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Cedar Key

The City of Cedar Key is a small municipality (population < 700) on Florida’s Gulf of Mexico coast. Despite the small size of Cedar Key, the geographic location holds immense importance for business and livelihoods and is heavily relied upon by many living outside the City limits. In fact, Cedar Key has been a significant economic and cultural hub since before European contact, when the Timucua people lived and traded there. By the 1800s, Cedar Key housed a military base and hospital, an international shipping port, and the western terminus of the Florida Railroad, which delivered products such as lumber and seafood to the entire eastern seaboard. In the late 1880s, Cedar Key was forever changed by natural hazards (earthquake, two major hurricanes) that forced residents and businesses to adapt by abandoning their community (formerly located on an island offshore of present-day Cedar Key) and retreating closer to the mainland.

In recent decades, Cedar Key has developed an outsized influence on Florida’s $14 million hard clam aquaculture industry. With low population density and conservation lands buffering the coastline, water quality has been ideal for clam production. Cedar Key’s clam production accounts for ~80% of Florida’s total shellfish (clams and oysters) aquaculture industry (434 jobs, $11.3 million in labor income, $17.5 million in state GDP, and $29.4 million in total output) (Botta et al., 2021). Cedar Key is also home to a thriving tourism industry due to its verdant marshes, numerous boating, fishing, and watersports opportunities, as well as its relaxed, small-town feel with mostly single-family homes, quaint cottages, and no towering high rises that have been built along many of Florida’s beachfront communities.

Furthermore, Cedar Key's emergency/fire department serves the surrounding region, the Cedar Key food pantry services more than 100 families, and shorelines in Cedar Key represent some of the few suitable access points for recreational anglers, and Cedar Key boat ramps are the only economically feasible access points for shellfish growers. Cedar Key houses labs and offices for five state and federal agencies conducting research and management of regional natural resources. Cedar Key is therefore a critical and valuable regional hub for economic, cultural, and scientific activity.

Even so, Cedar Key’s government is extremely understaffed, lacking budget and capacity to address complex challenges related to future flooding risk. Cedar Key’s census block is financially disadvantaged and includes many underserved individuals, with up to 13% of families living in poverty (Headwaters Economics, 2022).

Flooding + Sea Level rise

Florida’s Gulf of Mexico coast experiences disproportionate exposure to climate risks such as sea level rise (SLR) and intensifying storms. The City of Cedar Key has particularly high exposure to climate hazards because it juts out three miles into open Gulf waters. In 2020, the NOAA tide gauge in Cedar Key recorded the 4th highest rate of SLR acceleration in the nation, and the local sea level has risen nearly six inches since 1992 (Malmquist, 2021; VIMS, 2022). The low-lying topography, aging infrastructure, high exposure of Cedar Key to the open Gulf, and the accelerating rate of SLR combine to create extensive vulnerabilities to flooding by seawater. These, in turn, drive rapidly accelerating shoreline erosion rates and increasing inadequacies in drainage, water/sewer, and transportation systems in Cedar Key.

There is no doubt that climate change will increasingly impact Cedar Key’s homes and businesses and threaten aquaculture, a key economic engine. With approximately 90% of the state’s clam production, Cedar Key is essential to Florida’s overall shellfish aquaculture industry.

Need for Vulnerability Assessment

Local government leaders and residents are aware of the flood risks facing the city and are increasingly concerned about the impacts of sea level rise. The University of Florida (UF) has served as a lead facilitating agency for community discussions since 2012, and shoreline and infrastructure impacts associated with Hurricane Hermine in 2016 catalyzed a discussion among stakeholders about the immediate need for coastal protection. Collaborative efforts with the community have led to the creation of three demonstration living shorelines across Daughtry Bayou and a Shoreline Management Master Plan (SMMP). The SMMP was recently adopted into the Cedar Key Comprehensive Plan. Furthermore, Cedar Key and UF collaborated to produce a vulnerability assessment (VA) and visioning tool for the historic downtown district, which highlighted many long-term challenges associated with local sea-level rise. 

To start discussions about these long-term challenges, the City partnered with the University of Florida on the Resilient Cedar Key project, aimed at completing a comprehensive VA and adaptation plan. Building on earlier work, the current VA updates and extends the exposure analysis and develops a new sensitivity analysis that encompasses the entire municipality and complies with other elements of the Resilient Florida Statute 380.093. The results will guide Cedar Key’s adaptation efforts, provide input to help sustain long-term aquaculture production and support equitable enhancement to community assets and infrastructure.


Definitions

Exposure – the relative potential for encroachment by seawater into an area or asset

Resilience – the ability to recover from a disturbance/impact.

Sensitivity – the relative potential for negative impact to an area or asset due to seawater encroachment

Vulnerability – the combined result of exposure and sensitivity for a given asset, area, or community.

Extreme Water Level – the result of the combination of the astronomical tide, storm surge, and limited wave setup, excluding wave runup.

PROJECT TEAM

UF team:

Savanna Barry, Jeff Carney, Mike Volk, Andrea Galinski, Andrew Ropicki, Christian Calle Figueroa, Changjie Chen, Alejandro Ramos, Jessica Hays, Emily Colson, Brad Ennis, Haley Cox, Ana Orosco

Cedar Key team:

Sue Colson, Jamie McCain, Jennifer Sylvester