Modeling the impact of climate change and extreme storm events at the nexus of the natural and built environments.
Room 2, Stecca 1 Building – Agripolis, Legnaro. Time 10:00-12:00
14.06.2016
Speaker: prof. John Radke
University of California Berkeley
Global climate change will bring about sea-level rise (SLR), greater flooding and
higher storm surges in coastal regions. Analyzing impacts of catastrophic
environmental events is crucial to identifying vulnerabilities and facilitating
sustainable infrastructure at the nexus of the natural and built environments. We
model the risk of critical infrastructure failure due to impacts from sea-level rise
and extreme storms in the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento - San Joaquin Delta
(Bay-Delta) regions.
Using LiDAR data for California’s Bay-Delta region, we build a data-rich surface
model combining bathymetry, land surface elevations and significant surface
feature elevations that influence water flows, such as building footprints, levees,
roadways, etc. We add to this model historic tidal and river water surface
elevation data and simulate in a 3D hydrodynamic model hourly water surface
elevations, over a 72 hour period during a 100-year storm event at projected
future SLR. Our findings facilitate proactive designs that insure sustained
infrastructure through better understanding of potential vulnerabilities posed by
catastrophic environmental events.
