| Abstract: |
The Chesapeake Inundation Prediction System (CIPS) has developed a prototype capability to model and visualize on-land flooding inundation at high-resolution spatial and temporal scales that will support current and future planning across a spectrum of Chesapeake Bay region activities and missions. This is the result of a multi-year collaborative project by a team of colleagues operating within the Chesapeake Bay Observing System. The initial objective was to develop a forecasting capability for the NOAA National Weather Service to better support local emergency managers during real-time storm events. That initial capability has been further developed to model and visualize the combined effects of tropical storms and nor’easters with sea level rise from climate change through the Chesapeake Sea Level Rise and Storm Surge: Public Awareness and Response project. With this prototype system now in hand, Noblis and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science developed an initial set of scenarios that combined storms, e.g. Hurricane Isabel, with incremental increases in sea level rise to model and visualize projected inundation. Noblis would now broaden its focus to implementation of this emerging geospatial visualization capability through a risk assessment process that would support risk-informed decision making. Risk assessment would develop scenario-based analysis methodologies about the nature and magnitude of the inundation threat to critical infrastructure assets and operations, vulnerabilities to the threat of current and sea level related inundation, and the consequences that could result. This process would enable the determination of a course of action predicated on the assessment of the risk of inundation, the expected impact of an intended course of action on that risk, and other relevant factors. Noblis will outline and describe this approach and methodology that could provide an analytical tool to integrate this emerging CIPS capability in planning, response, and recovery from projected impacts of the combined effects of storms and sea level rise. A prototype system developed in the Chesapeake Bay region could be replicated to support coastal communities around our nation. |
