Building Flood Resilience Across the South Atlantic

A core objective of the South Atlantic RISA is to strengthen the ability of communities, practitioners, and decision-makers to understand, prepare for, and make decisions related to weather-related hazards like floods.

Over the past five years, the Carolinas RISA team has worked with residents and local partners in the Town of Carolina Beach to explore how chronic flooding and sea-level rise may affect future community livability. The team conducted a series of community workshops to identify and evaluate the effectiveness of mitigation interventions specific to chronic flooding. Residents and town staff identified potential flood mitigation strategies, which the RISA team evaluated using a locally tailored model to quantify reductions in flood depth and duration under current and future conditions. Participants then refined and prioritized strategies based on the results.

After four workshops, the group produced a narrow set of prioritized flood mitigation strategies grounded in both science and local knowledge, which was then presented to the public and to policymakers.