Coastal Hazards Analysis

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• Coastal Hazards Analysis Management Program
• (CHAMP)
• A 2005-2007 NOAA Coastal Management Fellowship
• CT Department of Environmental Protection
• Office of Long Island Sound Programs (OLISP)
• May 28th, 2008

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CHAMP Rationale Objectives

• Rationale
• State/Municipal officials, academia, coastal
  property owners and the general public would
  benefit from a single, comprehensive, updatable
  source of hazards information for the coast.

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CHAMP Project Deliverables

• Coastal Hazards Research Assessment
• Analyze existing coastal hazards information for
  CT and provide a status report.
• Coastal Hazards Web Site Visualization Tools
• Web site to deliver hazards related information
  and data
• Develop an interactive inundation visualization
  tool
• Outreach to Coastal Communities
• Let them know data and tools exist to help
• plan/prepare/recover from coastal hazards

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CHAMP Inundation Visualization

• Show inundation from sea level rise scenarios
• Let users see the effects of various levels of
  SLR as GIS datalayers draped over imagery
• give some on the ground meaning to many numbers
• Beginning pilot work area
• Show inundation from storm surge
• Let users see the effects of varying intensity
  storms as GIS datalayers draped over imagery
• Historic hypothetical storms
• Leverage expertise from UCONN Marine Science
  Dept.
• Come after SLR work is further along

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CHAMP GIS Sea Level Rise Process

1. Obtain best-available elevation data to model the
   landscape

• Coastal LiDAR collected by FEMA in 2006 for
  Flood Map Modernization
• Bare Earth Digital Elevation Model (DEM)
  buildings vegetation removed
• High vertical accuracy (RMSE-spec 0.61ft
  RMSE-data 0.22ft)
• wide spatial coverage

Bluff Point Poquonock River, Groton, CT
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CHAMP GIS Sea Level Rise Process
Coastal LiDAR data coverage area ( area of
100yr Flood Zone)
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CHAMP GIS Sea Level Rise Process

1. Raise water levels to correspond to common values
   of SLR (ex IPCC high/low estimates, various
   scientific studies)

• display rises relative to mean sea level -
  easy
• display rises relative to local tide levels
  (eg. MHW) - harder

1. Leverage work done previously by UCONN CLEAR to
   do this

• extract the areas that waterbodies from the
  DEM surface data
• use GIS analysis tools that take the waterbody
  areas and the surrounding land area and flood
  them to a specific water level

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CHAMP GIS Sea Level Rise Results
DEM surface data draped over 2005 CIR orthophoto
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CHAMP GIS Sea Level Rise Results
Waterbody area (approximating mean sea level)
extracted from DEM data draped over 2005 CIR
orthophoto
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CHAMP GIS Sea Level Rise Results
Areas in GREEN rise in sea level of 3 ft over
mean sea level. In other words, these areas will
flood if sea level rises 3 ft.
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CHAMP GIS Sea Level Rise Results
Areas in YELLOW expected limit of MHW if sea
level rises 3ft. In other words, these areas
will likely experience flooding due to daily
tidal action if sea level rises 3 ft.
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CHAMP GIS Wrap-up/Next Steps

• QA/QC work critical
• areas where flooding not possible were flooded
  due to artifacts in the processing

• Begin work on Storm Surge
• use UCONN circulation models to create data
  for storm surge

• incorporate detailed community level GIS data
  (eg storm drin locations) to provide better
  results.)
• use GIS data created from ACOE historic
  hurricane water level surveys to check results
• compare results to recent SLOSH maps, other
  inundation data

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CHAMP GIS Other Examples

• UCONN CLEAR
• looked at coastal storm surge using different
  elevation data and NWS SLOSH model output
• http//clear.uconn.edu/projects/DEVELOP/index.h
  tm

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CHAMP GIS Contacts
Kevin OBrien Environmental Analyst CT Dept. of
Environmental ProtectionOffice of Long Island
Sound Programs79 Elm St., Hartford, CT
06106Phone  [phone]kevin.obrien_at_ct.gov
Joel Johnson NOAA Coastal Management Fellow CT
Dept. of Environmental ProtectionOffice of Long
Island Sound Programs79 Elm St., Hartford, CT
06106Phone  [phone]joel.johnson_at_ct.gov