Data From: Present and Future Flood Hazard in the Lower Columbia River Estuary: Changing Flood Hazards in the Portland-Vancouver Metropolitan Area

Authors

Lumas Helaire, Portland State UniversityFollow
Stefan A. Talke, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis ObispoFollow
Heejun Chang, Portland State UniversityFollow
David A. Jay, Portland State UniversityFollow

Published In

Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans

Document Type

Dataset

Publication Date

3-2020

Subjects

Oceanography -- Columbia River Estuary (Or. and Wash.) -- Mathematical models, Columbia River Estuary (Or. and Wash.)

Abstract

Over the next century, model projections suggest that river runoff in the Pacific Northwest will increase during the winter season and that sea level rise (SLR) may rise more than a meter. To investigate the resulting changes in flood hazard, we numerically model the February 1996 and January 1923 floods (the largest and third largest Willamette River floods since 1860) under present and potential future run-off and sea level scenarios. First, we reproduce the actual February 1996 flood to within a root mean square error of 0.05 m (N = 7) for peak water levels. Next, we run scenarios in which three SLR scenarios (0 m, 0.6 m, and 1.5 m) are combined with two river run-off scenarios (0% and 10% run-off increase). Then the slightly larger 1923 flood scenario is run, but with modern (higher than historical) Columbia River flow. The results indicate that a 10% increase in river discharge would increase the magnitude of the 2550 y event to a 100 y event. Overall, the type and magnitude of future flood hazards vary with reach. The Portland/Vancouver Metropolitan area is most sensitive to changes in runoff, with a smaller change of ~0.20.26 m per meter of SLR. By contrast, coastal regions are quite sensitive to amplified sea level and exhibit non-linear responses based on changes to river slope and tides. Between the fluvial region and the estuary, a region of compound flood hazard exists that is sensitive to changes in river discharge, sea level, tides, and storm surge.

Description

The data supports the manuscript: Helaire, L.,Talke,S.A., Chang, H., and Jay, D.A., (2020). Present and Future Flood Hazard in the Lower Columbia River Estuary: Changing Flood Hazards in the Portland-Vancouver Metropolitan Area, Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans.

Each of the datasets below are preceded by data descriptions.

Rights

This work is marked with CC0 1.0 Universal

DOI

10.15760/cee-data.04

Persistent Identifier

https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/32370

Recommended Citation

Helaire, L., Talke, S. A., Chang, H., Jay, D. A. (2020). "Data From: Present and Future Flood Hazard in the Lower Columbia River Estuary: Changing Flood Hazards in the Portland-Vancouver Metropolitan Area." Civil and Environmental Engineering Datasets. 4. https://doi.org/10.15760/cee-data.04