Evolving tides aggravate nuisance flooding along the U.S. coastline

Sida Li; Thomas Wahl; Stefan A Talke; David A Jay; Philip M Orton; Xinghui Liang; Guocheng Wang; Lintao Liu

doi:10.1126/sciadv.abe2412

Evolving tides aggravate nuisance flooding along the U.S. coastline

Sci Adv. 2021 Mar 5;7(10):eabe2412. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abe2412. Print 2021 Mar.

Authors

Sida Li^{1

2

3}, Thomas Wahl⁴, Stefan A Talke⁵, David A Jay⁶, Philip M Orton⁷, Xinghui Liang¹, Guocheng Wang¹, Lintao Liu⁸

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Geodesy and Earth's Dynamics, Innovation Academy for Precision Measurement Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430077, China.
² University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
³ Department of Civil, Environmental and Construction Engineering and National Center for Integrated Coastal Research, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32186, USA.
⁴ Department of Civil, Environmental and Construction Engineering and National Center for Integrated Coastal Research, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32186, USA. t.wahl@ucf.edu llt@asch.whigg.ac.cn.
⁵ Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA 93407, USA.
⁶ Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Portland State University, Portland, OR 97201, USA.
⁷ Department of Civil, Environmental and Ocean Engineering, Stevens Institute of Technology, Castle Point on Hudson, Hoboken, NJ 07030, USA.
⁸ State Key Laboratory of Geodesy and Earth's Dynamics, Innovation Academy for Precision Measurement Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430077, China. t.wahl@ucf.edu llt@asch.whigg.ac.cn.

Abstract

Nuisance flooding (NF) is defined as minor, nondestructive flooding that causes substantial, accumulating socioeconomic impacts to coastal communities. While sea-level rise is the main driver for the observed increase in NF events in the United States, we show here that secular changes in tides also contribute. An analysis of 40 tidal gauge records from U.S. coasts finds that, at 18 locations, NF increased due to tidal amplification, while decreases in tidal range suppressed NF at 11 locations. Estuaries show the largest changes in NF attributable to tide changes, and these can often be traced to anthropogenic alterations. Limited long-term measurements from estuaries suggest that the effects of evolving tides are more widespread than the locations considered here. The total number of NF days caused by tidal changes has increased at an exponential rate since 1950, adding ~27% to the total number of NF events observed in 2019 across locations with tidal amplification.

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