Fig 1.
Generalized vegetation community distribution along the elevation gradient in barrier island systems.
Fig 2.
The site map for the study location.
The map includes the geographic locations of the federal properties within the Cape Canaveral Barrier Island Complex.
Fig 3.
Comparison of monthly and 20 year annual trends in sea level and lagoon level near the Cape Canaveral Barrier Island Complex, FL.
Monthly data and annual trend lines include the 95% confidence limits. Data for the Atlantic Ocean (AO) are from the NOAA gauge at Trident Pier (8721604) in Port Canaveral, FL. Indian River Lagoon (IRL) data are from the USGS gauge at Haulover Canal, FL (02248380).
Table 1.
Downscaled sea-level rise projections for the Cape Canaveral Barrier Island Complex provided by the NASA Climate Adaptation Science Investigators (CASI) program [38].
Table 2.
The estimated mean elevations (95% confidence interval) were well separated for the nine vegetation communities on the Cape Canaveral Barrier Island Complex, FL.
The parameter estimate are from a generalized least square model of elevations for each community with spatial correlation structure. Stratum SD is the modeled standard deviation which was allowed to vary by community. The model also allowed the errors to be spatially correlated according to an exponential function with coefficients fit to the data.
Fig 4.
Density plots of elevation for the 9 community types included in models of land cover change due to sea-level rise on the Cape Canaveral Barrier Island Complex.
SMAR = Saltwater Marsh, WETS = Wet Scrub-Shrub, MANG = Mangrove, PALM = Cabbage Palm, FWET = Freshwater Wetland, HAMM = Hardwood Hammock, PINE = Pine Flatwoods, FRST = Upland Forest, SCRB = Oak Scrub.
Fig 5.
The distribution of landscape units (pixels) by elevation that are above mean lagoon high water elevation on Cape Canaveral Barrier Island Complex for current sea-level (above) and 1.2 m sea-level rise (below).
The landscape units that are below -0.2 m in elevation were not included because these are mainly open water lacking emergent vegetation. For the 1.2 m sea-level rise scenario over half of the landscape units have been absorbed and the peak elevation has shifted.
Fig 6.
Proportion of each of 9 community types for 4 sea-level rise scenarios on the Cape Canaveral Barrier Island Complex.
The black dots are the current proportions of each community type on the CCIBC landscape. The red symbols show the 95% confidence interval for predicted proportion under scenario. The No change scenario is the simulated results of applying the method to the current landscape with no relative elevation change due to sea-level rise; a baseline to judge how the model performs. The proportion that move to the absorbing state are not included in this analysis. SMAR = Saltwater Marsh, WETS = Wet Scrub-Shrub, MANG = Mangrove, PALM = Cabbage Palm, FWET = Freshwater Wetland, HAMM = Hardwood Hammock, PINE = Pine Flatwoods, FRST = Upland Forest, SCRB = Oak Scrub.
Table 3.
Contingency table from the simulation run under current sea-level conditions (no change) at Cape Canaveral Barrier Island Complex, FL.
The community transitioned from is the current community that exists at each pixel. The community transitioned to is the community that pixel transitioned to during the simulation. Each value in the table is a percent of the total pixels (33,935,656 pixels). Although, the total percentage of pixels for each community was close to the same, there was a high percentage of pixels that shifted community type.
Fig 7.
The change in community proportion for the current conditions and the three sea-level rise scenarios on Cape Canaveral Barrier Island Complex.
This proportion is determined based on the total number of pixels in the current scenario. SMAR = Saltwater Marsh, WETS = Wet Scrub-Shrub, MANG = Mangrove, PALM = Cabbage Palm, FWET = Freshwater Wetland, HAMM = Hardwood Hammock, PINE = Pine Flatwoods, FRST = Upland Forest, SCRB = Oak Scrub.
Table 4.
Percent change (compared to current conditions) for each community type in the total area (pixels) of each land cover type under the different sea- level rise scenarios on Cape Canaveral Barrier Island Complex.
Negative numbers represent loss of area (pixels) of a community type. Within a scenario the total percentages do not add to 0 because there was a net loss of pixels to the absorbing state of open water.
Fig 8.
The current number of pixels a community occupies under current conditions (above) and the community transitions that occur under the 1.2 m sea level rise simulation (below).
SMAR = Saltwater Marsh, WETS = Wet Scrub-Shrub, MANG = Mangrove, PALM = Cabbage Palm, FWET = Freshwater Wetland, HAMM = Hardwood Hammock, PINE = Pine Flatwoods, FRST = Upland Forest, SCRB = Oak Scrub.
Table 5.
Contingency tables for the proportional change in community under the varying sea-level rise scenarios.
The community transitioned from is the current community that exists at each pixel. The community transitioned to is the community that pixel transitioned to during the simulation. Bold entries give the proportion of each pixels within community type that did not change type.
Fig 9.
The change in community proportion with the different sea level rise simulations.
This proportion is determined based on the number of pixels that remain part of the terrestrial landscape under each simulation. The pixels that move to the absorbing state are not included in this computation.