Climate Change and Changes in Compound Coastal‐Riverine Flooding Hazard Along the U.S. Coasts

Abstract

Abstract The cooccurrence of coastal and riverine flooding leads to compound events with substantial impacts on people and property in low‐lying coastal areas. Climate change could increase the level of compound flood hazard through higher extreme sea levels and river flows. Here, a bivariate flood hazard assessment method is proposed to estimate compound coastal‐riverine frequency under current and future climate conditions. A copula‐based approach is used to estimate the joint return period (JRP) of compound floods by incorporating sea‐level rise (SLR) and changes in peak river flows into the marginal distributions of flood drivers. Specifically, the changes in JRP of compound major coastal‐riverine flooding defined based on simultaneous exceedances above major coastal and riverine thresholds, are explored by midcentury. Subsequently, the increase in the probability of occurrence of at least one compound major coastal‐riverine flooding for a given period of time is quantified. The proposed compound flood hazard assessment is conducted at 26 paired tidal‐riverine stations along the Contiguous United States coast with long‐term data and defined flood thresholds. We show that the northeast Atlantic and the western part of the Gulf coasts are experiencing the highest compound major coastal‐riverine flood probability under current conditions. However, future SLR scenarios show the highest frequency amplification along the southeast Atlantic coast. The impact of changes in peak river flows is found to be considerably less than that of SLR. Climate change impacts, especially SLR, may lead to more frequent compound events, which cannot be ignored for future adaptation responses in estuary regions.

Keywords

• climate change
• compound flooding
• copula
• generalized pareto distribution
• sea level rise