Earth Data Science
Coupling the National Water Model to the Coastal Ocean for Predicting Water Hazards
Description
This NOAA Integrated Ocean Observations System/Coastal Ocean Modeling Testbed project is examining the connection between inland/riverine flooding and coastal water levels as they interact in the middle area where both are important to overall inundation extents and depths. The middle zone, in which these two flooding components interact, is not currently well modeled. This is an active area of research, principally because of the increasing co-occurrence of hurricane-driven storm surge and precipitation-related riverine runoff, called “compound flooding”. The project will specifically establish a testbed for different approaches to this model coupling problem. The coastal model used in this project is the ADCIRC storm surge, tide, and wind-wave model. Several upland/hydrologic/hydraulic models are being studied, including the NOAA National Water Model and the US Army Corps model Gridded Surface Subsurface Hydrologic Analysis (GSSHA). The primary test case is of Hurricane Florence (2018), which caused extensive damage from riverine flooding and had several locations where compound flooding is demonstrable.
RENCI's Role
RENCI experts are developing new ways to connect riverine hydraulic models to the coastal storm surge model ADCIRC to better simulate and predict interactions between riverine flooding and coastal storm surge.