508.375.6690

Coastal Processes Specialist

The Coastal Processes Specialist provides technical assistance to the communities of Barnstable County on a variety of coastal land protection and management issues. This is accomplished through site visits, giving formal and informal presentations to regulatory, business, and community groups, and planning and conducting seminars, workshops, and meetings. The Coastal Processes Specialist also conducts applied research on coastal resource issues and provides this information to user groups, develops and implements interdisciplinary community-focused research and extension projects, and assists local grant proposal efforts to fund these projects. Many of these research projects are developed into fact sheets, bulletins, and publications and are distributed to marine industries, municipalities, individuals and agencies.
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Technical Assistance

The Coastal Processes Specialist provides technical assistance to the communities of Barnstable County on the following topics and issues:

shoreline change
erosion control alternatives
coastal landform delineation
potential effects of various human activities on coastal landforms
coastal floodplains
coastal hazards and hazard mitigation analyses
sea level rise
storm surge
beach and dune restoration and stabilization techniques
coastal landscaping
implementation of the Wetlands Protection Act
other coastal resources management issues

Site visits generally address site-specific coastal processes or coastal hazards related issues. Site visits are followed up with a written technical alternatives analysis. In the last three years over 100 site visits have been conducted and over 2,000 people have attended presentations about coastal processes.

The Coastal Processes Specialist also presents at conferences, seminars, and workshops on the topics and issues listed above.

Taskforces

The Coastal Processes Specialist sits on a variety of local taskforces in order to provide stakeholders with scientific-based information to make more informed decisions about land-use issues, particularly regarding coastal landform function and coastal processes.  The main objective of this is to increase the availability of science-based information for coastal residents, managers, stewards, and decision-makers regarding protection, prediction, risk reduction, and economic impacts associated with living along the shore.

Coastal Resource Specialist Greg Berman providing assistance to the Preliminary Damage Assesment Team after Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

Recent taskforce participation is noted below:

Barnstable County Coastal Resources Committee
http://www.barnstablecounty.org/

Dennis Beach Management Advisory Task Forcehttp://www.town.dennis.ma.us/Pages/DennisMA_BComm/beachmanagement/index

Dukes County Barrier Beach Taskforce
http://www.dukescounty.org/Pages/DukesCountyMA_BarrierBeach/toc

Goldenrod Foundation Advisory Board
http://www.goldenrod.org/

Massachusetts Rapid Response Coastal Storm Damage Assessment Team
http://www.mass.gov/czm/

Pleasant Bay Alliance
http://www.pleasantbay.org/

Provincetown Beach and Harbor Team
http://www.provincetown-ma.gov/

Steering Committee “Supporting cost-efficient adaptation”, NOAA North Atlantic Region
http://www.regions.noaa.gov/north-atlantic/

CONTACT INFORMATION

Greg Berman, Coastal Processes Specialist at 508-289-3046 or gberman@barnstablecounty.org

Shannon Jarbeau, CRS Coordinator at 508-375-6952 or shannon.jarbeau@barnstablecounty.org