Recent and Future Outlooks for Nuisance Flooding Impacts on Roadways on the U.S. East Coast

Abstract

Tidal floods (i.e., “nuisance” flooding) are occurring more often during seasonal high tides or minor wind events, and the frequency is expected to increase dramatically in the coming decades. During these flood events, coastal communities’ roads are often impassable or difficult to pass, thus impacting routine transport needs. This study identifies vulnerable roads and quantifies the risk from nuisance flooding in the Eastern United States by combining public road information from the Federal Highway Administration’s Highway Performance Monitoring System with flood frequency maps, tidal gauge historic observations, and future projections of annual minor tidal flood frequencies and durations. The results indicate that tidal nuisance flooding across the East Coast threatens 7508 miles (12,083 km) of roadways including over 400 miles (644 km) of interstate roadways. From 1996–2005 to 2006–2015, there was a 90% average increase in nuisance floods. With sea level rise, nuisance-flood frequency is projected to grow at all locations assessed. The total induced vehicle-hours of delay due to nuisance flooding currently exceed 100 million hours annually. Nearly 160 million vehicle-hours of delay across the East Coast by 2020 (85% increase from 2010); 1.2 billion vehicle-hours by 2060 (126% increase from 2010); and 3.4 billion vehicle-hours by 2100 (392% increase from 2010) are projected under an intermediate low sea-level-rise scenario. By 2056–2065, nuisance flooding could occur almost daily at sites in Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, the District of Columbia, North Carolina, and Florida under an intermediate sea-level-rise scenario.

Mapping Impact of Tidal Flooding on Solar Salt Farming in Northern Java using a Hydrodynamic Model

“…Tides caused by the gravitational effects of sun and moon are periodic and very predictable [23][24][25]. Tidal floods (also defined as "nuisance" flooding) are occurring more often during seasonal high tides or minor wind events, and the frequency is likely to escalate intensely in the forthcoming decades [26]. Currently, the impact of tidal flood is usually modeled using planar approach in geographic information analysis.…”

Timescales of emergence of chronic nuisance flooding in the major economic centre of Guadeloupe

“…Therefore, risks of chronic flooding are expected to rise in an increasing number of locations in the future, including embankments in harbors, cities and settlements in sheltered areas and other regions where extreme events are rare enough to justify low protection levels. Furthermore, risks of chronic flooding are already taking place now: for example, an acceleration in chronic flooding is already affecting coastal communities and transportation systems in the US eastern coast (Sweet and Park, 2014;Jacobs et al, 2018). There, the observed trends and acceleration of the number of chronic flooding events is consistent with increases in mean sea level caused by climate change (Sweet and Park, 2014).…”

Explaining Extreme Events of 2017 from a Climate Perspective

“…And places that did not flood in years past now begin to flood. Or what if the sea level rises so that flood damage due to tidal shifts can happen even without a severe storm (Jacobs et al 2018;Sweet et al 2018)? The U.S. National Climate Assessment has documented some of these changes in precipitation that are already being experienced (Walsh et al 2014).…”