HighTide was contracted by the East Central Florida Regional Planning Council (ECFRPC) to conduct a sea level rise (SLR) and storm surge vulnerability assessment for the Town of Ponce Inlet. The scope of the assessment included flood damage to all buildings in the town under SLR scenarios for 2070 and flood events corresponding to Category 1, 3, and 5 hurricanes. HighTide assisted ECFRPC with the development of additional flood maps to assess SLR for 2020, 2040, 2070, and 2100, combined with Category 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 hurricanes.
The assessment found that the town would experience between $223 million and $256 million (95% confidence) of flood damage from a Category 1 hurricane in 2100; a 20x increase from the same storm under today’s conditions. The majority of buildings with high flood risk were found in the low-lying areas on the west side of the town. The town-level and building-level results were made available on an early version of the HighTide platform.
The visual representation of the sea level rise vulnerability assessment for the Town of Ponce Inlet, conducted by HighTide. Screenshot source: HighTide Intelligence (hightide.ai).
After delivering the results, HighTide coordinated multiple feedback sessions with ECFRPC and the Town of Ponce Inlet to improve the presentation of the results. The town also helped to fill data gaps and improve the quality of the assessment.
The methodology used in this project, the Stanford Urban Risk Framework (SURF), was developed by HighTide’s early co-founders through interdisciplinary research at Stanford University to quantify the economic and socioeconomic impacts of sea level rise and storm surge. SURF was published in Earth’s Future in July 2021, shortly after this project was completed.
