Coastal cities are facing increased flooding risk due to
climate change and sea level rise. While much of this flooding risk is from
storm surge, rainfall-driven flooding can also be a significant factor in
flooding risk. Stormwater infrastructure systems are designed to mitigate
the impact of flooding, in particular from rainfall-driven flooding.
However, stormwater infrastructure systems are typically static systems that
rely on fixed infrastructure and gravity. In this talk, I will present the
potential for smart stormwater solutions that are more dynamic and
responsive but still leverage existing stormwater infrastructure to reduce
flooding risk. Such approaches have proven successful for limiting
overflows from combined storm and sanitary sewers but are only beginning to
be used for reducing flooding risk. Using examples from Norfolk, I will
argue how this approach can be a part of a larger "smart cities" initiative
to increase a community's resilience to more frequently reoccurring flooding
events through the effective use of existing infrastructure investments.
Jon Goodall is an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering with a courtesy appointment in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Virginia (UVA). His research focuses on hydroinformatics – the interface between hydrology, water resources engineering, computer science, and data science. He is the Associate Director of the newly formed Link Lab at UVA. Link Lab is a collaborative 17,000 square foot laboratory housing 18 faculty and over 100 graduate students from across departments all working on the science and application of cyber-physical systems. He also serves on the steering committee for the pan-university Environmental Resilience Institute at UVA. Jon was a faculty member at the University of South Carolina - Columbia before joining the University of Virginia in 2013. He did his graduate work in civil engineering at the University of Texas at Austin and currently serves as an Associate Editor of the journals, Environmental Modelling & Software, Water Resources Research, and Computing in Civil Engineering.
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