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In: Chelsea Volpano, College of Menominee Nation, Great Lakes Quests, J. Elmo Rawling, Justin Hougham, Lake Michigan erosion, Lucas Zoet, Luke Zoet, Point Beach State Forest, Port Washington, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey

Chelsea Volpano works with a remote-controlled boat used to research erosion along Lake Michigan. Image credit: Chelsea Volpano, University of Wisconsin-Madison

High water levels in Lake Michigan since 2013 have caused erosion rates that are faster than usual, especially in 2020, when lake levels set records. This has created an urgent need to know more about erosion processes along and in the lake.

Lucas Zoet with the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Geoscience and his research team are looking at bluff erosion and sediment movement at two Wisconsin sites along Lake Michigan in a holistic way to better understand erosion rates and where the eroding sediment goes. This information will help guide shore protection and bluff stabilization processes and preserve beaches for recreation.

The two study sites are located just south of Port Washington and at Point Beach State Forest, which is farther north, near Two Rivers. The researchers chose those sites because they offer good representations of different erosion processes. The Port Washington site sits on a bluff, the Point Beach State Forest site is composed of sand dunes.

Lucas Zoet, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Submitted image

“The processes on these sites can be applied all over the place in Wisconsin,” Zoet said. “Lots of the bluffs we have are generally similar to those at the Port Washington site, composed of a mix of glacial tills and various lake deposits that are interbedded. So just understanding these processes at a base level, they should be generally applicable to more or less everywhere.”

The project’s holistic approach is unique. “The real strength of this project is that it doesn’t break the whole system up into little chunks, like we study this part and then we don’t know how it works because it’s in isolation from this other part. Instead, we’re trying to look at the whole continuous system, from what’s happening onshore, to what’s happening on the beach, to what’s happening in the nearshore over multiple years. We can study this on a representative timescale. Not just in a week or a month, but over seasons, which we know is such a big player in the Great Lakes region,” Zoet said.

Compared to the well-studied processes that happen on marine coastlines, winter is the season that makes erosion issues in the Great Lakes distinctive. Zoet said that cold weather impacts erosion differently.

“We have this season where the bluffs freeze solid, the shore ice forms – all these different components that drastically alter sediment transport. You don’t see that if you’re looking at beaches in North Carolina or Oregon,” Zoet said.

To study the onshore section, Zoet, J. Elmo Rawling with the Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey and Ph.D. student Chelsea Volpano, use drones and trail cams to gather data. To study the beach, Volpano conducts wading surveys. For these, Zoet said Volpano carries a staff with a GPS unit on it to measure lakebed elevation.

“She walks out into the water up to about her waist, about a meter deep and just does that over and over. So, with that, she can connect the onshore component to the offshore component for this continuous map that’s called topo-bathy,” Zoet said. This type of field work is uncommon. “She might be one of the only people to do these wading surveys in near-freezing waters, repeatedly throughout the years,” Zoet added.

To study the nearshore area, the team uses a medium-sized remote-controlled boat that contains an instrument that measures the elevation of the lakebed for a full 3D map of the system. By repeating these measurements over time, the team can assess how the lakebed is changing and where the sediment is going.

(Drone footage by the research team of a landslide area along Lake Michigan.)

One aspect of communicating the project involves Great Lakes Quests. These are story maps compiled by Justin Hougham, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Sea Grant. The Port Washington site is already part of the Quest database, but the Point Beach State Forest isn’t, and will be added.

The project will also be communicated through public workshops for educators and property owners along Lake Michigan who are concerned about coastal erosion. “We’ll do a walk of the terrain with them and we’ll probably bring a couple of the instruments we use, like the drone and the remote-controlled boat,” Zoet said. The first workshop is planned for September 2024.

Zoet has a long-standing working relationship with the College of Menominee Nation in Wisconsin. He’s currently helping design the college’s new geoscience program. Faculty members at the college plan to recommend students who could help work on the story maps for the project and computer mapping.

Summing up this multifaceted project, Zoet said, “In the end, I think we’ll learn a lot about the processes, but we’ll also learn a lot about how to better advise coastal managers, county managers and parks managers.”

The research team uses a remote-controlled boat to measure the elevation of the lakebed along Lake Michigan. Image credit: Chelsea Volpano, University of Wisconsin-Madison

The post Gaining a big picture of bluff erosion and sand movement along Lake Michigan first appeared on Wisconsin Sea Grant.

Original Article

News Releases | Wisconsin Sea Grant

News Releases | Wisconsin Sea Grant

https://www.seagrant.wisc.edu/news/gaining-a-big-picture-of-bluff-erosion-and-sand-movement-along-lake-michigan/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=gaining-a-big-picture-of-bluff-erosion-and-sand-movement-along-lake-michigan

Marie Zhuikov

On:
In: Adam Bechle, Beverly Shores, Chin Wu, Lake Michigan erosion, Mequon, Miles Tryon-Petith, nature-based shorelines, Robert Enright, social justice circles, south haven

It’s not often that a Sea Grant research project proposal contains the word “forgiveness.” However, that’s one of the missions of a multi-Sea-Grant-program endeavor taking place in three communities along the Lake Michigan coast.

Record-high water levels, severe storm surges and shoreline armoring have caused significant erosion to the bluffs and beaches in many areas along the 1,460-mile Lake Michigan shoreline. The ground beneath houses and garages on the shore is washing away, causing some structures to topple into the lake.

Along with this physical breakage comes emotional breakage, with neighbors blaming neighbors and community organizations for these problems.

Project lead Chin Wu, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said he is working to strengthen broken relationships and soothe anxiety. For example, tensions have run high in Mequon, Wisconsin, following Concordia University’s 2008 bluff stabilization project, including a lawsuit against the school brought by neighbors.

“There are people mad about every different aspect [of erosion],” Wu said. “But instead of blaming each other when natural forces take place, it’s the high-water levels that we need to cope with.”

The two-year joint project that began in 2020 is co-led by Wu, Guy Meadows with Michigan Technological University and Cary Troy with Purdue University. With funding by Sea Grant programs in Illinois-Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin, the project seeks to address complex erosion issues through an integrated physical, social and community approach.

Although their joint project has the capacity to impact the whole of the lake and lakeshore communities, the research team is concentrating on three locations that are all experiencing erosion: Mequon, Wisconsin; the dunes at Beverly Shores, Indiana; and the shoreline of South Haven, Michigan.

For the physical aspect, they are working to identify coastal areas with high erosion potential, characterize areas where sediment is trapped or diverted by using historical aerial photos, and compile an inventory of coastal sediment budgets in Lake Michigan – how much sediment is coming into the lake, how much is going out, and how much is being stored. The team will also assess the cumulative impacts of shoreline protection structures through historical aerial images and different computer model scenarios of varying lake levels and storm events.

For the social aspect, the team will assess public attitudes and perceptions about different shore protection options and examine variables that affect community relationships.

For the community aspect, the team will develop a community of practice to guide decision-making for what coastal stabilization measures to use and communicate the information learned through the project back to the communities. A community of practice is a group of people who share a common concern, a set of problems, or an interest in a topic and who come together to fulfill both individual and group goals.

Ph.D. student, Miles Tryon-Petith, installs a real-time camera to track erosion on the Lake Michigan shoreline in Mequon, Wisconsin. Submitted photo.

Miles Tryon-Petith, Wu’s civil and environmental engineering Ph.D. student from UW-Madison, said the community of practice will include local and regional organizations, such as the Department of Natural Resources as well as community leaders.

The forgiveness aspect of the project enters with factors that affect community relationships. Robert Enright, psychology professor, and his Ph.D. student, Lai Wong, at UW-Madison will employ social justice circles, a scientifically verified program that works to address issues about which people feel strongly. This method convenes opposing parties in a dialogue with the goals of fostering understanding and mutual problem-solving.

“Developing strong community relationships and introducing the social justice circles seemed very important because people’s homes and livelihoods are threatened by this ongoing problem. These are people living through the situation,” said Tryon-Petith.

The hope is that after working through the understanding and forgiveness exercises, communities can move on to discussing erosion-control solutions.

Wu emphasized that solutions lie with shoreline protection structures that employ engineering principles, which work with natural processes. He calls these nature-based solutions. These may include features that are completely natural, such as planting native vegetation on dunes, and those that are “hard,” such as concrete structures like seawalls. Multiple types of nature-based features are often combined within a project. Wu said the features would also be attractive to wildlife.

Adam Bechle, coastal engineering outreach specialist for Wisconsin Sea Grant and project team member, said, “There is growing interest in nature-based shorelines in the Great Lakes. We are eager to explore what types of these features can work at these sites and hopefully bolster their use in the region.”

Tryon-Petith said the project team met recently with community members in Mequon and Concordia University. “People were excited about moving forward – about what they could do or how we could work with each other, rather than lingering on what happened in the past. So, I’m optimistic about that.”

The goal of this project is not to actually build erosion-control structures but to identify which ones would work in different locations along the lake. Then, communities could seek funding for building them and implementing other erosion control measures.

“The dream is that we’re able to approach changing shorelines better,” said Tryon-Petith. “Erosion is such a behemoth of an issue. I’m starting to feel very excited working to find ways to tackle shoreline erosion around the lake. It’s not going to be the same solution everywhere . . . It’s very special to work on this issue with colleagues from Michigan and Illinois-Indiana. You can tell this isn’t a chore for them. This is clearly a passion for everyone involved.”

Read more details about the work going on in Illinois, Indiana and Michigan by following the links.

Other project personnel include Todd Breiby and Kate Angel with the Wisconsin Coastal Management Program; Pengfei Xue, Michigan Technological University; Sean Vitousek, United States Geological Survey; Stuart Carlton and Aaron Thompson, Purdue University; Mark Breederland, Michigan Sea Grant; and Sarah Peterson, Boyuan Lu, Yuli Liu and Josh Anderson with the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Additional funding is being provided by the Michigan Coastal Management Program and a NOAA Coastal Resilience grant.

The post Project tackles broken coastlines by strengthening community relationships on Lake Michigan first appeared on Wisconsin Sea Grant.

Original Article

News Releases | Wisconsin Sea Grant

News Releases | Wisconsin Sea Grant

https://www.seagrant.wisc.edu/news/project-tackles-broken-coastlines-by-strengthening-community-relationships-on-lake-michigan/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=project-tackles-broken-coastlines-by-strengthening-community-relationships-on-lake-michigan

Marie Zhuikov