Chairs: Hamed Moftakhari, Julia Cherry, Larisa Lee
Date and time: Wednesday, May 06 at 10:30am to Wednesday, May 06 at 3:00pm
location: 204B
Description: This session focuses on the role of nature-based solutions (NBS) in mitigating compound coastal flooding in estuarine systems. With sea level rise and intensifying storm events threatening communities across the U.S. coastline, it is increasingly critical to integrate science with planning to develop effective flood risk reduction strategies.
The session highlights Mobile Bay, Alabama, as a case study of national relevance. This shallow estuary, bounded by urban development and natural landscapes, has experienced devastating storm impacts and a loss of nearly half its emergent wetlands over the past three decades. These wetlands, critical to ecosystem services and coastal flood buffering, are now diminishing at an unprecedented rate, leaving the region more vulnerable to coastal floods. Despite growing recognition of their value, there remains a lack of comprehensive understanding about the extent to which NBS, such as wetland restoration, can reduce flooding impacts, particularly under compound hazard scenarios.
This session builds on efforts to couple the hydrologic, hydrodynamic and biological models, enabling rigorous evaluation of NBS, gray infrastructure, and policy interventions under sea level rise and storm scenarios. By actively involving planners, engineers, and natural resource managers throughout the process, this project aims to ensure that science directly informs decisions that enhance both flood resilience and ecosystem sustainability.
We welcome submissions across a range of topics, including coupled hydrological hydrodynamic modeling, evaluation of NBS and hybrid infrastructure, decision-support tools, policy integration, stakeholder co-production, and methods for transferring insights to other coastal regions. While the session will feature work from Mobile Bay, Alabama, we encourage contributions from diverse geographic settings to foster broad dialogue and knowledge exchange. Join us in exploring how science, modeling, and collaborative planning can support more resilient and adaptive coastal futures.