NOAA Office for Coastal Management Sea Level Rise Data: Minor High Tide Flooding Inundation Extent

These data were created as part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Office for Coastal Management's efforts to create an online mapping viewer depicting potential sea level rise and its associated impacts on the nation's coastal areas. The purpose of the mapping viewer is to provide coastal managers and scientists with a preliminary look at sea level rise (slr) and coastal flooding impacts. The viewer is a screening-level tool that uses nationally consistent data sets and analyses. Data and maps provided can be used at several scales to help gauge trends and prioritize actions for different scenarios. The Sea Level Rise and Coastal Flooding Impacts Viewer may be accessed at: https://www.coast.noaa.gov/slr

These data depict the potential inundation extent of coastal areas resulting from minor high tide flooding, as defined by the NOAA Technical Report NOS CO-OPS 086: Patterns and Projections of High Tide Flooding Along the U.S. Coastline Using a Common Impact Threshold. (https://www.tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/publications/techrpt86_PaP_of_HTFlooding.pdf)

The process used to produce the data uses two source datasets to derive the final inundation rasters: the Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of the area and a water surface that represents minor high tide flooding. The minor high tide flooding water surface is based on the equation defined in the technical report referenced above and tidal datum surfaces derived from NOAA's VDatum model.

The methods used to produce these data does not account for erosion, subsidence, or any future changes in an area's hydrodynamics. It is simply a method to derive data in order to visualize the potential scale and extent, not exact location, of inundation from NWS issued Coastal Flood Advisories.