Assessment of Damage and Adaptation Strategies for Structures and Infrastructure from Storm Surge and Sea Level Rise for a Coastal Community in Rhode Island, United States

Abstract

This paper presents an evaluation of inundation, erosion, and wave damage for a coastal community in Rhode Island, USA. A methodology called the Coastal Environmental Risk Index (CERI) was used that incorporates levels of inundation including sea level rise, wave heights using STWAVE, and detailed information about individual structures from an E911 database. This information was input into damage functions developed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers following Hurricane Sandy. Damage from erosion was evaluated separately from local published erosion rates. Using CERI, two different adaptation strategies were evaluated that included a combination of dune restoration, protective berms, and a tide gate. A total of 151 out of 708 structures were estimated to be protected from inundation and wave action by the combined measures. More importantly, the use of CERI allowed for the assessment of the impact of different adaptation strategies on both individual structures and an entire community in a Geographical Information Systems (GIS) environment. This tool shows promise for use by coastal managers to assess damage and mitigate risk to coastal communities.

When the tide gets high: a review of adaptive responses to sea level rise and coastal flooding

“…Examples of these measures include the enhancement of ecologically functional barrier islands in addition to reinforcement of existing dikes and seawalls (Barron et al 2012) or the innovative sand management and groyne systems that can be complemented by seawalls in the long-term (Jallow et al 1996). Other types of hybrid measures include soft engineering techniques such as dune restoration using geotextile materials (Small 2016), beach dewatering and drainage, submerged geosynthetic container systems (Cisneros Linares 2013; Scott et al 2012;Small et al 2016), and the use of biotechnical structures such as artificial seagrass and artificial mangrove roots. Dune restoration with geotextiles is a cost-effective solution in the short term that can provide decision makers with the opportunity to assess actual impacts of SLR for the longer term (Small 2016).…”

“…Other types of hybrid measures include soft engineering techniques such as dune restoration using geotextile materials (Small 2016), beach dewatering and drainage, submerged geosynthetic container systems (Cisneros Linares 2013; Scott et al 2012;Small et al 2016), and the use of biotechnical structures such as artificial seagrass and artificial mangrove roots. Dune restoration with geotextiles is a cost-effective solution in the short term that can provide decision makers with the opportunity to assess actual impacts of SLR for the longer term (Small 2016). Filled geosynthetic containers are used as artificial reefs in Australia, New Zealand, USA, and UK and provide multiple benefits.…”

Understanding resistance to resilience in coastal hazards and climate adaptation: three approaches to visualizing structural and process obstacles, opportunities and adaptation responses

“…(See Section 6). Small and his colleagues estimated damage to the 708 existing structures simulating a 100 year storm event with and without predicted sea level rise [15]. They found that "approximately 35% of the one and two story structures…are expected to be damaged from a 100 year storm event with no sea level rise…However, only 12% of these structures are estimated to be damaged more than 50%."…”

STORMTOOLS, Coastal Environmental Risk Index (CERI) Risk and Damage Assessment App

“…Senior students in the Ocean Engineering program at University of RI (URI) have applied CERI to Matunuck Beach, RI in 2015-2016 [14], to Misquamicut Beach, RI in 2016-2017 [15] to Providence and the Fox Point Hurricane barrier in 2017-2018 [16] and to the Narragansett Bay Commission (NBC) Wastewater Treatment Facility (WWTF), and adjacent above-ground storage tanks (AST) located on Fields Point in 2018-2019 [17]. The development of CERI and its application to coastal communities have been published in the peer-reviewed literature [4,5,8,9,11,18,19] and presented at a number of national conferences (e.g., ASCE Solutions to Coastal Disasters, Estuarine and Coastal Modeling, Coastal Geotools, Northeast Arc User Group Conference). One of the side benefits of CERI is that the data necessary to input to the method and generated as part of its application can be used to provide state-of-the-art flooding maps, equivalent to those developed by FEMA Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRMS), but explicitly including the effects of sea level rise (SLR).…”

“…FEMA zone flooding zone map (left) (http://www.r3coastal.com/home/coastal-hazardanalysis-mapping/coastal-flood-hazard-mapping, accessed on February 11, 2020) and percent damage for single story structure elevated on stilts (center) and on grade, with a basement (right). The location of the flood inundation level is provided in the figure on the right side (red line) and the percent damage to the structure is shown above the structures, reproduced from[19], with the permission from Small, C. et al 2016.…”