Author:
Sanjib Sharma
Co-Authors:
Klaus Keller, Robert Nicholas
Institution:
The Pennsylvania State University
Abstract
Floods drive devastating climate-related disasters. These risks are expected to rise with environmental and
demographic changes. A sound understanding of dynamic flood hazards is crucial to inform the design and
implementation of flood risk management strategies. We develop a framework to assess riverine flood risks for
current and projected climate conditions. We implement the framework for rivers across the state of Pennsylvania,
United States. Our projections suggest that flood hazards across Pennsylvania are overall increasing with future
climate change. The analysis requires an integrated approach since the uncertainty in flood inundation
projections is impacted by uncertainties surrounding climate change, and hydrodynamic model structure and
parameter. We will discuss how this framework can provide regional and dynamic flood-hazard assessments and
help to inform the design of risk management strategies.