FloodsRising Tide: Seeking Solutions to S.C.’s Mounting Nuisance Floods

Published 27 May 2020

While a rising tide may lift all boats, it spells trouble for South Carolina coastal communities where flooding has already long been a fact of life. Low-lying areas such as the state’s more than 2,000 miles of coastline are increasingly prone to floods and storm surge as sea levels rise — driven by a more variable global climate system. Researchers are examining green solutions to help those communities fight back.

While a rising tide may lift all boats, it spells trouble for South Carolina coastal communities where flooding has already long been a fact of life.

Low-lying areas such as the state’s more than 2,000 miles of coastline are increasingly prone to floods and storm surge as sea levels rise — driven by a more variable global climate system — but a team from Clemson University is leading research in the state to uncover green solutions to help those communities fight back.

“In coastal South Carolina and beyond, nuisance flooding from extremely high spring or ‘king’ tides can disrupt life for residents and visitors in our communities,” said Daniel Hitchcock, an associate professor at Clemson’s Baruch Institute of Coastal Ecology and Forest Science. “These flood events are more routine than our unprecedented tropical events over the past few years. Recent large tropical events have certainly opened our eyes to potential adverse impacts and demonstrate the need for better data and predictive tools, as well as socioeconomic assessment.”

But a new grant gives researchers throughout the Southeast, including the team from Clemson led by Hitchcock, the opportunity to evaluate cost-effective infrastructure interventions for mitigating flood risks in coastal locales.

Clemson says that the Institute for Water and Environmental Resilience (IWER) at Stetson University is collaborating with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office for Coastal Management and Sea Grant College Programs in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. The research opportunity is made possible by funding from a $404,000, two-year Karl Havens Memorial South Atlantic Regional Research on Coastal Community Resilience Grant.

“The goal of the project is to assess how green infrastructure interventions — like natural land conservation and restoration of coastal wetlands, oyster reefs and beach dunes — may provide cost-effective flood mitigation within essential transportation networks,” said Jason Evans, interim executive director of IWER and the grant project’s team leader. “Each state team is working closely with its partner communities to develop project recommendations. The team works very well together because of its overall spirit of collegiality, collaboration and commitment to furthering long-term resilience of coastal communities.”