Improving the Efficiency of Flooding and Wave Predictions

Summary

Coastal communities rely on predictions of flooding caused by storms, but these predictions can take hours on even the fastest supercomputers. In our project, we are speeding up the models to predict hurricane waves and coastal flooding, and we are improving the forecast guidance for use by decision makers. In Year 10, we will support the widespread adoption of these technologies and transfer them to end users.

Project Impact

Our CRC project has enabled flooding predictions to be faster.

There are obvious benefits to speeding up the predictions of coastal flooding due to hurricanes. The largest benefit occurs during storms – if the predictions can be completed faster, then they can be shared faster with emergency managers and other decision-makers, who can then have more time to include them in their real-time response. There are also benefits between storms – long-term adaptation studies are based on flood predictions from hundreds of possible future storms, and if these predictions can be completed faster, then they can lead to adaptations that are faster (by finishing early) and/or more accurate (by considering more future storms).

Investigator