Is there an effect on the surrounding land cover class outputs between the protect development and "don't protect development" scenarios? I don't see one when visually inspecting the outputs. It seems though, that if an armored shoreline were in place to protect development, the displacement of the water from SLR would cause different scenarios to play out in the habitats surrounding these areas, right?
Based on my visual inspection, does the model essentially run the same with the protected option checked as with not checked, except that it visually preserves those developed areas in the final output?
This technical note may note matter much for the 30m NED runs, but for lidar elevation data, I would think the differences caused by local seawall displacements and the like would be significant.
Something to consider.
-Dean
Hi Dean. When running "protect developed" the model simply takes cells designated as "protected" and does not allow them to be subject to inundation. It is a very simple algorithm.
The model does not take into account from where developed lands will have to be protected or the measures that will be taken to protect those developed land or the other habitats that will also be protected along with the developed lands. Trying to estimate this sounds quite complicated in terms of defining algorithms to best estimate where and how seawalls will be built.
Interestingly, a version created many years ago (prior to 1998) included economic estimates. These included estimates of costs to build seawalls or other land protection to protect developed land. However, economics changed and these estimates were subject to considerable uncertainty so they were eventually stripped from the code. -- JC