Interpreting Dynamic Landscapes: Animated Landscape Visualizations to Improve Communication of Changing Coastal Conditions

Barrier beach and lagoon systems are inherently mobile and responsive to sea level rise. Storm events move sediments from the shore front to the back of the barrier, nourishing marshes with sediments, creating habitat, and raising land elevation. The stewardship of these beach barrier systems is necessary to protect endangered species and to protect ecosystem services provided by coastal lagoons that support fisheries, aquaculture and tourism. The dynamism of these landscapes, however, inherently conflicts with static human infrastructure and aesthetic conceptions of harmony that are often attributed to natural systems. We describe the continued development of morphodynamic landscape visualizations that contextualize erosion and shoreline change that is inherent to beach barrier systems within the functioning of larger coastal processes. This work is designed to reframe perceptions of these phenomena, and better support decisions regarding interventions in these beach barrier systems that are designed to enhance the ecology or foster coastal resilience of human infrastructure. The visualizations are being tested with increasingly wide audiences.