Identification of Urban Flood Impacts Caused by Land Subsidence and Sea Level Rise for the Houston-Galveston Region

除了容易受到飓风或热带风暴等自然灾害的影响外，许多沿海城市还经历了显著的地面下沉和海平面上升，这可能会加剧城市洪水。虽然许多以前的研究已经开始认识到地面沉降和海平面上升对沿海社区的重大影响，但将这些因素纳入洪水淹没建模和规划仍然是一个挑战。为了应对这一挑战，该项目开发了一个模型，以了解和确定地面沉降和海平面上升对城市洪水的贡献影响。该模型将在休斯顿-加尔维斯顿地区使用选定的极端事件进行测试，其中包括2017年发生的飓风哈维。该项目的目标是改善美国城市洪水缓解和战略规划，以拯救生命和保护财产免受破坏，并提高城市的可持续性和复原力。拟议研究的目标是了解和确定因地面沉降和海平面上升造成的影响而加剧的城市洪水。改进的水文和水力模型将与开发的地面沉降模拟模型和一个缩小到圣哈辛托河流域的海平面上升预测模型相结合，以确定地面沉降和海平面上升对休斯顿-加尔维斯顿地区造成的相应洪水影响。所提出的方法将地面沉降和海平面上升的情景纳入水文和水力模型，以划定洪水淹没范围。该方法利用一个基于过程的分布式水文模型来揭示因地面沉降和海平面上升而加剧的城市洪水的基础。休斯顿-加尔维斯顿地区被选为拟议项目的试验台，该项目是一个历史上的地面沉降区，已经下沉了10英尺。自20世纪40年代以来，那里的海平面预计将再上升1至4英尺。到2100年。这项研究成果将促进当前关于大气、水文和地质系统之间相互作用的知识。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

In addition to being vulnerable to natural hazards such as hurricanes or tropical storms, many coastal cities also experience significant land subsidence and sea level rise which can exacerbate the urban floods. Although many previous studies have started to realize the significant impacts imposed by land subsidence and sea level rise to coastal communities, incorporating these factors into flood inundation modeling and planning is still a challenge. To address this challenge, this project develops a model to understand and identify the contributing impacts from land subsidence and sea level rise to urban floods. The model will be tested on the Houston-Galveston region using selected extreme events including Hurricane Harvey which occurred in 2017. The goal of the project is to improve U.S. urban flood mitigation and strategic planning to save lives and protect properties from damage and to increase urban sustainability and resilience. The goal of the proposed research is to understand and identify urban flood exacerbated by the contributing impacts from land subsidence and sea level rise. The enhanced hydrologic and hydraulic models will be coupled with a developed land subsidence simulation model and one sea level rise projection model downscaled to the San Jacinto River Basin to identify corresponding flood impacts contributed by land subsidence and sea level rise for the Houston-Galveston region. The proposed methodology assimilates land subsidence and sea level rise scenarios into hydrologic and hydraulic modeling to delineate inundation extents. This method takes advantage of a processed-based distributed hydrologic model to reveal the underpinning of the urban flood exacerbated by land subsidence and sea level rise. The Houston-Galveston region is selected as the test-bed for the proposed project, a historical land subsidence zone that has subsided up to 10 ft. since 1940s and where sea level rise is projected to rise another 1 to 4 ft. by 2100. The research results will advance current knowledge on interactions among atmospheric, hydrological and geological systems.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.