Assessing the Impacts of Super Storm Flooding in the Transportation Infrastructure - Case Study: San Antonio, Texas

Data from governmental agencies shows a clear exponential growth in damages and costs due to extreme weather events in the U.S. Most critical infrastructure built in urban areas, including that for transportation and flood protection are designed to handle a design storm with a 1% probability of occurrence in one year or 100 years of return period. Superstorms are defined here as rainfall storm events with return periods higher than 100 years and have occurred lately in the U.S. In the absence of new hydrologic and hydraulic modeling frameworks as well as educational opportunities for the current and future generation of engineers, the impacts of super storms will only increase negatively affecting critical infrastructure, the economy, the environment and communities. Hence, the main goal of this project is to develop and apply a computational framework capable of predicting the impacts of super storms in the transportation infrastructure and evaluating flood protection strategies that alleviate some of the impacts in highly populated urban areas. The case study is the City of San Antonio, TX, which lays within a flood-prone region in Texas referred as the Flash Flood Alley.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • 18HSTSA02

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Completed
• Funding: $140000
• Contract Numbers:

  69A3551747106

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Managing Organizations:

  Department of Transportation

  Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office
  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590

  Transportation Consortium of South-Central States (Tran-SET)

  Louisiana State University
  Baton Rouge, LA  United States  70803
• Project Managers:

  Dessouky, Samer

• Performing Organizations:

  University of Texas, San Antonio

  1 UTSA Circle
  San Antonio, TX  United States  78249

  Texas A&M University, College Station

  318 Jack K. Williams Administration Building
  College Station, TX  United States  77843
• Principal Investigators:

  Giacomoni, Marcio

  Olivera, Francisco

• Start Date: 20180315
• Expected Completion Date: 20190915
• Actual Completion Date: 20190915
• USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Case studies; Evaluation and assessment; Flood protection; Floods; Hydrology; Impacts; Infrastructure; Storms; Weather and climate
• Identifier Terms: HEC-RAS (Computer model)
• Geographic Terms: San Antonio (Texas)
• Subject Areas: Bridges and other structures; Environment; Highways; Hydraulics and Hydrology; Planning and Forecasting;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01663472
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Transportation Consortium of South-Central States (Tran-SET)
• Contract Numbers: 69A3551747106
• Files: UTC, RIP
• Created Date: Mar 21 2018 9:44PM