A flood risk assessment framework for interdependent infrastructure systems in coastal environments

Najafi, Mohammad Reza; Zhang, Ying; Martyn, Nick

doi:10.1016/j.scs.2020.102516

Cited by 57 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…For example, our annual exceedance probabilities do not explicitly account for changes in each component of the total water level, and accounting for changing wave climates can significantly increase predictions of future total water levels (e.g., Vitousek et al., 2017). Emerging multi‐layer datasets will not only include environmental forcings, but also different types of susceptible infrastructure (Emanuelsson et al., 2014; Neumann et al., 2021), of which road networks are only one: recent works in this expanding research space consider wastewater treatment facilities (Hummel et al., 2018), storm‐water conduits (Habel et al., 2020), rail and tunnel systems (Douglas et al., 2016; Koks et al., 2019), and interdependencies across multiple infrastructure systems (Najafi et al., 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thresholds in Road Network Functioning on US Atlantic and Gulf Barrier Islands

2022

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Barrier islands predominate the Atlantic and Gulf coastlines of the USA, where population and infrastructure growth exceed national trends. Forward‐looking models of barrier island dynamics often include feedbacks with real estate markets and management practices aimed at mitigating damage to buildings from natural hazards. However, such models thus far do not account for networks of infrastructure, such as roads, and how the functioning of infrastructure networks might influence management strategies. Understanding infrastructure networks on barrier islands is an essential step toward improved insight into the future dynamics of human‐altered barriers. Here, we examine thresholds in the functioning of 72 US Atlantic and Gulf Coast barrier islands. We use digital elevation models to assign an elevation to each intersection in each road network. From each road network we sequentially remove intersections, starting from the lowest elevation. We use the maxima of the second giant connected component to identify a specific intersection—and corresponding elevation—at which functioning of the network fails, and we match the elevation of each critical intersection to local annual exceedance probabilities for extreme high‐water levels. We find a range of failure thresholds for barrier island road network functioning, and also find that no single metric—absolute elevation, annual exceedance probability, or a quantitative metric of robustness—sufficiently ranks the susceptibility of barrier road networks to failure. Future work can incorporate thresholds for road network into forward‐looking models of barrier island dynamics that include hazard‐mitigation practices for protecting infrastructure.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thresholds in Road Network Functioning on US Atlantic and Gulf Barrier Islands

2022

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“…Study of the simultaneous occurrence of multiple flood hazards would improve our knowledge and understanding of the corresponding flood risks in coastal areas (Najafi et al, 2021). The interactions between different forcings and the corresponding compounding effects are likely to occur in other coastal environments around the world.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Probabilistic Numerical Modeling of Compound Flooding Caused by Tropical Storm Matthew Over a Data‐Scarce Coastal Environment

Zhang

Najafi

2020

Water Resources Research

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The passage of a tropical storm, as the main driver of storm surge and high waves in many coastal regions, can also generate heavy rainfall and cause river overflow. The resulting combination of riverine, pluvial, and coastal flood hazard can result in catastrophic losses particularly in densely populated coastal environments. In this study, we characterize compound flooding caused by Tropical Storm Matthew and assess the significance and associated uncertainties of multiple contributing factors over a data-scarce coastal region. A hydrological model combined with a simplified two-dimensional hydrodynamic model are set up and validated to investigate the compounding effects of storm tide, wave runup, rainfall, and river overflow at the southern coast of Saint Lucia in the Caribbean Sea. Pléiades-1 and Sentinel-1 satellite imageries are used to determine the flood-impacted areas. The analyses are performed based on deterministic and probabilistic approaches and the effects of uncertain boundary conditions and model parameters are investigated. Results show that the individual analysis of flood hazards, in isolation, can lead to substantial underestimation of flood risks. Heavy rainfall and wave runup are the most significant contributors to compound flooding in Saint Lucia. In addition, the interactions between seawater and streamflow can exacerbate riverine flood hazards particularly upstream of the river mouth. Communities in western Vieux Fort, and the Hewanorra International Airport, have high exposure to compound flooding, which is projected to intensify under climate change.

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“…Investment in the development of systematic and comprehensive risk frameworks across all sectors can help to identify the tolerance of infrastructure, communities, and natural environments to risk and uncertainty 35,36 . Risk framing is context and stakeholder specific.…”

Section: What Are Future Uncertainties?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Decision making in the coastal zone under an uncertain future

Lyddon

2021

Preprint

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Coastal flooding is rated as the second highest risk of civil emergency in the UK, and can cause damage to coastal and estuarine infrastructure, communities, ecosystems, and even loss of life. Hydrodynamic, numerical modelling tools are used to identify regions susceptible to coastal flooding under current and future climate conditions. Modelling procedures and data inputs can lead to a range of uncertainties that need to be quantified for the simulations to be meaningful. Reported public scepticism of coastal hazard forecasting and flood warning accuracy may be due in some part to the way that flood dynamics and uncertainties in the computer model simulations of flood hazard are communicated to the end-users. The briefing explores key uncertainties in flooding predictions, and how these can be better communicated to the public and stakeholders. Improved communication can help to increase awareness and encourage behaviour change to build trust in warnings and forecasts.

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A flood risk assessment framework for interdependent infrastructure systems in coastal environments

Cited by 57 publications

References 41 publications

Thresholds in Road Network Functioning on US Atlantic and Gulf Barrier Islands

Thresholds in Road Network Functioning on US Atlantic and Gulf Barrier Islands

Probabilistic Numerical Modeling of Compound Flooding Caused by Tropical Storm Matthew Over a Data‐Scarce Coastal Environment

Decision making in the coastal zone under an uncertain future

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