Water Infrastructure Vulnerability to Coastal Flood Hazards : A Space-Place Analysis of Manteo, New Bern, and Plymouth, North Carolina

Abstract

With the impending threat of sea level rise, as well as the recurring annual danger of storm surges during hurricane season and floods from heavy rain events, North Carolina's coast is especially vulnerable to coastal flooding, due mostly to large extents of low lying coastal areas. Water utility infrastructure is a vital resource to any community, while concurrently containing hazardous material that could be potentially devastating to the residents if parts are damaged. Unfortunately, they are commonly located in highly vulnerable areas along the coast. Hurricane Sandy illustrated how large magnitude natural hazards can damage vulnerable infrastructure, leaving municipalities burdened with enormous repair costs, as well as large parts of the city without running clean water. To reduce the vulnerability of these important systems in several coastal North Carolina communities, New Bern, Plymouth and Manteo were assessed for their vulnerability to storm surge, sea level rise, and riverine flooding using downscaled surge flood models, and applying Geographic Information Systems techniques to improve the accuracy of Digital Elevation Models used in flood mapping. A geospatial overlay of the water infrastructure assists in the computation of vulnerability of this resource to these risks, which will be used to promote proactive solutions to city officials in order to reduce their vulnerability. By modeling these different hazards for three different communities with different geographical contexts, we can observe how they differ within and throughout differing areas.