Projected inundation on Laysan Island, resulting from various scenarios of sea-level rise, groundwater rise and storm waves
Description
This dataset (in ESRI file geodatabase format) contains inundation areas for various future scenarios of sea-level rise (SLR), groundwater rise, and storm waves at Laysan Island in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. Five types of inundation scenarios are considered:
(1) passive SLR,
(2) passive SLR including groundwater rise,
(3) wave-driven inundation during storm events,
(4) wave-driven inundation during storm events including groundwater rise, and
(5) wave-driven inundation during storm events, assuming unlimited seawater volumes and no infiltration (theoretical maximum).
For each of these five scenarios, five different levels of SLR are considered: 0.00 m, +0.50 m, +1.00 m, +1.50 m, and +2.00 m. We considered each scenario at mean high water in order to predict inundation during the more damaging part of the tidal range. Each of the above types of inundation have their own feature dataset within the geodatabase, named as follows:
(1) Passive,
(2) PassiveGW,
(3) WaveDriven,
(4) WaveDrivenGW, and
(5) WaveDriven_TheoreticalMax,
Each of these feature datasets contain five feature classes labeled in a manner that indicates the SLR scenario under consideration. For instance, within the dataset "Passive", there are five feature classes: Passive_SLR_00cm, Passive_SLR_50cm, Passive_SLR_100cm, Passive_SLR_150cm, and Passive_SLR_200cm. Thus in total there are 25 feature classes (5 for each type of scenario considered).
More detailed descriptions of the inundation scenarios modeled here can be found in the associated larger work: Predicting sea-level rise vulnerability of terrestrial habitat and wildlife of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2012–1182. Chapter 2.