Coastal Vulnerability - Wind Exposure

Cari

Hello,

First of all, thanks to everybody involved in the InVEST model, it is a very useful tool!I’m using the Coastal Vulnerability Module, and I’ve realised that the final Exposure Index obtained in the output folder does not consider the Wind Exposure, as indicated in the InVEST Guide:

Output directory : 1_i_coastal_exposure.tif - a raster with the coastal exposure index computed as in (6.3). 

EI =(Rgeomorphology Rrelief Rhabitats Rslr Rwind exposure Rwave exposure Rsurge )1/7 (6.3)This is a little bit confusing, and I wonder if I should include Wind Exposure in the equation considering the intermediate folder results or if this is included in the Wave Exposure?
Thank you very much in advance,

Cari

Jess_Silver

Hi Cari,

You're right, it is confusing. The user's guide for the CV model is due for a cleanup to reflect changes over the years.  In the meantime, here's what the model is doing.  

The exposure index that you're finding in the output folder does NOT include wind exposure as a variable, by default.

However as you've noted there's a wind exposure output that gets computed from the wave watch 3 data and put in the intermediate folder.  If you'd like to include wind exposure as a variable in the final index you can include it as an optional layer in the model interface.  

It's also easy to compute the final index w/ and w/out wind exposure to do a sensitivity analysis if you'd like.  The model exports a .csv version of the exposure index which has the ranks for each variable, along with the final exposure index.  You can import this in excel and recompute with wind exposure if you would like.

Let me know if you have additional questions.

Thanks,

Jess

Cari

Thank you very much Jess for your response and assistance. I will test the model with different variables.

Best wishes,

Cari