Changing Flood Risk: Extreme Precipitation, Sea Level Rise, and Inundation

Research Team Leadership

  • PI: Eric P Salathé, University of Washington Bothell  

Project Overview

Climate change is a major driver of changing flood risk due to impacts on sea level rise, heavy rainfall events, and the accumulation and persistence of snow. In particular, relatively little is known about the future changes of extreme precipitation at the regional level. The goals of this project are to link models and approaches, spanning from global-scale to regional climate models, to hydrologic models and ultimately to reach-scale hydrodynamic modeling. The analysis is developing pilot studies using river basins in the Pacific Northwest that are subject to both rain and snowmelt driven floods. Results will be generalized for application to other regions. This work will directly integrate with the companion project on Scenario-based Flood Risk Mapping, which will translate the geophysical flood scenarios to develop non-stationary risk projections.