Research and Analysis

The HRPDC Coastal Resiliency Program’s research and analysis supports identifying areas vulnerable to flooding and sea level rise in the region and highlights adaptation and management approaches.

To visualize historic flooding frequency across Virginia, HRDPC staff developed a dashboard viewer that summarizes flooding events and flood insurance claims at the locality scale. The flooding events are summarized using the NOAA Storm Events Database, which currently documents flooding events from January 1996 to August 2021. A database of flood insurance claims submitted through the FEMA National Flood Insurance Program is available on the OpenFEMA data portal, and includes claims dating back to 1976 for Virginia. Visit the dashboard viewer (available at HRGEO.org) to explore flooding events and claims for Virginia localities by day, year, and planning districts.

To help document and track local progress towards reducing flood risk, HRPDC staff coordinated with local government staff to develop a regional inventory of resilience projects, programs, and policies. The project data and the following two communication tools are available at HRGEO.org.

• Hampton Roads Resilience Projects Dashboard: Displays a regional inventory of completed and potential projects in 11 different categories, including drainage improvements, natural shoreline management, and structural flood protection. Summary statistics can be viewed by locality, category, and status in the Dashboard. To download the project inventory, search “Hampton Roads Resilience Projects” at HRGEO.org.

• Hampton Roads Resilience Programs and Policies: Provides individual locality fact sheets with a brief overview of policies that support community resilience to flooding. The local fact sheets also feature a program spotlight, total count of flood insurance policies, and Community Rating System class where applicable.

Recent Reports:

A Regional Approach to Applying First Floor Elevation Data to Coastal Flooding Vulnerability Assessments in Hampton Roads (2020)

Applies the methodologies evaluated in the first and second phases of first floor elevations effort to an analysis at the regional scale. This includes expanding the first floor elevation building inventory and conducting a regional flooding vulnerability assessment that accounts for current flood risk and future flood risk with sea level rise.

An interactive Esri Story Map summarizing the multi-year first floor elevation effort is available HERE.

Applying First Floor Elevation Data to Flooding Vulnerability Assessments in Hampton Roads (2020)
Builds upon the previous first floor elevations (FFE) report by continuing the development of a regional building FFE database and comparing multiple flooding vulnerability assessment methods.

Developing First Floor Elevation Data for Coastal Resilience Planning in Hampton Roads (2019)
Describes the methods and analysis used to initiate the development of a regional building first floor elevation database to support coastal hazard vulnerability assessments.

Previous Reports:

Hampton Roads Sea Level Rise Planning and Technical Assistance (2015)
Provides sea level rise inundation maps, case studies from other cities and regions, and an overview of coordination and outreach activities.

Coastal Resiliency: Adapting to Climate Change in Hampton Roads(2013)
Describes sea level rise scenarios, local impacts under these scenarios, and methods for incorporating sea level rise adaptation into local plans.

   Climate Change in Hampton Roads:

Phase 3: Sea Level Rise in Hampton Roads, Virginia (2012)

Phase 2: Storm Surge Vulnerability and Public Outreach (2011)

Phase 1: Impacts and Stakeholder Involvement (2010)