Sea Level Rise and Coastal Flooding

Weather events have the ability to impact large numbers of people in this country in very drastic ways.  This was made very evident with Hurricane Sandy's landfall along the eastern seaboard in 2012, and hopefully brought some attention to the fact that any increase in sea level, either on its own or in combination with a large weather event, can displace, harm and cause great economic impact to a large portion of the population.  Planning and analysis of the likelihood and nature of these kinds of potential catastrophes is essential.

Hawaii, because of its isolated location in the warm tropical waters of the south Pacific, is especially vulnerable to water-related catastrophes, such as tsunamis and typhoons.  On all of the Hawaiian Islands many of the schools and other public facilities that are located on the lower elevations nearest to the shore have tsunami drills, in order to prepare for these events.  The above map details some of the potential impact of a 6 foot sea level rise to the District of Honolulu, on the south eastern edge of the island of Oahu.  The elevation of the district is measured, and the extent of a certain rise in the water level can be anticipated by isolating those areas below a certain threshold.  The potential depth of the water at these lower shoreline locations can be calculated as well, and overlaid with various census measures to better describe the characteristics of the population directly affected.  The analysis completed in the creation of this map revealed that the total population within the 6 foot sea level rise flood zone is 60,005 persons, the majority of which are Caucasian, under the age of 65, and do not own the residence that they occupy.  These kinds of measures are important to account for in modeling the impacts of sea level rise, as awareness of especially vulnerable populations within the flood zone is necessary to anticipate measures needed to protect the affected population at large.