Video

Video by Marisa Gaona, Desiree Kapler, Christopher Kieffer

Coastal Hazards System

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Engineer Research and Development Center

March 4, 2024 | 6:11

Following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), along with their partners, developed and deployed innovative numerical simulation and probabilistic analysis methods to better quantify hurricane storm surge flooding.

This effort culminated in the development of the Coastal Hazards System (CHS), a national-scale, multi-agency initiative that provides accurate, robust, and consistent quantification of coastal storm hazards along U.S. coastlines and other locations of interest to national security. Data from the CHS can be used for various applications in support of USACE’s Coastal Storm Risk Management (CSRM), Flood Risk Management (FRM), and Navigation (NAV) missions, including coastal engineering design, risk assessment, and inundation mapping.

USACE coastal projects, federal research and development initiatives, flood-risk mapping, and emergency management activities all use CHS storm data to plan, design, and ascertain risk. These activities are supported by high-resolution numerical modeling and cutting-edge machine learning analyses. Additionally, the CHS has led to an improved understanding of complex coastal storm processes by federal, state, and local governments, and the public at large.