- This project is about the rising Atlantic Ocean encroaching on the island of Nantucket in Massachusetts. A problem people have been dealing with on the island since it’s been inhabited. This map looks at areas where the land may become susceptible to flooding in the next fifty-hundred years, and details the scope of the issue facing residents from different aspects of Geography.
- While outside of the immediate region, this area doesn’t receive a lot of attention in terms of climate change and rising sea levels. I think it’s important to bring attention and awareness to smaller communities who are facing this issue with much less help and funding.
- The first tools I used were Project, Clip Raster, and Merge Raster. As the DEM I had for Nantucket was in two separate rasters splitting the island. I then used Reclassify the Rasters to extract the data I needed; as well as finding the Slope of the DEM. I then turned to Extract by Mask to get the low elevation flooding data out of the elevation data, so I could use this as an overlay. I converted the flooded area to a polygon, and intersected it with the Nantucket shapefile. I used Curvature on the DEM raster to get a more defined look at flow and drainage areas. Finally, I performed a Weighted Overlay to combine the Slope & Elevation data.
- The results were fairly conclusive with what I initially expected, the steeper shores suffer less erosion from the ocean, but much more from the wind; whereas the dunes are unable to protect the low lying areas, which are in severe danger for future coastal flooding. Time is ticking for the villages on Nantucket to take serious action to preserve the Island.