PREEVENTS Track 2: Collaborative Research: Geomorphic Versus Climatic Drivers of Changing Coastal Flood Risk

沿海洪灾是社会面临的最危险和最具破坏性的自然灾害之一，沿海开发和气候变化正在导致脆弱性急剧上升。 自19世纪世纪以来，河口河道通常被加深和拓宽了两到三倍，港口入口被加深和简化，大部分湿地被填满并被社区取代。 这种地貌变化降低了对风暴潮和潮汐的自然抵抗力，从而增加了洪水风险。 同样，海平面上升和风暴特征（如强度、大小和路径）的气候调制变化也会改变洪水风险。 拟议研究项目的总体目标是揭示和对比这些地貌和气候变化改变洪水风险的机制。 这一目标将通过计算建模、历史气候和风暴潮数据分析以及基于理论的综合来实现。 这项研究将为一名博士后研究助理和几名研究生和本科生提供支持，包括代表性不足的群体。 它将通过强调可能加剧沿海洪水的沿海开发做法，改善城市化港口和河口内社区的福祉。 该项目计划提高科学素养和参与度，并通过与当地利益相关者和政府以及美国地质调查局和美国陆军工程兵团的互动，将研究与应用联系起来。该项目将通过新颖的研究和技术创新的几个要素，提高对沿海洪水中气候和地貌因素的理解和分离。 研究人员将使用一个独特的潮汐测量数据集，可追溯到19世纪与当代，回顾性和理想化的水动力模型一起阐明系统的敏感性。 著名的，简化的见解潮汐动力学将测试风暴潮，然后用来帮助解释如何改变当地地形，水深和湿地面积改变了摩擦阻尼和长波力学。 对气候、风暴特征和形态变化的综合分析将确定气候变率和水深变化调节风暴潮的模式和途径。 先进的非平稳单变量和多变量统计模型将被开发和采用，以纳入这些变化，并评估如何统计属性相关的沿海设计和风险评估的反应。 洪水模型相互比较研讨会将有助于量化相关的建模灵敏度，这将有助于改善河口和洪泛区的预测，为学术和业务预报社区。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

Coastal flooding is one of the most dangerous and damaging natural hazards that societies face, and coastal development and climate change are causing a dramatic rise in vulnerability. Since the 19th century, estuary channels have typically been deepened and widened by a factor of two or three, harbor entrances have been deepened and streamlined, and a large proportion of wetlands have been filled over and replaced with neighborhoods. Such geomorphic changes increase flood risk by reducing natural resistance to storm surge and tides. Similarly, sea level rise and climate-modulated variations in storm characteristics such as intensity, size and track path also alter flood risk. The overarching goal of the proposed research project is to reveal and contrast the mechanisms by which these geomorphic and climatic changes alter flood risk. This goal will be met using a combination of computational modeling, historical climate and storm surge data analysis, and theory-based synthesis. The study will provide support for a postdoctoral research associate and several graduate students and undergraduates, including underrepresented groups. It will improve the well-being of communities within urbanized harbors and estuaries by highlighting coastal development practices that can worsen coastal flooding. The project plan increases scientific literacy and engagement, and connects the research to applications through interactions with local stakeholders and governments, as well as the US Geological Survey and the US Army Corps of Engineers.The project will improve the understanding and separation of climatic and geomorphic factors in coastal flooding through several elements of novel research and technical innovation. The investigators will use a unique tide-gauge data set that extends back to the 19th century together with contemporary, retrospective, and idealized hydrodynamic models to elucidate system sensitivities. Well-known, simplified insights into tidal dynamics will be tested for storm surge, then used to help interpret how altered local topography, bathymetry and wetland area have changed frictional damping and long-wave mechanics. A combined analysis of climate, storm characteristics, and morphologic change will identify the modes and pathways through which climate variability and bathymetric change modulate storms surges. Advanced non-stationary univariate and multivariate statistical models will be developed and employed to incorporate these changes and assess how statistical properties relevant for coastal design and risk assessments respond. A flood model inter-comparison workshop will help quantify relevant modeling sensitivities, which will help to improve estuary and floodplain predictions for the academic and operational forecasting community.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.