{"id":14372,"date":"2024-06-21T16:31:54","date_gmt":"2024-06-21T20:31:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/?p=14372"},"modified":"2024-06-25T21:25:43","modified_gmt":"2024-06-26T01:25:43","slug":"swelling-the-banks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/issues\/summer-2024\/swelling-the-banks\/","title":{"rendered":"Swelling the Banks"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>
\"Fox<\/div>

\n\n

Swelling the Banks<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

As climate change causes increasingly catastrophic river flooding in Rhode Island, 溏心vlog免费B站 scientists are fighting back.<\/p>\n\n<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/section>\n\n\n

This photo of the Fox Point Hurricane Barrier in Providence was taken on December 23, 2023, and uploaded to the MyCoast app.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Michael Blanding<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ground was already saturated, and rivers were starting to crest from record rainfall in March 2010, when the unthinkable happened: another storm. Over the 48 hours between March 30 and 31, as much as 10 inches of new rain pelted Rhode Island, causing rivers across the state to swell over their banks and overflow. In Cranston, the Pawtuxet River crested at a record 20.8 feet\u2014more than double its flood stage. Streets were closed, basements flooded, and the Warwick Mall submerged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 2010 event was a 500-year flood\u2014 meaning it has only a 0.2 percent chance of occurring in a given year\u2014an unprecedented event in historical data. But emergency planners have gotten used to revising their expectations. The following year, Hurricane Irene battered Rhode Island\u2019s coast with floods from the storm surge, even as the state narrowly avoided the river flooding that decimated Northern New England. Then in 2012, Superstorm Sandy flooded New York City subways and caused billions of dollars in damage up and down the East Coast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The state could no longer ignore the possibility that another deluge could come\u2014and soon. \u201cWe needed to start looking realistically at flooding,\u201d says Pam Rubinoff, M.M.A. \u201990, associate coastal manager, coastal resilience, for 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Coastal Resources Center (CRC). However planning maps for the state produced by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) use historical data, rather than anticipating the future. \u201cFEMA maps all look backward,\u201d Rubinoff says. \u201cHow could we look at flooding taking into account climate change moving forward?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The answer: two tools developed by scientists, engineers, and policy analysts at 溏心vlog免费B站 that have become essential in helping the state cope with the uncertainty of future storms. The first, STORMTOOLS, provides up-to-date predictions on flooding that could affect commercial and residential parcels throughout the state. The second, RI-CHAMP (Rhode Island\u2013Coastal Hazards, Analysis, Modeling & Prediction), is designed for emergency responders to predict damage to vital infrastructure in real time. Together, the tools are helping individuals and officials plan for and respond to storms and the flooding associated with them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

The Ocean State is no stranger to flooding from coastal storm surge, having suffered direct hits from nine hurricanes over the past century, from the Great Hurricane of 1938 to Carol in 1954\u2014which led to the construction of the Fox Point Hurricane Barrier in Providence\u2014to more recent storms such as Gloria in 1985 and Bob in 1991. Since then, sea levels have risen 6 inches and are predicted to rise another foot by 2050, dramatically increasing storm surge impact. Today, however, storms are likely to mimic Irene, which parked itself over Northern New England for days, moving slowly across land and drenching inland areas with rain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even as climate change causes drought on the West Coast, it has made New England wetter, doubling the number of rainy days and increasing the intensity of storms by at least 15 percent. So-called 100-year storms (storms with a 1 percent chance of happening in a given year) are now likely to happen at least twice as often. And rising temperatures often cause winter nor\u2019easters to drop rain instead of snow, increasing the possibility of inland flooding as the ground gets saturated. \u201cWe\u2019re not only seeing higher sea levels and more intense coastal storms, but also more excessive rainfall, and these rivers swell and overflow,\u201d says Rubinoff. Between September 2023 and January 2024, Rhode Island had four federal disaster declarations, affecting homes and businesses from Cumberland to Westerly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n
\n\n
\n
\"\"\n<\/div>\n\n
\"\"\n<\/div>\n\n
\"\"\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n

Photos shared to the MyCoast app show flooding in Narragansett, Westerly, and Warwick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

溏心vlog免费B站 ocean engineer Malcolm Spaulding \u201969, Ph.D. \u201972, was surprised to see that new FEMA maps for Washington County in 2014 didn\u2019t take those changes into account. On those maps, surprisingly, \u201cthe storm surge level along the southern Rhode Island coastline actually decreased by 3 feet,\u201d says Spaulding, professor emeritus of ocean engineering. Knowing there must be a more accurate way to calculate risks, the Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC), a state agency overseeing land within 200 feet of the coast, commissioned 溏心vlog免费B站 to redo the Washington County maps. \u201cWe wanted to take any house in a flood zone and show what the flood risk would be,\u201d Spaulding says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n
\"Malcolm<\/figure><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

\u201c<\/span>We did maps down to an individual house level, showing how much damage was possible given the probability of different storms.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014Malcolm Spaulding \u201969, Ph.D. \u201972, professor emeritus of ocean engineering<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Along with Rubinoff and other colleagues, Spaulding led efforts to assemble meteorological and oceanic data, along with current models of climate change, to show the probability a major storm could cause monetary damage to any particular piece of real estate. \u201cWe did maps down to an individual house level, showing how much damage was possible given the probability of different storms,\u201d says Spaulding. If anything, the data was too accurate\u2014alarming property owners with its specificity\u2014so they zoomed out a bit to show relative risk for a piece of property in any given area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based on the success of that model, the team expanded the analysis to the rest of the coast, launching an interactive online map dubbed STORMTOOLS that anyone can access. CRMC had lobbied to require property owners to use the tool instead of the less accurate FEMA maps to obtain building permits for coastal property, but pushback from builders thwarted the legislation that would\u2019ve mandated that. As a consolation, however, builders can use STORMTOOLS in a risk-based assessment indicated on the property deed; buyers have increasingly begun to look for that in purchase decisions to know that the latest climate data was figured into analysis. \u201cIf you were buying a property in a flood zone, would you accept a risk management assessment that didn\u2019t include sea-level rise?\u201d Spaulding asks rhetorically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the success of the coastal analysis, the state came back to the STORMTOOLS team to expand the tool beyond the coastline to include inland rivers. Spaulding called on his colleague, Reza Hashemi, 溏心vlog免费B站 associate professor of ocean engineering, who had recently completed an analysis of the 2010 Pawtuxet River watershed flood that paralyzed Warwick and Cranston, flooding not just the mall, but also several wastewater treatment facilities, and shutting down Interstate 95. Adding rivers to the analysis required new data and modeling techniques, Hashemi says. While coastal flooding is mainly caused by wind, inland flooding depends heavily on rainfall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n
\"Reza<\/figure><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

\u201c<\/span>We want to deliver a seamless map for coast and inland flooding that includes the effects of climate change, including change in precipitation and sealevel rise.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014Reza Hashemi, associate professor of ocean engineering<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe other thing that is more complicated is figuring out how much of the water infiltrates into the ground and how much is runoff,\u201d Hashemi says. That requires an in-depth analysis of soil conditions, as well as considering pavement and man-made infrastructure. The team is currently developing a comprehensive framework for the state, including the Pawtuxet, Pawcatuck, Blackstone, and Moshassuck-Woonasquatucket river basins. \u201cWe want to deliver a seamless map for coast and inland flooding that includes the effects of climate change, including change in precipitation and sealevel rise,\u201d Hashemi says. They also hope to add information about specific infrastructure assets such as hospitals and wastewater treatment facilities to predict damage beyond mere monetary value, incorporating that into the risk assessment. \u201cA hospital has a higher risk compared to a warehouse,\u201d Hashemi says. \u201cBy including all of that, we\u2019d like to come up with a tool that gives Rhode Island communities a way to assess risk and plan for reducing the risk for hazard mitigation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

That infrastructure information is already included in RI-CHAMP, the other tool developed by 溏心vlog免费B站 to help manage flooding in the state. The project started in 2014 with funding from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Center of Excellence in Coastal Resilience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike STORMTOOLS, which is primarily used for planning purposes, RI-CHAMP was designed as a real-time forecasting tool for use during storms. Led by professor of oceanography Isaac Ginis and professor of marine affairs Austin Becker, M.M.A. \u201905, M.S. \u201906, the team met with members of the Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency (RIEMA) to determine their concerns about the infrastructure most vulnerable to flood damage. \u201cWe wanted to understand how a particular coastal storm would result in consequences they needed to worry about,\u201d Becker says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather than using the probabilistic models of a 100-year storm that STORMTOOLS uses, RI-CHAMP maps specific storms\u2014modeling storm predictions in real time, along with their potential damage. \u201cWe are looking at specific storm scenarios one at a time,\u201d Becker says. The RI-CHAMP team has gathered in-depth information on important assets\u2014including hospitals, wastewater treatment plants, Coast Guard facilities, fishing ports, and ferry terminals. 溏心vlog免费B站 faculty, students, and research associates have made site visits with facility managers and recorded the vulnerabilities of buildings and other infrastructure. \u201cWe ask them about their concerns with specific generators, electrical transformers, server rooms, and other assets that might be impacted,\u201d Becker says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n
\"Austin<\/figure><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

\u201c<\/span>We wanted to understand how a particular coastal storm would result in consequences they [RIEMA] needed to worry about.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014Austin Becker, M.M.A. \u201905, M.S. \u201906, professor of marine affairs<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

From that information, they create a hazard consequence threshold (HCT) for each asset, determining the level of flooding or wind damage at which negative consequences would occur. \u201cAll of this institutional knowledge from these experienced facility managers gets stored in a database,\u201d Becker says. The group started with an analysis of Westerly, then Providence. Recently, they completed a statewide analysis of wastewater treatment plants and maritime transportation, with an interactive dashboard for the Department of Environmental Management to determine how much water they\u2019ll have to treat in the case of both coastal and river flooding. So far, the analysis includes 12 rivers. While RI-CHAMP doesn\u2019t yet account for rainfall, it does track river runoff in determining how rivers might exacerbate coastal flooding. \u201cWhen we know the magnitude of the river flow, we can predict how water from that river will spread over land simultaneously with coastal storm surge,\u201d Ginis says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RI-CHAMP has already been helpful for RIEMA in storm response, not just hurricanes, but also nor\u2019easters and other storms. \u201cIf we know what the storm surge will be, we know what part of the infrastructure is going to be affected, allowing us to figure out what tools or mitigation we need before the storm gets here,\u201d says Tom Guthlein, executive administrator at RIEMA. That could include anything from sandbagging doorways to issuing evacuation orders. By coordinating storm surge with tides, the system can even tell in advance when roadways might flood, allowing emergency managers to reroute traffic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n
\"Isaac<\/figure><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

\u201c<\/span>When we know the magnitude of the river flow, we can predict how water from that river will spread over land simultaneously with coastal storm surge.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014Isaac Ginis, professor of oceanography <\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

RIEMA has also used the system to plan for future storms. RI-CHAMP can model, for example, the hurricanes of 1938 and 1954, showing how they would affect today\u2019s coastline by factoring in historical sea-level rise. Since 1938, the sea level in Rhode Island has risen by about 10 inches, and about 8 inches since 1954. The team created two hypothetical storms that are plausible today. The first, nicknamed Hurricane Ram, is a storm coming up from the Bahamas, hitting Narragansett Bay as a category 3 hurricane, then stalling over inland Rhode Island, with catastrophic rainfall similar to the March 2010 event. The second, Hurricane Rhody, is a faster-moving storm making landfall in Connecticut, causing a storm surge in Narragansett Bay, traveling northeast to Boston, then looping back along the coast and making a second landfall in Rhode Island with massive river flooding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RIEMA uses the hypothetical storms in training exercises before hurricane season each year. \u201cI believe it\u2019s the first time in the country where the emergency management agency uses computer simulations to better prepare for future storms,\u201d Ginis says. The model shows downtown Providence to be particularly susceptible to flooding from the Woonasquatucket and Moshassuck rivers. When they simulate a hurricane with the Fox Point Hurricane Barrier closed, they find water would build up so much in the bay that downtown Providence could be flooded up to 14 feet in a single day. In other words, the very infrastructure built to protect the city from hurricanes could exacerbate their effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The good news is that the model also shows that the pumps within the barrier are sufficient to pump out that amount of water, keeping flooding at bay\u2014so long as they are in good working order. \u201cSo, we need to assure that the pumps will be operational during big storms, and if the state is without power, they have backup generators to run them,\u201d Ginis says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guthlein says some communities have made changes to protect infrastructure in response to 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s models. At the Warren wastewater treatment plant, for example, officials responded to a paper by grad students using STORMTOOLS by raising the barrier around the plant and putting a berm around it. They also raised the generators 8 feet to get them above potential flood level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"a<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A STORMTOOLS visualization of how flooding would impact the Bristol waterfront in the event of a 100-year storm, with no sea-level rise. This visualization predicts that the structures in dark red are at severe risk. The blue areas closest to the coast would be inundated under up to 17 feet of water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s CRC has contributed through an app called MyCoast that allows citizens to take and share pictures of flooding to show the impact of coastal storms. \u201cWe have evidence from the community showing that we are seeing flooding more frequently,\u201d Rubinoff says. \u201cIt\u2019s important for us to work from the bottom up.\u201d She and other CRC and Rhode Island Sea Grant staff use STORMTOOLS and RI-CHAMP to demonstrate the impact of flooding from potential storms in an effort to encourage communities to bolster their infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It can be a struggle sometimes, Rubinoff admits, to get officials focused on a storm that hasn\u2019t happened yet, but that could be devastating if not planned for in advance. \u201cIt\u2019s a combination of not having the money, not having the technology, not knowing what to do,\u201d Rubinoff says, adding that is especially true for inland communities that may not be as accustomed to dealing with flooding as coastal communities have learned to be. \u201cWe almost have to campaign on why this is necessary and how these tools can help you become better planners for resilience.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n
\"Pam<\/figure><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

\u201c<\/span>We need to think holistically to deal with whatever storms may come\u2014some are going to be coastal, some are going to be riverine, and some are going to be both.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014Pam Rubinoff, M.M.A. \u201990, associate coastal manager, coastal resilience, Coastal Resources Center<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Funding is also an issue for RI-CHAMP, which will need ongoing state funds to keep operating. \u201cYou\u2019re competing against 100 different things,\u201d says Guthlein, who has advocated for the system as an emergency management official. \u201cYou hope that as people become more aware of the capability of RI-CHAMP, it will help justify it.\u201d Beyond Rhode Island, other agencies are taking notice, as well. The team is developing a system for Connecticut, as well as for the U.S. Coast Guard in southeastern New England.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the final analysis, STORMTOOLS and RI-CHAMP complement each other, helping create a comprehensive view of flooding potential for both planning and emergency response, risks to property and specific infrastructure, and for both coastal and inland flooding. \u201cWhen we look at resilience, we have to look at the whole state,\u201d Rubinoff says. \u201cWe can\u2019t keep thinking \u2018coastal and inland,\u2019 because some of our coastal communities are along rivers or tied to inland communities upstream. So, we need to think holistically to deal with whatever storms may come\u2014some are going to be coastal, some are going to be riverine, and some are going to be both.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PHOTOS: SUSANNAH COLT, HAROLD HANKA, JOSE MENENDEZ, CHELSEA MCGUIRE\/MYCOAST; PAM RUBINOFF\/MYCOAST; NORA LEWIS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Flood Watch: The Ocean State is no stranger to flooding. Tools developed by 溏心vlog免费B站 scientists are helping Rhode Island cope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":14234,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[336],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-summer-2024","architecture-features"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14372"}],"version-history":[{"count":37,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15198,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14372\/revisions\/15198"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}