Pacific Surfliner Relocation

This project, undertaken as the culminating point of GEOG 181B: Advanced GIS, sought to relocate the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner train where it passes close to the ocean in San Clemente, CA to protect it from the threat of sea level rise. Infrastructure such as rail is like good shoes; you want to buy it for life, and since climate change has put all kinds of holes in our proverbial shoes, we had ought to spring for some nice tough ones that'll last a long time. Is that metaphor too weedy? Anyway, our immediate challenge was the many factors that go into rail relocation; slope is most important to construction, then sea level rise and flooding protection, then considerations for wetland, geology, and residential area avoidance. To handle all of these disparate factors, we chose to apply a series of the analyses that we learned about in class.