This project will redefine and enhance how flood hazards, risks, and impacts are visualized and communicated at Department of Defense (DoD) installations and nearby communities. Using Augmented Reality (AR), the goal is to improve communication of flood risk under existing and future climates and with/without adaptation in three-dimensional space (3D). Locations include DoD installations and surrounding communities on the U.S. Gulf, Mid-Atlantic, and Pacific Coasts to represent a range of geographies with known impacts from sea level rise, coastal flooding, riverine, and compound flooding. This project will implement a framework around the FloodVue application (i.e., the FloodVue Framework or FVF), which combines terrain, infrastructure, inundation, and imagery to visualize inundation and perform impact assessments on critical infrastructure and operations. This project will consider methods to extract metrics for adaptation costs and damages for use in trade-off analyses, integrating that information into a geospatial database for use in DoD and community-based platforms. This project will span two years. In Year 1, initial virtual kick-off meetings for the three locations will serve to inform development of FVF by identifying key infrastructure concerns, preferred adaptation measures, regulation/ policy criteria, and existing data and models. Follow-up Tabletop Exercises (TTE) in Year 1 and 2 will engage communities in person to collect imagery, evaluate performance, and analyze alternatives using FVF.

Static imagery and video capture using the FVF will be collected at the three locations during the first TTE to provide 3D simulations using AR for comparison of existing and future conditions, as well as, with/without adaptation measures, using stakeholder-collected information from the kick-off meetings. The FVF is flexible and portable to multiple geographic locations and has been demonstrated in Garden Plain, KS (near Wichita); Eden Park, UK, and the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties venue in Scotland. Improvements to FVF to date include in situ bias-correction of horizontal and vertical geo-positioning using internal cellular capabilities. FVF will assist in identifying, prioritizing, and developing implementation plans for climate resilience. Enhanced and interactive stakeholder engagement enables well-aligned priorities throughout the project. At the culmination of the project, we will have: (a) demonstrated the FVF at multiple locations with coastal and inland flood hazards; (b) optimized FVF performance using historical events; (c) hosted and performed TTEs that encourage DoD-community interaction; (d) provided assessments to evaluate the cost for screening, selecting, and planning for adaptation measures; and (e) improved communication of flood hazards through education/outreach on risk, uncertainty, and value. Updates to hazards (e.g., Sea Level Rise projections) in various DoD platforms (e.g., DoD Regional Sea Level, DoD Climate Assessment Tool) can be easily accommodated with FVF geospatial product modifications to update community hazard exposure.

This project will visualize flood inundation in a novel way (i.e., 3D) by showing the value of 3D rendering in climate-informed decision-making processes in different geographies and under multiple types of flood risk. By hosting multiple stakeholder TTE using FVF, individual communities and DoD can investigate hazards, impacts, and adaptation strategies for infrastructure (e.g., roads, bridges, power grids, healthcare, schools, staging areas) to support continuity, emergency response, supply chain, and watershed planning efforts – prioritizing resource requirements. Collaboration across the DoD-community partnership will stimulate coordinated projects and public engagement. This rapidly scalable and translatable architecture will allow for widespread implementation in Year 2.