Infrastructure located along the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts is exposed to rising risk offlooding from sea level rise, increasing storm surge, and subsidence. In these circumstancescoastal management commonly based on 100-year flood maps assuming current climatologyis no longer adequate. A dynamic programming cost–benefit analysis is applied to theadaptation decision, illustrated by application to an energy facility in Galveston Bay. Projectionsof several global climate models provide inputs to estimates of the change in hurricaneand storm surge activity as well as the increase in sea level. The projected rise inphysical flood risk is combined with estimates of flood damage and protection costs inan analysis of the multi-period nature of adaptation choice. The result is a planningmethod, using dynamic programming, which is appropriate for investment and abandonmentdecisions under rising coastal risk.
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