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Floods

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Report
How Can the Department of the Air Force Prepare for Natural Hazards?
Some Air Force facilities are exposed to flooding, high winds, wildfires, or even multiple hazards. Future costs of damages are uncertain, and climate change could affect the frequency and scale of these hazards. The process for making investment decisions regarding resilience should be flexible.
Aug 9, 2021
Research Brief
Green Infrastructure Can Help Manage Rainfall in an Urban Watershed
Urbanization, inadequate investment in aging infrastructure, and more-frequent heavy rainfall events due to climate change have led to sewer overflows, flooding, and reduced water quality in U.S. cities. The challenges of increasing volumes of stormwater can be addressed by a mix of solutions.
Oct 29, 2020

Explore Flooding

Journal Article
Perceived Environmental Threats, Place Attachment, and Natural Resource Employment: Predicting Willingness to Move from a Threatened Coastline
This study examines the factors predicting willingness to move among residents of southeast Louisiana.
Jan 25, 2023
Brochure
Disaster Management and Resilience
This brochure describes RAND's work, which directly supports decisionmakers in developing actionable planning and policy for disaster management and resilience.
Oct 20, 2022
Multimedia
Observed Impacts, Future Risks, and Adaptation Solutions
An overview of testimony by Robert J. Lempert presented before the Minnesota House of Representatives Committee on Climate and Energy Finance and Policy on March 10, 2022.
Apr 13, 2022
Journal Article
Do We Prioritize Floodplains for Development and Farming? Mapping Global Dependence and Exposure to Inundation
Mapping global floodplain exposure and dependence.
Jan 21, 2022
Journal Article
Lessons from Harvey: Improving Traditional Damage Estimates with Social Media Sourced Damage Estimates
Social media systems were incredibly active during disasters. Traditional sources such as the initial FEMA damage estimates can miss areas of heavy impact. This study provides a novel use case in crisis informatics.
Nov 16, 2021
Research Brief
The Growing Exposure of Air Force Installations to Natural Disasters
Some Department of the Air Force installations face high levels of exposure to flooding, wildfires, or high winds. Twenty installations have areas with high or very high wildfire potential.
Sep 16, 2021
Tool
Developing Future Projected Intensity-Duration-Frequency (IDF) Curves: Technical Report
To support stormwater managers in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed and Virginia in adapting to climate change, this study updated intensity-duration-frequency (IDF) curves, a common tool used for stormwater infrastructure design, to reflect future climate changes.
Jul 9, 2021
Report
Managing Heavy Rainfall with Green Infrastructure
An evaluation of Pittsburgh's Negley Run watershed shows how green stormwater infrastructure could reduce flooding and provide positive economic benefits in areas that face urgent flood risk.
Oct 26, 2020
Report
Insuring Public Buildings, Contents, Vehicles, and Equipment Against Disasters
What insurance and financial risk management practices do state and local governments employ for buildings, contents, vehicles, and equipment, and what role does Federal Emergency Management Agency assistance play in these decisions?
Oct 9, 2020
Journal Article
Reasonable and Risk-Based? Replacing NFIP Generally Subsidized Rates with a Means-Tested Subsidy
Our results suggest that the savings associated with replacing subsidies with our proposed means-tested subsidy would be $183 million per year if all households in the study area hold NFIP policies, or a savings of approximately $3800 per policy.
Jul 22, 2020
Essay
Civilians and Military Collaborate to Address Climate Change
The Hampton Roads area in Virginia is home to more than 1.7 million people, a major port, and more military installations than anywhere else in the United States. Its rising sea levels and floods brought together civilian and military officials on a project to mitigate damage and foster resiliency.
May 13, 2020
Journal Article
Economic Losses from Extreme Weather in the U.S. Gulf Coast Region: Spatially Differential Contributions of Climate Hazard and Socioeconomic Exposure and Vulnerability
A novel socio-climate hazard typology (SCT) was developed that integrates locally defined climate hazard and socioeconomic exposure and social vulnerability typologies. We regressed the SCT types and their constituent hazard and socioeconomic components against the cumulative economic loss from extreme weather events in order to attribute economic losses to different interactions among climate hazards, socioeconomic exposure, and vulnerability.
May 12, 2020
Journal Article
Climate-Resilient Planning for Urban Stormwater and Wastewater Utilities: Workshop Proceedings
This document summarizes the Climate-Resilient Planning for Urban Stormwater and Wastewater Utilities Workshop, held July 16–17, 2019 at the Newtown Creek Wastewater Resource Recovery Facility in Brooklyn, NY.
Mar 5, 2020
Journal Article
Decision Making Under Deep Uncertainty: Climate Change and Infrastructure Management
This chapter very briefly addresses issues and approaches to decision making on adaptation to climate change.
Nov 12, 2019
Journal Article
Creating a Water Risk Index to Improve Community Resilience
We demonstrate two methods to combine water hazard data with a derived water vulnerability index to characterize water risk. We then compare the costs of two potential government policies: buyout of the home versus funding for foundation elevation.
Oct 23, 2019
Journal Article
Flood Damage Reduction Benefits and Costs in Louisiana's 2017 Coastal Master Plan
This article builds on the modeling analysis conducted for Louisiana's 2017 Coastal Master Plan. We use the Coastal Louisiana Risk Assessment model to project coastal flood damage over time under different scenarios and with the master plan implemented.
Oct 23, 2019
Journal Article
Ensemble-Based Flood Vulnerability Assessment for Probable Maximum Flood in a Changing Environment
A high-resolution hydro-meteorologic model was used to develop probabilistic flood maps representing the response of indices of rainfall extremes, probable maximum precipitation (PMP) and probable maximum flood (PMF), to climate change.
Jun 28, 2019
Tool
Chesapeake Bay Climate Impacts Summary and Outlook: Spring 2019: Seasonal Precipitation Analysis
This web-based tool aims to inform Chesapeake Bay Watershed policymakers, practitioners, and community leaders on Spring 2019 climate, as well as historical and projected future climate trends. Analysis of seasonal precipitation data are shown.
Jun 12, 2019

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RAND Topic:
Flooding

Topic Synonyms:
Deluge;
Floods;
Overflow

Research conducted by

Researcher Spotlight

Michael T. Wilson

Policy Researcher

Michael T. Wilson is a policy researcher at the RAND Corporation, professor of policy analysis at Pardee RAND Graduate School, and former landscape architect serving as a member of the Boston Conservation Commission. Wilson is a strategic planner who works with local, state, and federal…
Jordan R. Fischbach

Adjunct Policy Researcher

Jordan R. Fischbach (he/him) is an adjunct policy researcher at the RAND Corporation and the director of Planning and Policy Research at The Water Institute of the Gulf. He codirected the RAND Climate Resilience Center from 2015 to 2020, and his research focuses on climate adaptation, urban…

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