Storm surge and sea level rise (SLR) are affecting coastal communities, properties, and ecosystems. While coastal ecosystems, such as wetlands and marshes, have the capacity to reduce the impacts of ...storm surge and coastal flooding, the increasing rate of SLR can induce the transformation and migration of these natural habitats. In this study, we combined coastal storm surge modeling and economic analysis to evaluate the role of natural habitats in coastal flood protection. We focused on a selected cross-section of three coastal counties in New Jersey adjacent to the Jacques Cousteau National Estuarine Research Reserve (JCNERR) that is protected by wetlands and marshes. The coupled coastal hydrodynamic and wave models, ADCIRC+SWAN, were applied to simulate flooding from historical and synthetic storms in the Mid-Atlantic US for current and future SLR scenarios. The Sea Level Affecting Marshes Model (SLAMM) was used to project the potential migration and habitat transformation in coastal marshes due to SLR in the year 2050. Furthermore, a counterfactual land cover approach, in which marshes are converted to open water in the model, was implemented for each storm scenario in the present and the future to estimate the amount of flooding that is avoided due to the presence of natural habitats and the subsequent reduction in residential property damage. The results indicate that this salt marshes can reduce up to 14% of both the flood depth and property damage during relatively low intensity storm events, demonstrating the efficacy of natural flood protection for recurrent storm events. Monetarily, this translates to the avoidance of up to $13.1 and $32.1 million in residential property damage in the selected coastal counties during the '50-year storm' simulation and hurricane Sandy under current sea level conditions, and in the year '2050 SLR scenario', respectively. This research suggests that protecting and preserving natural habitats can contribute to enhance coastal resilience.
Real-time flood forecasting computational frameworks that can dynamically integrate oceanic, coastal and estuarine processes are becoming essential to provide accurate and timely information for ...emergency response and planning in largely populated estuaries during extreme events. This study presents a newly developed real-time total water flood guidance system that is fully automated based on the coupled surge-wave (ADCIRC + SWAN) model and provides water level forecasts in the Chesapeake Bay for a lead-time of 84 h twice a day displayed on a web-based public interface. This system improved the current total water level predictions in the Bay (RMSE < 0.12 m) when compared to the existing operational forecasting systems over the period of 6 months (Jan’19-Jun’19). Furthermore, we demonstrated that a bias correction scheme and a multi-member ensemble forecast improve the overall flood prediction. Results suggests that this framework can improve our current capacity to predict total water levels in large estuaries.
•iFLOOD is a prototype surge-wave operational guidance system for the Chesapeake Bay.•iFLOOD provides a Web-based public interface for data visualization and situation awareness.•Water level guidance from iFLOOD showed less bias than two official flood forecast systems.•Ensemble-based forecast with iFLOOD out-performs all current official flood forecasts.
A spatially-resolved understanding of the intensity of a flood hazard is required for accurate predictions of infrastructure reliability and losses in the aftermath. Currently, researchers who wish ...to predict flood losses or infrastructure reliability following a flood usually rely on computationally intensive hydrodynamic modeling or on flood hazard maps (e.g., the 100-year floodplain) to build a spatially-resolved understanding of the flood’s intensity. However, both have specific limitations. The former requires both subject matter expertise to create the models and significant computation time, while the latter is a static metric that provides no variation among specific events. The objective of this work is to develop an integrated data-driven approach to rapidly predict flood damages using two emerging flood intensity heuristics, namely the Flood Peak Ratio (FPR) and NASA’s Giovanni Flooded Fraction (GFF). This study uses data on flood claims from the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) to proxy flood damage, along with other well-established flood exposure variables, such as regional slope and population. The approach uses statistical learning methods to generate predictive models at two spatial levels: nationwide and statewide for the entire contiguous United States. A variable importance analysis demonstrates the significance of FPR and GFF data in predicting flood damage. In addition, the model performance at the state-level was higher than the nationwide level analysis, indicating the effectiveness of both FPR and GFF models at the regional level. A data-driven approach to predict flood damage using the FPR and GFF data offer promise considering their relative simplicity, their reliance on publicly accessible data, and their comparatively fast computational speed.
Much of the United States Atlantic coastline continues to undergo subsidence due to post glacial settlement and ground water depletion. Combined with eustatic sea level rise (SLR), this contributes ...to an increased rate of relative SLR. In this work, we utilize the ADvanced CIRCulation model to project storm surges across coastal North Carolina. Recent hurricanes Irene and Matthew are simulated considering SLR and subsidence estimates for 2100. Relative to present day conditions, storm surge susceptible regions increase by 27% (Irene) to 40% (Matthew) due to subsidence. Combined with SLR (+ 74 cm), results suggest more than a doubling of areal flood extent for Irene and more than a three-fold increase for Hurricane Matthew. Considering current regional population distributions, this translates to an increase in at-risk populations of 18% to 61% due to subsidence. Even further, exposed populations are projected to swell relative to Matthew and Irene baseline simulations (8200 and 28,500) by more than 70,000 in all SLR scenarios (79,400 to 133,600). While increases in surge inundation are driven primarily by SLR in the region, there remains a substantial contribution due to vertical land movement. This outlines the importance of exploring spatially variable land movement in surge prediction, independent of SLR.
Floods and droughts significantly affect agricultural activities and pose a threat to food security by subsequently reducing agricultural production. The impact of flood events is distributed ...disproportionately among agricultural communities based on their socio-economic fabric. Understanding climate-related hazards is critical for planning mitigation measures to secure vulnerable communities. This study introduces a holistic approach for evaluating the combined risks associated with drought and flood hazards for agricultural communities in the United States. It accomplishes this by merging social vulnerability indicators with data on drought and flood exposure, enabling the identification of the most susceptible agricultural communities. The research seeks to offer valuable insights into the vulnerability of agricultural communities across the United States. It fills a vital research gap by conducting a comprehensive nationwide assessment of social vulnerability, considering expected annual losses related to both flood and drought hazards, and amalgamating social vulnerability with these expected annual losses. The analyses were conducted by adapting datasets and methodologies that are developed by federal institutions such as FEMA, USACE, and USDA. The study identified the 30 most socially vulnerable counties and assessed their exposure to drought and flooding, finding that Mendocino, Sonoma, Humboldt, El Dorado, Fresno, and Kern counties in California had the highest drought exposure and expected annual losses, with Humboldt (CA) and Montgomery (TX) having the highest combined risk. The study estimated over $1 billion in crop damage, with California experiencing the greatest losses, primarily affecting a diverse range of crops, while the Midwest was primarily impacted in terms of major crop types. The findings of this study can serve as supportive information for policymakers to better understand climate risks in agricultural communities and identify where risk mitigation activities should be allocated.
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
The observed retreat and anticipated further decline in Arctic sea ice holds strong climate, environmental, and societal implications. In predicting climate evolution, ensembles of coupled climate ...models have demonstrated appreciable accuracy in simulating sea-ice area trends throughout the historical period, yet individual climate models still show significant differences in accurately representing the sea-ice thickness distribution. To better understand individual model performance in sea-ice simulation, nine climate models were evaluated in comparison with Arctic satellite and reanalysis-derived sea-ice thickness data, sea-ice area records, and atmospheric reanalysis data of surface wind and air temperature. This assessment found that the simulated spatial distribution of historical sea-ice thickness varies greatly between models and that several key limitations persist among models. Primarily, most models do not capture the thickest regimes of multiyear ice present in the Wandel and Lincoln seas; those that do often possess erroneous positive bias in other regions such as the Laptev Sea or along the Eurasian Arctic Shelf. This analysis provides enhanced understanding of individual model historical simulation performance, which is critical in informing the selection of coupled climate model projections for dependent future modeling efforts.
In much of the USA,
Phragmites australis
is a prolific invasive species in wetland habitats. The spread of
Phragmites
can significantly alter the structure and function of a marsh, thereby altering ...the ecosystem services that the marsh provides. It remains unclear how
Phragmites
invasion may impact coastal protection, despite the substantial implications for local communities. Here, we investigated the ability of a
Phragmites
marsh to attenuate waves via long-term field monitoring and compared this to native
Spartina alterniflora
via hydrodynamic modeling.
Phragmites
was capable of attenuating incoming waves and did so most effectively at higher stem densities and lower water levels. Under no conditions studied here did
Phragmites
attenuate waves more than
S. alterniflora
. During the summer and fall as well as during lower water levels,
Phragmites
significantly underperformed
S. alterniflora
. This indicates that
Phragmites
invasion may conditionally increase the coastal hazard facing local communities, and highlights that
Phragmites
management should be coupled with the restoration of native species.
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•The Brazilian Sucupira tree oil has a wide range of biological properties.•SO-NE as a potential strategy for the cutaneous leishmaniasis treatment in vivo.•The formulation SO-NE was ...able to reduce lesions caused by L. (L.) amazonensis.•SO-NE and antimoniate combination altered cytokine levels related to leishmaniasis.
Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) is a neglected tropical skin disease caused by the protozoan genus Leishmania. The treatment is restricted to a handful number of drugs that exhibit toxic effects, limited efficacy, and drug resistance. Additionally, developing an effective topical treatment is still an enormous unmet medical challenge. Natural oils, e.g. the oleoresin from P. emarginatus fruits (SO), contain various bioactive molecules, especially terpenoid compounds such as diterpenes and sesquiterpenes. However, its use in topical formulations can be impaired due to the natural barrier of the skin for low water solubility compounds. Nanoemulsions (NE) are drug delivery systems able to increase penetration of lipophilic compounds throughout the skin, improving their topical effect. In this context, we propose the use of SO-containing NE (SO-NE) for CL treatment. The SO-NE was produced by a low energy method and presented suitable physicochemical characteristic: average diameter and polydispersity index lower than 180 nm and 0.2, respectively. Leishmania (Leishmania) amazonensis-infected BALB/c mice were given topical doses of SO or SO-NE. The topical use of a combination of SO-NE and intraperitoneal meglumine antimoniate reduced lesion size by 41 % and tissue regeneration was proven by histopathological analyses. In addition, a reduction in the parasitic load and decreased in the level of IFN-γ in the lesion may be associated, as well as a lower level of the cytokine IL-10 may be associated with a less intense inflammatory process. The present study suggests that SO-NE in combination meglumine antimoniate represents a promising alternative for the topical treatment of CL caused by L. (L.) amazonensis.
Among the many activities in the recent efforts to evaluate coastal resiliency is the study of the capacity of wetlands and coastal marshes to attenuate storm surge. The development of an acceptable ...index or attenuation rate for coastal flooding is complicated by the many factors that contribute to maximum surge elevation, inundation extent and duration, including storm characteristics (e.g. track, size, forward speed, duration, central low pressure) and local features including topo-bathymetry, land-cover, barrier islands, channels, lagoons and inlets. For this study, we investigated the impact of spatial scaling, mesh resolution, storm characteristics and bottom friction on storm surge in wetland areas in the barrier island system of the Delmarva Peninsula using the coupled hydrodynamic-wave model (ADCIRC + SWAN). Synthetic storms derived from hindcasts of historical storms affecting this region were used for model forcing through multi resolution meshes recreating the complex wetland areas exposed to varying degrees of ocean surge through natural breaks in the barrier islands. Sensitivity to mesh resolution and bottom friction were evaluated for regional attributes and storm characteristics, confirming the results of previous studies. Results suggest inlet configuration and exposure to ocean surge are dominant factors for surge propagation through small scale wetlands and barrier island systems for weak to moderate storms. Attenuation rates observed for weaker storms, were influenced secondarily by the complex geometry of channels, lagoons and the presence and continuity of marshes. Results evaluating greater surge produced by stronger storms, even of less than a meter of storm surge increase, indicate that the mitigating impacts of local features are greatly diminished. Our results indicate that although the back bays systems in the Delmarva Peninsula and similar ecosystems in the US East Coast could provide storm surge attenuation for annual storm events, its use in coastal engineering protection may require a case by case analysis due to the high dependence on local characteristics.
•Storm surge reduction was highly dependent on the complex geometry of channels, lagoons and the presence of marshes.•Results demonstrate that sensitivity to mesh resolution and friction was diminished for the stronger storms.•Results suggest that for small scale wetlands, surge produced by extreme events may overwhelm mitigating impacts of friction.
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