Geospatial Environments for Hurricane Risk Assessment: Applications to Situational Awareness and Resilience Planning in New Jersey

Mitigation of losses due to coastal hazards has become an increasingly urgent and challenging problem in light of rising seas and the continued escalation of coastal population density. Unfortunately, stakeholders responsible for assuring the safety of these coastal communities are not equipped with...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Tracy Kijewski-Correa, Alexandros Taflanidis, Charles Vardeman, James Sweet, Jize Zhang, Reda Snaiki, Teng Wu, Zachariah Silver, Andrew Kennedy
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2020-09-01
Series:Frontiers in Built Environment
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fbuil.2020.549106/full
_version_ 1818158166488121344
author Tracy Kijewski-Correa
Alexandros Taflanidis
Charles Vardeman
James Sweet
Jize Zhang
Reda Snaiki
Teng Wu
Zachariah Silver
Andrew Kennedy
author_facet Tracy Kijewski-Correa
Alexandros Taflanidis
Charles Vardeman
James Sweet
Jize Zhang
Reda Snaiki
Teng Wu
Zachariah Silver
Andrew Kennedy
author_sort Tracy Kijewski-Correa
collection DOAJ
description Mitigation of losses due to coastal hazards has become an increasingly urgent and challenging problem in light of rising seas and the continued escalation of coastal population density. Unfortunately, stakeholders responsible for assuring the safety of these coastal communities are not equipped with the engineering research community’s latest tools for high-fidelity risk assessment and geospatial decision support. In the event of a hurricane or nor’easter, such capabilities are exceptionally vital to project storm impacts on critical infrastructure and other municipal assets and to inform preemptive actions that can save lives and mitigate property damage. In response, a web-based visualization environment was developed using the GeoNode content management system, informed by the needs of municipal stakeholders. Within this secure platform, registered users with roles in planning, emergency management and first response can simulate the impact of hurricanes and nor’easters using the platform’s storm Hazard Projection (SHP) Tool. The SHP Tool integrates fast-to-compute windfield models with surrogate models of high-fidelity storm surge and waves to rapidly simulate user-defined storm scenarios, considering the effects of tides, sea level rise, dune breaches and track uncertainty. In the case of a landfalling hurricane, SHP tool outputs are automatically loaded into the user’s dashboard to visualize the projected wind, storm surge and wave run-up based on the latest track information published by the National Hurricane Center. Under either use case, outputs of the SHP Tool are visualized within a robust collaborative geospatial environment supporting the seamless exploration of centralized libraries of geographic information system (GIS) data from federal, state, county and local authorities, with tools to add user-supplied annotations such as notes or other geospatial mark-ups. This paper will overview the development and deployment of this platform in the State of New Jersey, detailing the cyberinfrastructure design and underlying computational models, as well as the user stories that inspired the platform’s functionalities and interfaces. The study concludes with reflections from the process of piloting this project with stakeholders at the state and municipal level to support more risk-responsive and data-informed decision making.
first_indexed 2024-12-11T15:25:46Z
format Article
id doaj.art-5623ca5ca0314cf897228c9e6dae4313
institution Directory Open Access Journal
issn 2297-3362
language English
last_indexed 2024-12-11T15:25:46Z
publishDate 2020-09-01
publisher Frontiers Media S.A.
record_format Article
series Frontiers in Built Environment
spelling doaj.art-5623ca5ca0314cf897228c9e6dae43132022-12-22T01:00:12ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Built Environment2297-33622020-09-01610.3389/fbuil.2020.549106549106Geospatial Environments for Hurricane Risk Assessment: Applications to Situational Awareness and Resilience Planning in New JerseyTracy Kijewski-Correa0Alexandros Taflanidis1Charles Vardeman2James Sweet3Jize Zhang4Reda Snaiki5Teng Wu6Zachariah Silver7Andrew Kennedy8Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences, College of Engineering and Keough School of Global Affairs, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, United StatesDepartment of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences, College of Engineering, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, United StatesCenter for Research Computing, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, United StatesCenter for Research Computing, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, United StatesDepartment of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences, College of Engineering, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, United StatesDepartment of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, United StatesDepartment of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, United StatesDepartment of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences, College of Engineering, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, United StatesDepartment of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences, College of Engineering, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, United StatesMitigation of losses due to coastal hazards has become an increasingly urgent and challenging problem in light of rising seas and the continued escalation of coastal population density. Unfortunately, stakeholders responsible for assuring the safety of these coastal communities are not equipped with the engineering research community’s latest tools for high-fidelity risk assessment and geospatial decision support. In the event of a hurricane or nor’easter, such capabilities are exceptionally vital to project storm impacts on critical infrastructure and other municipal assets and to inform preemptive actions that can save lives and mitigate property damage. In response, a web-based visualization environment was developed using the GeoNode content management system, informed by the needs of municipal stakeholders. Within this secure platform, registered users with roles in planning, emergency management and first response can simulate the impact of hurricanes and nor’easters using the platform’s storm Hazard Projection (SHP) Tool. The SHP Tool integrates fast-to-compute windfield models with surrogate models of high-fidelity storm surge and waves to rapidly simulate user-defined storm scenarios, considering the effects of tides, sea level rise, dune breaches and track uncertainty. In the case of a landfalling hurricane, SHP tool outputs are automatically loaded into the user’s dashboard to visualize the projected wind, storm surge and wave run-up based on the latest track information published by the National Hurricane Center. Under either use case, outputs of the SHP Tool are visualized within a robust collaborative geospatial environment supporting the seamless exploration of centralized libraries of geographic information system (GIS) data from federal, state, county and local authorities, with tools to add user-supplied annotations such as notes or other geospatial mark-ups. This paper will overview the development and deployment of this platform in the State of New Jersey, detailing the cyberinfrastructure design and underlying computational models, as well as the user stories that inspired the platform’s functionalities and interfaces. The study concludes with reflections from the process of piloting this project with stakeholders at the state and municipal level to support more risk-responsive and data-informed decision making.https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fbuil.2020.549106/fullrisk assessmenthurricanenor’easterwindstorm surgewaves
spellingShingle Tracy Kijewski-Correa
Alexandros Taflanidis
Charles Vardeman
James Sweet
Jize Zhang
Reda Snaiki
Teng Wu
Zachariah Silver
Andrew Kennedy
Geospatial Environments for Hurricane Risk Assessment: Applications to Situational Awareness and Resilience Planning in New Jersey
Frontiers in Built Environment
risk assessment
hurricane
nor’easter
wind
storm surge
waves
title Geospatial Environments for Hurricane Risk Assessment: Applications to Situational Awareness and Resilience Planning in New Jersey
title_full Geospatial Environments for Hurricane Risk Assessment: Applications to Situational Awareness and Resilience Planning in New Jersey
title_fullStr Geospatial Environments for Hurricane Risk Assessment: Applications to Situational Awareness and Resilience Planning in New Jersey
title_full_unstemmed Geospatial Environments for Hurricane Risk Assessment: Applications to Situational Awareness and Resilience Planning in New Jersey
title_short Geospatial Environments for Hurricane Risk Assessment: Applications to Situational Awareness and Resilience Planning in New Jersey
title_sort geospatial environments for hurricane risk assessment applications to situational awareness and resilience planning in new jersey
topic risk assessment
hurricane
nor’easter
wind
storm surge
waves
url https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fbuil.2020.549106/full
work_keys_str_mv AT tracykijewskicorrea geospatialenvironmentsforhurricaneriskassessmentapplicationstosituationalawarenessandresilienceplanninginnewjersey
AT alexandrostaflanidis geospatialenvironmentsforhurricaneriskassessmentapplicationstosituationalawarenessandresilienceplanninginnewjersey
AT charlesvardeman geospatialenvironmentsforhurricaneriskassessmentapplicationstosituationalawarenessandresilienceplanninginnewjersey
AT jamessweet geospatialenvironmentsforhurricaneriskassessmentapplicationstosituationalawarenessandresilienceplanninginnewjersey
AT jizezhang geospatialenvironmentsforhurricaneriskassessmentapplicationstosituationalawarenessandresilienceplanninginnewjersey
AT redasnaiki geospatialenvironmentsforhurricaneriskassessmentapplicationstosituationalawarenessandresilienceplanninginnewjersey
AT tengwu geospatialenvironmentsforhurricaneriskassessmentapplicationstosituationalawarenessandresilienceplanninginnewjersey
AT zachariahsilver geospatialenvironmentsforhurricaneriskassessmentapplicationstosituationalawarenessandresilienceplanninginnewjersey
AT andrewkennedy geospatialenvironmentsforhurricaneriskassessmentapplicationstosituationalawarenessandresilienceplanninginnewjersey