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Sea Level Is A Rising Concern

Last week, Old Dominion University officially launched a university-wide initiative to address the challenges of sea level rise that will so significantly affect not only the Hampton Roads region where the university is located, but also the country and the world.

As a leading research institution - and particularly one that is located in a climate-science fishbowl here on the Virginia coast - I believe ODU must take seriously the scientific evidence that predicts the oceans' rise of 2 feet or more before the end of the century. With such a rise, Old Dominion would be among only a handful of large, research universities in the United States to face the threat of saltwater intrusions onto its lawns and into its campus structures.

With this threat in mind, and believing that all six colleges at ODU can help address these challenges, I instituted the Framework for Climate Change and Sea Level Rise Research and Education at Old Dominion University. This initiative includes researchers in the obvious base disciplines of oceanography, marine biology, coastal engineering, and civil engineering, as well as colleagues in sociology, marketing, economics, risk management, public health, political science, human factors psychology, journalism, education and modeling and simulation, who will scrutinize the entire spectrum of consequences of sea level rise.

I have been pleased to witness the positive response of our faculty to this initiative. This truly will be a multidisciplinary and comprehensive effort, and I hope it will establish our university as a source of solutions for municipalities everywhere that are threatened by rising seas.

With Larry Atkinson, ODU eminent scholar and the Samuel and Fay Slover Endowed Professor of Oceanography, at the helm, we have already identified fields - coastal engineering and coastal geology, for example - in which ODU should target new faculty hires, and earmarked money to help professors design climate-change components for courses ranging from sedimentary geology to public administration. Cynthia Tomovic, a faculty member in the Darden College of Education, has designed a new course to begin in spring 2011 titled Mitigating the Impact of Global Climate Change. Journalism associate professor Joyce Hoffmann restructured a mass media panel discussion to include comment about the media's coverage of climate change. And Atkinson has worked with Karen Eck, the ODU director of research development, to identify potential research grants for faculty to pursue.

Mitigating sea level rise is an imperative for our region. At Old Dominion University, our solution is to conduct the research, initiate critical thinking, and work side-by-side with government, business and environmental leaders to secure the future. We hope you'll join us.

This article was posted on: December 7, 2010