Abstract
Interdependent critical infrastructures in coastal regions, including transportation, electrical grid, and emergency services, are continually threatened by storm-induced flooding. This has been demonstrated a number of times, most recently by hurricanes such as Harvey and Maria, as well as Sandy and Katrina. The need to protect these infrastructures with robust protection mechanisms is critical for our continued existence along the world’s coastlines. Planning these protections is non-trivial given the rare-event nature of strong storms and climate change manifested through sea level rise. This article proposes a framework for a methodology that combines multiple computational models, stakeholder interviews, and optimization to find an optimal protective strategy over time for critical coastal infrastructure while being constrained by budgetary considerations.
Highlights
The nation’s and the world’s infrastructure is threatened by climate change
Summarizing, the paper is aiming to develop and present a new methodological framework for determining the optimal coastal protection strategy for interdependent critical infrastructure (ICI) subjected to the combination of storm surges and sea level rise, including the identification of models and data sets required, and to demonstrate the modeling and data integration using a simple, illustrative example
As part of developing this method, local stakeholders who have technical and empirical first-hand knowledge about ICI in New York City have been interviewed to elicit their understandings and perceptions of how critical infrastructure is impacted by storm surges, and how these impacts are amplified through infrastructure interdependencies
Summary
The nation’s and the world’s infrastructure is threatened by climate change. Nowhere is this threat more direct than along the coastlines where interdependent critical infrastructure (ICI) provides life-lines to those living in coastal regions and for those far into the interior of the nation as coastal communities provide critical conduits for goods and services to travel inward. The goal is to develop tools for determining optimal coastal protection of ICI accounting for climate change in ways that include the physical, financial, cultural, and social factors that are critical components for a successful adaptation (Adger et al 2005). Summarizing, the paper is aiming to develop and present a new methodological framework for determining the optimal coastal protection strategy for ICI subjected to the combination of storm surges and sea level rise, including the identification of models and data sets required, and to demonstrate the modeling and data integration using a simple, illustrative example. We will focus on three components of New York City’s ICI: the transportation infrastructure, the power infrastructure, and the emergency services infrastructure, in relation to their risk from storm surge and climate change through sea level rise
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