Impact of the Duration of Coastal Flooding on Infrastructure

Coastal communities are experiencing a gradual increase in flooding. Studies focus on the extent and depth of how coastal flooding will change as sea levels rise and impacts on infrastructure needed for risk assessments. However, there is limited information on how the duration of coastal flooding w...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPublic works management & policy Vol. 26; no. 2; pp. 144 - 163
Main Authors Pezza, David A., White, John M.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.04.2021
SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
Subjects
Floods
Infrastructure
Probability
Risk assessment
flood durations
impacts on infrastructure
annual exceedance probabilities
coastal flooding
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Summary:Coastal communities are experiencing a gradual increase in flooding. Studies focus on the extent and depth of how coastal flooding will change as sea levels rise and impacts on infrastructure needed for risk assessments. However, there is limited information on how the duration of coastal flooding will change; specifically, in a format needed to support risk assessments. Therefore, the objective of this article is to highlight the need for annual exceedance probability curves by examining potential impacts on infrastructure in the city of Norfolk, Virginia. The analysis translates tide data to simulate stationarity and combines it with increments of rising sea levels to represent future tide elevations. The authors use a Poisson probability distribution to calculate flood duration exceedance levels for a specified threshold level and estimate how durations and probabilities could change over time. The article concludes with an assessment of how increasing flood durations can impact infrastructure systems.
ISSN:1087-724X
1552-7549
DOI:10.1177/1087724X20915918