Adaptation Design to Sea Level Rise

This chapter provides information on sea level rise and adaptation design strategies to alleviate the flooding impacts of this threat to the coastal communities of the United States. It describes and examines various adaptation strategies for flooding caused by storm surge, sea level rise, and heavy storms. The chapter determines which strategies would be most effective in increasing the resiliency of coastal infrastructures against flooding while minimizing damage and cost with specific case studies from the Hampton Roads region. Two separate neighborhoods in Norfolk, Chesterfield Heights and The Hague, were studied as a result of them being continuously inundated with sea level rise, tidal storm surge, heavy precipitation, and flooding. The proposed adaptation design responses for both neighborhoods would alleviate some of the peak flows and associated flooding, which would improve the existing capacity of the storm sewers in both neighborhoods.