The Great Lakes Coastal Resiliency Study (GLCRS) is a watershed study being conducted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) in partnership with the eight Great Lakes states. The study aims to identify potential vulnerabilities of coastal resources under a range of plausible future lake level conditions and develop recommendations to improve the resilience of the U.S. Great Lakes coast. This presentation will describe the study's approach to assessing vulnerability and risk, including the use of exploratory future lake level scenarios, screening-level GIS analyses, and qualitative risk assessments informed by local resource manager engagement. Rather than attempting to predict a single future, GLCRS evaluates multiple plausible scenarios to characterize uncertainty and identify vulnerabilities across a range of future conditions. The presentation will highlight how risk concepts were incorporated into basin-wide exposure analyses and more detailed focused evaluations of up to 140 site-specific coastal resources across the Great Lakes basin. These results will be used to identify and develop recommendations that can improve the long-term resilience of communities, infrastructure, ecosystems, and other coastal resources along the U.S. Great Lakes coast.
