The report “Recommendation of Sea-Level Rise Planning Scenarios for Delaware: Technical Report” was selected as the winner of the 2019 John C. Frye Memorial Award. Supported by DNREC Delaware Coastal Programs, the report summarizes work performed by the Sea-Level Rise (SLR) Technical Committee and was released at the Delaware Resilient And Sustainable Communities League (RASCL) Environmental Summit in November 2017.  The SLR Technical Committee was composed of regional and state scientific experts, planners, and resource managers.   Staff at the Delaware Geological Survey played significant roles in this effort: John Callahan was lead author and chair of the committee, Thomas McKenna was a co-author and a member of the committee, and David Wunsch was a member of the committee.

Information on future projections of sea-level rise in Delaware to the year 2100 as well as information on past sea level estimates from proxy records and current observations from tide gages and satellites are detailed in the report. It also provides some basic guidelines on how best to use these projections in state planning activities, information that is currently being used and making an impact at several layers of government.

The John C. Frye Memorial Award is co-sponsored by the Geological Society of America (GSA) and the Association of American State Geologists (AASG), and is given to the best paper on environmental geology published by either GSA or by a state geological survey during the past three years. The SLR Report met the criteria for the award, as it clearly establishes an environmental problem or need, provides substantive information on the geologic and climatic processes pertinent to the problem, provides recommendations for appropriate land use considerations, and presents the information in a manner that is understandable and directly usable by planners, engineers, policy makers, and the educated general public. The Frye award was presented at the GSA Annual Meeting, September 22-25 in Phoenix, AZ.

More details on the project and a PDF version of the report can be found on the DGS website.