Scientists sound the alarm over chronic flooding, with Hampton Roads hard-hit

June 22--The Union of Concerned Scientists (USC) is sounding the alarm ever louder with its most recent report on chronic flooding from sea-level rise, this time drilling down to individual properties at risk.

According to a report released Monday, some 311,000 coastal homes in the U.S. worth $120 billion today will be flooded about 26 times a year by 2045 -- 9,000 of those homes are in Virginia, and 3,000 of them are in Hampton Roads.

By the year 2100, those national numbers jump to 2.4 million homes with a market value of about $912 billion. And, in Virginia, to 115,000 homes worth about $31 billion.

Last summer, the USC issued a report that honed in on the community level and called it a "wake-up call" to policymakers to take the threat of chronic flooding from rising seas seriously.

This time, the USC partnered with the online real estate company Zillow to hone even further -- on individual homes and businesses -- and considers it a call to action.

"Actions today, especially the amount of global warming emissions we release, will help determine what our coasts will look like at the end of the century," Astrid Caldas, a UCS senior scientist and report co-author, said in a statement.

The USC calls the Virginia numbers "quite sobering."

The scientists found that, by 2045, Hampton and Poquoson would be hardest-hit on the Peninsula, with 429 homes and 758 homes, respectively, suffering chronic inundation, defined as flooding at least 26 times a year even in the absence of major storms.

Newport News would fare much better, with only 12 homes affected, and York County 56.

But, by 2100, with the sea level in Hampton Roads projected to rise by seven feet in one scenario, the number of homes that chronically flood would explode: 16,739 in Hampton, 4,253 in Poquoson, 1,173 in Newport News and 1,528 in York County.

The total market value of those homes today is more than $5 billion.

"For some communities," said report co-author Kristy Dahl, "the potential hit to the local tax base could be staggering."

Scientists project that a quarter of the land in Hampton would chronically flood by 2080, as would more than half of Joint Base Langley-Eustis.

Commercial properties are also in jeopardy -- 300 in the state by 2045, and about 3,000 by the year 2100. Those properties are assessed at about $3 billion today.

For their analysis, the scientists considered three sea-level rise scenarios developed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), based on whether actions are taken to curtail the carbon emissions that fuel melting ice sheets and the thermal expansion of the oceans.

The low scenario projects a global average rise of 1.6 feet over 1992 levels by the end of the century, the intermediate scenario a rise of four feet, and the high scenario a rise of 6.6 feet. Scientists used the high rate of rise for their report.

But seas don't rise uniformly. For coastal Virginia, for instance, which is experiencing a higher rate of rise than most other regions, scientists considered a rise of two feet by 2045 and 7.2 feet by 2100.

Not surprisingly, the scientists urge a science-based response to the threat "that helps communities understand their risks, assess their choices and implement adaptation plans while prioritizing equitable outcomes."

"Short-sighted policies and market drivers will need to be phased out to discourage risky behavior," said climate resilience analyst Shana Udvardy in a statement.

Scientists recommend a three-pronged policy approach, with little time to waste:

* Eliminate policies that perpetuate risky coastal development, limit building in flood-prone areas, update flood maps and building codes, safeguard natural flood protections and reform flood insurance premiums;

* Adequately fund disaster-response and pre-disaster programs that take climate projections into account, increase funding for flood-risk maps, for natural ecosystem safeguards and large-scale home buyout programs, and implement "robust" flood-risk management standards and building codes; and

* Create "bold new policies" and pioneering measures to help property owners relocate from chronically flooded areas and to preserve natural ecosystems and cultural heritage sites, plus governance models for decisionmaking in a new era of "challenging tradeoffs."

The USC was established in 1969 to promote scientific research to solve environmental and social problems.

To read its report "Underwater: Rising Seas, Chronic Floods and the Implications for U.S. Coastal Real Estate," go to https://www.ucsusa.org

Contact Dietrich at 757-247-7892 or [email protected]. Follow on Twitter at DP_Dietrich

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