iFlood

Coastal regions and territories of the United States – United States of America

Duration: Since 01/09/2018

Project leader: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

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Summary

iFlood is a partnership between researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, research colleagues, communities, and managers to improve flooding understanding and predictions in order to develop mitigation strategies. Citizen-scientist flood reports are used to provide research teams with data about the location and timing of flooding events and help them evaluate and improve models for flooding owing to ocean, lake, and river processes, rainfall, and overland flows, and that are influenced by geotechnical and aquifer properties. The objectives are to identify coastal flood hotspots, expand understanding of hydrodynamic (ocean, lake, river, or overland flows), atmospheric (e.g., precipitation, winds, and thaws), geotechnical, hydrogeologic, and infrastructure effects on coastal flooding, and improve flood predictions.

Actions

iFlood uses citizen-scientist flood reports to provide research teams with data about the location and timing of flooding events and help them evaluate and improve models for flooding owing to ocean, lake, and river processes, rainfall, and overland flows, and that are influenced by geotechnical and aquifer properties. In that regard, the project collaborated with local town managers to obtain citizen-science reports from iFlood.

Outcomes

The analytical model (with recharge) predicted flooding that was consistent with the timing and location for about 75% of the reports that indicated flooding on natural permeable land surfaces along 70 km of the barrier island chain. Applying the model regionally suggested that more than 10% of the land area on the ocean side of the northern Outer Banks would be inundated by coastal groundwater in the absence of rainfall for an ocean storm that generates a 2.25 m increase in the shoreline water level.

This work could not have occurred without the support of local coastal managers and community members, and financial support from the US Coastal Research Program and the US National Science Foundation.

The work to date has focused on ocean impacts on groundwater processes in an isotropic and homogeneous surface aquifer that may contribute to flooding. Further work is needed to determine the usefulness of this model for flood predictions. The model is not valid in regions that violate the assumptions of aquifer homogeneity and isotropy. However, the iFlood app may be useful to improve understanding of processes contributing to or mitigating flooding in a wide range of environments.

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