It is flooding more than we know: climate injustice from floods due to sea level rise
Summary
Climate induced sea-level rise (SLR) is increasing coastal flood exposure globally, with tens of millions of people at risk to coastal flooding in the United States alone. The proposed NASA interdisciplinary project aims to address this issue by disseminating maps, real-time data streams, and sensor-based estimates of flood frequency at a community level to support local governments in demonstrating potential inequities and quantifying flood exposure as they seek funding for climate adaptation. Specifically, we propose to provide new observations of flood extent and frequency in marginalized communities distant from tide gauges to support community-based understanding of flood risk. We will integrate NASAs higher spatial and temporal resolution satellite observations with in situ data streams to identify flooding in these communities. We are leveraging newly developed water level sensors and smart (with on-device machine learning) cameras, efforts led by PIs Anarde, Hino, and Goldstein. These sensors offer a unique opportunity to test the effectiveness of commercial SmallSat sensors (e.g., PlanetScope and Capella) and satellite observations (e.g., Sentinel-1 and upcoming NASA ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) in capturing flood extent at high resolution across various coastal landscapes, while also providing real-time, privacy-preserving data streams of flood hazards for partner communities. The proposed project will build upon years of regional work on remote sensing tools, socioeconomics, and assessments to move into a new phase that centers NASA ESDs commitment to environmental justice (EJ) and climate justice (CJ) at the forefront of NASA-funded interdisciplinary research, and to address NASAs high priority EJ/CJ needs to study exposure and vulnerability to flooding hazard.