Building Resiliency in Response to Sea Level Rise and Recurrent Flooding: Comprehensive Planning in Hampton Roads

[Introduction] Over the past few decades, the Hampton Roads region, with its extensive coastline, has been experiencing more frequent flooding from surges and precipitation caused by tropical storms, nor’easters and heavy thunderstorms (Figure 1). Recurrent flooding is “flooding that occurs repeatedly in the same area over time due to precipitation events, high tides or storm surge.”1 The recurrence of tidal/surge flooding in Hampton Roads has increased from 1.7 days of “nuisance” flooding per year in 1960 to 7.3 days per year in 2014.2 Although there is no definitive region-wide data to document the increases in precipitation-induced flooding, there is much anecdotal, locality-specific evidence. With continued land subsidence and the projected increase in sea level rise, it is reasonable to expect that flooding events may become even more common