Development of a Laboratory-Scale Coastal-Inland Flood Simulator for Prince Edward Island

近年来，全球变暖加剧了极端降水，导致全球海平面前所未有的上升。作为加拿大大西洋的一个岛屿省份，PEI一直受到沿海内陆洪水风险增加的威胁，由于严重的海岸侵蚀，该岛的萎缩速度比之前想象的要快。在最近前所未有的后热带风暴（如2022年的菲奥娜飓风和2019年的多里安飓风）之后，这一点变得尤为明显。如何保护岛屿免受海岸侵蚀，建设适应气候变化的沿海社区已成为PEI需要解决的最重要问题之一。因此，本项目的目标是为PEI开发一个最先进的实验室规模的沿海-内陆洪水模拟器（CIFS），通过估计海平面上升、风暴潮加剧和强降雨引起的内陆洪水增加的综合影响，促进整体洪水风险评估。CIFS系统将支持沿海适应措施的规划，评估不同海岸保护措施的有效性，以及洪水事件的操作和应急管理。CIFS系统的核心将包括两个独立的模型——一个沿海模型和一个内陆模型——它们可以单独运行，也可以一起运行，对不同的气候变化情景进行洪水风险分析。沿海模式将能够模拟不同气候变化情景下PEI近岸波浪和风暴潮活动的潜在变化，而内陆模式将能够模拟由不同来源（包括强降雨）引起的城市和陆地洪水及其与海平面上升的相互作用。拟议的CIFS系统将是加拿大首个支持沿海和内陆联合洪水事件的实验室规模模拟和演示的同类系统。鉴于PEI在过去几年中面临的沿海-内陆洪水风险日益增加，迫切需要拟议的CIFS平台，以便UPEI加拿大气候变化与适应中心的研究团队找到一些可持续的解决方案，以保护该岛免受海岸侵蚀。

In recent years, global warming has intensified extreme precipitation and caused unprecedented sea level rise around the world. As an island province in Atlantic Canada, PEI has been threatened by increasing coastal-inland flooding risks and the island has been shrinking at a faster rate than previously thought due the severe coastal erosion. This has become especially obvious after recent unprecedented post-tropical storms (e.g., Hurricane Fiona in 2022 and Hurricane Dorian in 2019). How to protect the island from coastal erosion and build climate-resilient coastal communities has become one of the most important questions to be addressed in PEI. Therefore, the objective of this project is to develop a state-of-the-art laboratory-scale coastal-inland flood simulator (CIFS) for PEI to facilitate holistic flood risk assessment by estimating the combined effects of rising sea levels, intensified storm surges, and increasing inland floods caused by intense rainfall. The CIFS system will support the planning of coastal adaptation measures, evaluation of the effectiveness of different coastal protection measures, as well as operational and emergency management of flooding events. The core of the CIFS system will comprise two independent models - a coastal model and an inland model - that can run separately or together to carry out flood risk analyses for different climate change scenarios. The coastal model will be equipped to simulate potential changes in nearshore waves and storm surge activities across PEI under different climate change scenarios, while the inland model will be capable of simulating urban and overland flooding caused by different sources, including heavy rainfall, and their interactions with rising sea levels. The proposed CIFS system will be the first of its kind in Canada to support the laboratory-scale simulation and demonstration of combined coastal and inland flood events. Given the increasing coastal-inland flooding risks that PEI has been facing over the past years, the proposed CIFS platform is urgently needed to allow the research team in the Canadian Centre for Climate Change and Adaptation at UPEI to find some sustainable solutions to protect the island from coastal erosion.