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Combined Modeling of US Fluvial, Pluvial, and Coastal Flood Hazard Under Current and Future Climates
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Combined Modeling of US Fluvial, Pluvial, and Coastal Flood Hazard Under Current and Future Climates

Paul D Bates, Niall Quinn, Christopher Sampson, Andrew Smith, Oliver Wing, Jeison Sosa, James Savage, Gaia Olcese, Jeff Neal, Guy Schumann, …
Water resources research, Vol.57(2), e2020WR028673
02/2021
DOI: 10.1029/2020WR028673
url
https://doi.org/10.1029/2020WR028673View
Published (Version of record) Open Access

Abstract

This study reports a new and significantly enhanced analysis of US flood hazard at 30 m spatial resolution. Specific improvements include updated hydrography data, new methods to determine channel depth, more rigorous flood frequency analysis, output downscaling to property tract level, and inclusion of the impact of local interventions in the flooding system. For the first time, we consider pluvial, fluvial, and coastal flood hazards within the same framework and provide projections for both current (rather than historic average) conditions and for future time periods centered on 2035 and 2050 under the RCP4.5 emissions pathway. Validation against high‐quality local models and the entire catalog of FEMA 1% annual probability flood maps yielded Critical Success Index values in the range 0.69–0.82. Significant improvements over a previous pluvial/fluvial model version are shown for high‐frequency events and coastal zones, along with minor improvements in areas where model performance was already good. The result is the first comprehensive and consistent national‐scale analysis of flood hazard for the conterminous US for both current and future conditions. Even though we consider a stabilization emissions scenario and a near‐future time horizon, we project clear patterns of changing flood hazard (3σ changes in 100 years inundated area of −3.8 to +16% at 1° scale), that are significant when considered as a proportion of the land area where human use is possible or in terms of the currently protected land area where the standard of flood defense protection may become compromised by this time. Plain Language Summary We develop a method to estimate past, present, and future flood risk for all properties in the conterminous United States whether affected by river, coastal or rainfall flooding. The analysis accounts for variability within environmental factors including changes in sea level rise, hurricane intensity and landfall locations, precipitation patterns, and river discharge. We show that even for a conservative climate change trajectory we can expect locally significant changes in the land area at risk from floods by 2050, and by this time defenses protecting 2,200 km2 of land may be compromised. The complete dataset has been made available via a website (https://floodfactor.com/) created by the First Street Foundation in order to increase public awareness of the threat posed by flooding to safety and livelihoods. Key Points First complete high‐resolution flood hazard analysis of conterminous US flood risk from all major sources (fluvial, pluvial, and coastal) In validation tests the model achieved Critical Success Index scores of 0.69–0.82, similar to many local custom‐built 2D models By 2050, flood hazard increases for the Eastern seaboard and Western states, but decreases or changes little for the center and South‐West
 Climate Change United States floods inundation

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