Flood Risk Assessment of the National Harbor at Maryland, United States

TL;DR

This paper assesses flood risk at National Harbor, Maryland, considering sea level rise and local topography, highlighting that flood impact varies significantly by location.

Contribution

It introduces a localized flood risk model that accounts for sea level rise and topographic factors to evaluate flood vulnerability.

Findings

Flood risk increases with sea level rise.

Impact varies based on property location and topography.

Predicted impact level is relatively small for the area.

Abstract

Over the past few decades, floods have become one of the costliest natural hazards and losses have sharply escalated. Floods are an increasing problem in urban areas due to increased residential settlement along the coastline and climate change is a contributing factor to this increased frequency. In order to analyze flood risk, a model is proposed to identify the factors associated with increased flooding at a local scale. The study area includes National Harbor, MD, and the surrounding area of Fort Washington. The objective is to assess flood risk due to an increase in sea level rise for the study area of interest. The study demonstrated that coastal flood risk increased with sea level rise even though the predicted level of impact is fairly insignificant for the study area. The level of impact from increased flooding is highly dependent on the location of the properties and other topographic information.