Earth Data Science
Coastal Hazard and Risk Modeling - Evacuation Modeling
Description
To save lives, it is critical to know the best way to protect people in the path of a hurricane. While emergency managers use models to inform evacuation routes and timing, existing models are based primarily on “clearance time,” or ensuring that evacuees are on the roads for the shortest amount of time. The models do not take into account what populations are at most at risk, potential for injury or loss of life, or other social factors.
The storm surge and wave model ADCIRC forms the basis of a new comprehensive tropical cyclone impacts modeling system that integrates coastal oceanographic processes with mesoscale meteorological and hydrological processes to model water levels, winds, precipitation, and river drainage during emergency events. This comprehensive approach to modeling the hurricane-related hazards and uncertainties is then used in a state-of-the-art evacuation and sheltering model that optimizes for the aggregate risk to a coastal population, instead of only minimizing clearance times. The models are computed on RENCI supercomputers.
RENCI's Role
RENCI improves computer models for evacuation and sheltering plans by characterizing uncertainty in hurricane forecasts, including consideration for at-risk populations, and accounting for natural and built environments along the coast.