Updating Techniques for Estimating Magnitude and Frequency of Floods for Urban Streams in GA, SC, and NC
Urbanization can produce significant changes in the flood-frequency characteristics of streams; consequently, rural basin flood-frequency relations are not applicable to urban streams. Two of the primary drivers of accuracy for flood-frequency statistics are length of record and hydrologic conditions captured in that record. As of October 2023, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) South Atlantic Water Science Center (SAWSC) will have collected 12 additional years of record since the last study updating these statistics for urban streams in Georgia (GA), South Carolina (SC), and North Carolina (NC) (Feaster and others, 2014). During that period, these states have been impacted by historic floods in 2015 (Feaster and others, 2015), 2016 (Weaver and others, 2016), and 2018 (Feaster and others, 2018) with many locations recording new peaks of record, some of which were noted as the highest peaks since at least 1893. As such, the USGS proposes a cooperative investigation with the South Carolina Department of Transportation to update flood-frequency statistics at USGS urban streamgages in SC. Those data would then be used to develop regional regression equations to compute flood-frequency statistics at ungaged urban stream locations. The USGS GA and NC offices also will seek funding from the GA and NC Departments of Transportation, respectively, to concurrently update flood-frequency statistics at urban streamgages in GA and NC so that the study area will be the three-state region of GA, SC, and NC as has been done in such flood-frequency studies for GA, SC, and NC since 2006. The focus of this proposal is on the SC portion of this multistate investigation. This study also will leverage results from the rural flood-frequency investigation recently completed by Feaster and others (2023) and will seek to develop flood-frequency equations that are applicable to both rural and urban streams in GA, SC and NC.
Language
- English
Project
- Status: Active
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Sponsor Organizations:
United States Geological Survey
10 Barefoot Road
Northborough, MA United States 01532 - Start Date: 20250701
- Expected Completion Date: 20271231
- Actual Completion Date: 0
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Estimating; Floods; Regression analysis; Streams; Urban areas
- Geographic Terms: Georgia; North Carolina; South Carolina
- Subject Areas: Hydraulics and Hydrology; Planning and Forecasting; Transportation (General);
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 01953677
- Record Type: Research project
- Source Agency: South Carolina Department of Transportation
- Files: RIP, STATEDOT
- Created Date: Apr 28 2025 9:13AM