Benítez-Menéndez, José L.

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A storm surge atlas for the us virgin islands in support of hazard mitigation, coastal planning, and climate change mitigation
(2014) Benítez-Menéndez, José L.; Castellano-Rodríguez, Dorial; College of Arts and Science - Science; Mercado, Aurelio; Santana, Samuel; Department of Physics; Canals, Miguel
The US Virgin Islands (USVI) lie in the middle of the Caribbean hurricane alley where hurricanes are a yearly threat. Most of the population of each island resides close to the coastline, including most of its hotel and cruise ship industry. In order to reduce the impact of disasters caused by hurricanes the ADCIRC+SWAN model, a tightly coupled circulation and wave model, was used to prepare coastal flood maps showing potentially floodable coastal areas due to category 1 to 5 hurricanes. In addition, a working computational mesh was constructed and together with a well validated hurricane wind model, the ADCIRC+SWAN model can then be used to estimate the impact of climate change consequences like sea level rise and an increase in the frequency of intense hurricanes. All of this is of extreme importance for small tropical islands like USVI whose economy is tightly coupled with the sea through their ports.