Collaborative Research: RII FEC: The Flooding in Appalachian Streams and Headwaters Initiative: Mitigating impacts of climate change and flash flooding in Appalachia

University Of Kentucky Research Foundation, Lexington KY

Investigators

Abstract

Flash floods impact communities throughout the US each year, causing loss of life, property, and livelihoods. Rural communities, especially those in the Appalachian region, are particularly vulnerable to flash floods. This, in part, is due to the limited infrastructure to understand, predict, and prepare for flash floods in these regions. To address these challenges, the project will bring together civil engineers, environmental scientists, and social scientists to work alongside community research partners from the region. A key outcome will be an improved ability to understand, predict, and prepare for flash floods under different conditions. This will be achieved with new models, strategically placed sensors, regional flood analyses, and insight from those most affected by flash floods, community members. Researchers and community members will work together to identify specific issues related to flash floods, such as flooding knickpoints and locations where models may perform poorly. By integrating engineering, environmental science, and social science, this project will create solutions tailored to community goals, serving as a model for resilience planning in vulnerable communities across the US. The project's workforce development plan will guide over 500 middle and high school students in the Appalachian region through college and into their careers. Activities will include field experiences, tree plantings, and environmental sensor trainings.. This plan will be put into action with the help of community partners throughout Appalachia, including local citizens, non-profit organizations, and watershed associations. Flash flooding has caused the highest number of fatalities of any flood type in the last two decades. Communities in central Appalachia are especially vulnerable to flash floods. The goal of this project is to gain fundamental knowledge of flash flooding under a variety of weather events and mitigate its impacts in vulnerable rural communities by advancing research capacity, interdisciplinary collaboration, and scientific literacy across Kentucky and West Virginia EPSCoR jurisdictions. Using increased hydrologic research infrastructure and an evidence-based community engagement model, the project will integrate three research tasks to meet this goal: 1) advance the hydrologic sciences to understand controls of flash floods in disturbed and forested stream systems; 2) facilitate community-engaged research to increase resilience and flash flood technology uptake; and 3) develop a community-led science model for increasing knowledge of flash floods. The project will couple catchment-scale hydrologic models (process-based, machine learning), on-the-ground data collection, regional flooding analysis, and hydrologic sensing technology with evidence-based participatory action research to co-create new flash flood knowledge, tools, technology, and subsequently, tailored solutions. The project will provide insight on heavily disturbed landscapes across the US; how to measure, monitor, model, and predict flash flooding with sufficient time for communities to respond in understudied and infrequently monitored headwater systems; and what current and future flash flood risks look like in stream-adjacent communities. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.