Development and Application of STORMTOOLS Design Load (SDL) Maps

Isabella Silverman,Blaze Engelman,Allison Munch,Brandon Markiewicz,Chris Pearson,Craig Swanson,George Tsiatas,Alexa Leone,Josph Sorrentino,Michael Rothenbucher,Malcolm Spaulding,Chris Baxter

doi:10.3390/jmse9070715

Abstract

Under the STORMTOOLS initiative, maps of the impact of sea level rise (SLR) (0 to 12 ft), nuisance flooding (1–10 yr), 25, 50, and 100 yr storms, and hindcasts of the four top ranked tropical storms have been developed for the coastal waters of Rhode Island (RI). Estimates of the design elevations, expressed in terms of the Base Flood Elevation (BFE) and thus incorporating surge and associated wave conditions, have also been developed, including the effects of SLR to facilitate structural design. Finally, Coastal Environmental Risk Index (CERI) maps have been developed to estimate the risk to individual structures and infrastructure. CERI employs the BFE maps in concert with damage curves for residential and commercial structures to make estimates of damage to individual structures. All maps are available via an ArcGIS Hub. The objective of this senior design capstone project was to develop STORMTOOLS Design Load maps (SDL) with a goal of estimating the hydrostatic, hydrodynamic, wave, and debris loading, based on ASCE/SEI 7–16 Minimum Design Standards methods, on residential structures in the RI coastal floodplain. The resulting maps display the unitized loads and thus can be scaled for any structure of interest. The goal of the maps is to provide environmental loads that support the design of structures, and reduce the time and cost required in performing the design and the permitting process, while also improving the accuracy and consistency of the designs. SDL maps were generated for all loads, including the effects of SLR for a test case: the Watch Hill/Misquamicut Beach, Westerly, along the southern RI coast. The Autodesk Professional Robot Structural Analysis software, along with SDL loading, was used to evaluate the designs for selected on-grade and pile-elevated residential structures. Damage curves were generated for each and shown to be consistent with the US Army Corps of Engineers empirical damage curves currently used in CERI.

Highlights

The STORMTOOLS initiative was started in 2015 to demonstrate the impacts of varioussea level rise (SLR) and storm surge scenarios for 100 yr storm events on structures and infrastructure along the coast of Rhode Island (RI) [1]
This paper summarizes work performed by a senior design class in Ocean and
The digital elevation model (DEM) for the study area is based on US Geological Survey (USGS) maps with a horizontal resolution of 3 ft

Summary

Introduction

The STORMTOOLS initiative was started in 2015 to demonstrate the impacts of variousSLR and storm surge scenarios for 100 yr storm events on structures and infrastructure along the coast of Rhode Island (RI) [1]. STORMTOOLS provides access to design tools for coastal and riverine flooding, available as a Geographic Information System (GIS)-based web service, that allows the user to select coastal areas of interest and assess damage on a high-resolution (3 ft, horizontal) grid for the state. In 2016 STORMTOOLs was extended to include a Coastal Environmental Risk Index (CERI) [2,3,4,5] and the supporting STORMTOOLS Design Elevation (SDE) maps [6]. CERI was developed to provide estimates of the damage to individual structures in coastal areas affected by inundation and waves [2]. The state emergency E-911 database and records from the tax assessor’s office for individual communities were used to provide information on building locations and types. Inundation and wave structural damage, by building type, were obtained from the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), North

Objectives

Methods

Findings

Conclusion