Community Flood Impacts and Infrastructure: Examining National Flood Impacts Using a High Precision Assessment Tool in the United States

Changing environmental conditions are driving worsening flood events, with consequences for counties, cities, towns, and local communities. To understand individual flood risk within this changing climate, local community resiliency and infrastructure impacts must also be considered. Past research has attempted to capture this but has faced several limitations. This study provides a nation-wide model of community flooding impacts within the United States currently and in 30 years through the use of high-resolution input data (parcel-level), multi-source flood hazard information (four major flood types), multi-return period hazard information (six return periods), operational threshold integration, and future-facing projections. Impacts are quantified here as the level of flooding relative to operational thresholds. This study finds that over the next 30 years, millions of additional properties will be impacted, as aspects of risk are expected to increase for residential properties by 10%, roads by 3%, commercial properties by 7%, critical infrastructure facilities by 6%, and social infrastructure facilities by 9%. Additionally, certain counties and cities persistently display impact patterns. A high-resolution model capturing aspects of flood risk as related to community infrastructure is important for an understanding of overall community risk. View Full-Text

Keywords: flood risk; climate change; community impacts; infrastructure vulnerability

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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Porter, J.R.; Shu, E.; Amodeo, M.; Hsieh, H.; Chu, Z.; Freeman, N. Community Flood Impacts and Infrastructure: Examining National Flood Impacts Using a High Precision Assessment Tool in the United States. Water 2021, 13, 3125. https://doi.org/10.3390/w13213125

AMA Style

Porter JR, Shu E, Amodeo M, Hsieh H, Chu Z, Freeman N. Community Flood Impacts and Infrastructure: Examining National Flood Impacts Using a High Precision Assessment Tool in the United States. Water. 2021; 13(21):3125. https://doi.org/10.3390/w13213125

Chicago/Turabian Style

Porter, Jeremy R., Evelyn Shu, Michael Amodeo, Ho Hsieh, Ziyan Chu, and Neil Freeman. 2021. "Community Flood Impacts and Infrastructure: Examining National Flood Impacts Using a High Precision Assessment Tool in the United States" Water 13, no. 21: 3125. https://doi.org/10.3390/w13213125

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Community Flood Impacts and Infrastructure: Examining National Flood Impacts Using a High Precision Assessment Tool in the United States

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