TY - JOUR
T1 - Characterizing the deep uncertainties surrounding coastal flood hazard projections
T2 - A case study for Norfolk, VA
AU - Ruckert, Kelsey L.
AU - Srikrishnan, Vivek
AU - Keller, Klaus
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Robert Nicholas, Nancy Tuana, Irene Schaperdoth, Ben Lee, Francisco Tutella, and Randy Miller for their valuable inputs. We also thank Claudia Tebaldi and Tony Wong for sharing data and for their valuable inputs. Additionally, we thank K. Joel Roop-Eckart for sharing his function approximating median probability return periods for observations. This work was supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Mid-Atlantic Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (MARISA) program under NOAA grant NA16OAR4310179 and the Penn State Center for Climate Risk Management. We are not aware of any real or perceived conflicts of interest for any authors. Any conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funding agencies. Any errors and opinions are, of course, those of the authors.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, The Author(s).
PY - 2019/12/1
Y1 - 2019/12/1
N2 - Coastal planners and decision makers design risk management strategies based on hazard projections. However, projections can differ drastically. What causes this divergence and which projection(s) should a decision maker adopt to create plans and adaptation efforts for improving coastal resiliency? Using Norfolk, Virginia, as a case study, we start to address these questions by characterizing and quantifying the drivers of differences between published sea-level rise and storm surge projections, and how these differences can impact efforts to improve coastal resilience. We find that assumptions about the complex behavior of ice sheets are the primary drivers of flood hazard diversity. Adopting a single hazard projection neglects key uncertainties and can lead to overconfident projections and downwards biased hazard estimates. These results highlight key avenues to improve the usefulness of hazard projections to inform decision-making such as (i) representing complex ice sheet behavior, (ii) covering decision-relevant timescales beyond this century, (iii) resolving storm surges with a low chance of occurring (e.g., a 0.2% chance per year), (iv) considering that storm surge projections may deviate from the historical record, and (v) communicating the considerable deep uncertainty.
AB - Coastal planners and decision makers design risk management strategies based on hazard projections. However, projections can differ drastically. What causes this divergence and which projection(s) should a decision maker adopt to create plans and adaptation efforts for improving coastal resiliency? Using Norfolk, Virginia, as a case study, we start to address these questions by characterizing and quantifying the drivers of differences between published sea-level rise and storm surge projections, and how these differences can impact efforts to improve coastal resilience. We find that assumptions about the complex behavior of ice sheets are the primary drivers of flood hazard diversity. Adopting a single hazard projection neglects key uncertainties and can lead to overconfident projections and downwards biased hazard estimates. These results highlight key avenues to improve the usefulness of hazard projections to inform decision-making such as (i) representing complex ice sheet behavior, (ii) covering decision-relevant timescales beyond this century, (iii) resolving storm surges with a low chance of occurring (e.g., a 0.2% chance per year), (iv) considering that storm surge projections may deviate from the historical record, and (v) communicating the considerable deep uncertainty.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41598-019-47587-6
DO - 10.1038/s41598-019-47587-6
M3 - Article
C2 - 31388022
AN - SCOPUS:85070334332
VL - 9
JO - Scientific Reports
JF - Scientific Reports
SN - 2045-2322
IS - 1
M1 - 11373
ER -