Sea Level Rise Impacts to Military Installations in Lower Chesapeake Bay

Abstract

A risk assessment methodology has been developed and implemented to quantify eustatic sea level rise (SLR) and coastal storm impacts on losses to military installation assets and mission capabilities in Lower Chesapeake Bay. The approach is a multi-criteria risk assessment founded on the framework used for the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration (LACPR) Project and the Mississippi Coastal Improvements Program (USACE 2008). A set of four SLR scenarios are being analyzed and include 0.5 to 2.0 meters in 0.5-meter increments over equal time durations of 100 years. Simulations start with the base year of 2000 and end in year 2100. Results are used as inputs to military installation asset and mission capability loss relationships. The entire risk assessment is composed of hydrodynamic storm surge and wave modeling in conjunction with sediment transport, geomorphologic, and environmental characterization analyses. This paper focuses on the regional hydrodynamic storm surge and wave modeling methodology and analysis. INTRODUCTION In 2009, the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP) funded four pilot studies to address a variety of risk-based issues surrounding the topic of sea level rise and its potential impacts on military installations in the nearand longterm (http://www.serdp.org/Program-Areas/Resource-Conservation-and-ClimateChange). The RC-1701 Project, entitled, Risk Quantification for Sustaining Coastal Military Installation Assets and Mission Capabilities was funded to examine potential effects of sea-level rise over the course of the next 100 years (2000 – 2100), and demonstrate the use of the US Army Engineer Research and Development Center’s