I feel particularly fortunate, particularly needing of a stern pinch to believe I do this for a living. In mid-January of this year, I experienced one of these moments. Between January 12th-14th intergovernmental ocean and coastal leaders from across the West Coast representing tribes, state, and federal agencies convened in Portland, Oregon for the first time to communicate ocean health priorities as an entire region.
The days began with the first in-person meeting of West Coast tribal, state, and federal representatives engaged in discussions around regional marine planning and the potential formation of a West Coast Regional Planning Body, an entity geared at implementing the National Ocean Policy through a region-wide marine planning dialog. An audience of a variety of stakeholders, including NGOs, were also present. My anticipation and excitement for the events ahead were high as I personally welcomed and registered attendees to the meeting. After dynamic conversation from members and comments from the audience, it was agreed that the group would move forward with pursuing the formation a Regional Planning Body on the West Coast in hopes of creating an effective forum around marine planning activities.
That same evening marked the beginning of a 2.5 day West Coast Ocean Summit (WCOS) convened by a collaborative planning team with support from the West Coast Governors Alliance on Ocean Health (WCGA).
Manning my note-taking station at the Ocean Summit
The first WCOS brought together 150 leaders in total from West Coast tribes, representatives from the Governors’ offices of California, Oregon, and Washington and state and federal agencies to share ocean health priorities and discuss regional ocean coordination and collaboration opportunities. The objectives of the Summit were to develop a shared understanding of common priorities, document issues of mutual importance, create strategies for identifying opportunities for intergovernmental coordination and overcoming challenges, and develop mechanisms for ongoing dialogue among federal and state agencies and tribes in the region. The 2.5 days were filled with robust conversations about priorities and collaborative possibilities. I was a member of the WCOS planning team, and I also assisted during the WCOS with a variety of tasks as needed (including general coordination and note-taking for future reports). Attendees revealed their ocean health priorities, which included ocean acidification, climate change, and the sharing of information through such mechanisms as the West Coast Ocean Data Portal to name just a few. Perhaps the more powerful message communicated by the end of the WCOS was that in moving forward the tribes, state, and federal agencies all agreed that collaboration among these entities would be the most effective means of managing West Coast ocean resources. While nongovernmental organizations, the private sector, academia, and citizens are also key players, strong relationships among the “three sovereigns” — tribal, state, and federal governments — is an essential foundation for broader collaboration.”
While there are still obstacles to overcome and questions to answer, I personally found the respect and camaraderie I witnessed over the course of these 2 events to be a promising foundation for the collaborative efforts to come. As these efforts evolve, I hope we all think back to how a variety of leaders came together for these 3 incredible days in solidarity around ocean health. In the end, all of these entities are stewards of the ocean. That is why I am so passionate about this work, at the core of everyone in attendance for these 3 days is a person who truly wants to protect one of our regions greatest assets for current and future generations. That is a truth we can all agree on.
DOGAMI recently released Yumei Wang’s analysis of how the Cascadia earthquake will impact hospitals and water systems. I suggest checking out the executive summary: http://public.health.oregon.gov/Preparedness/Prepare/Documents/oha-earthquake-risk-report-2014.pdf
The main takeaway for me: “Both pilot study hospitals have seismic vulnerabilities and are expected to incur significant hospital bed shortages for over 90 days after a Cascadia earthquake… Lincoln City hospital is estimated to incur significant damage due to its proximity to the Cascadia subduction zone and will slowly recover to operate at about 52% bed capacity in 90 days. A number of bridges that connect the community and hospital, including bridges crossing the Siletz River, are expected to incur major damage and impede citizen access to the hospital complex. Although the McMinnville hospital has modern seismic structural engineering, design, and construction, it is expected to have a severe reduction in function due to shaking damage. It is expected to recover to about 76% bed capacity in 90 days. A number of bridges that connect the community and hospital, including the Three Mile Lane bridge and nearby Highway 18 bridges to the west of hospital complex, are expected to incur major damage and impede citizen access.”