Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2020MD190B

Implications of flooding for equitable access to transportation and emergency services

Institute: Maryland
Year Established: 2020 Start Date: 2020-03-01 End Date: 2021-02-28
Total Federal Funds: $17,278 Total Non-Federal Funds: $34,951

Principal Investigators: Allison C. Reilly

Project Summary: Repetitive nuisance and tidal flooding in low-lying coastal areas on Maryland’s Eastern Shore (the part of the state lying on the Delmarva peninsula, east of the Chesapeake Bay) plague the regular operations of emergency management. Coastal communities on the Eastern Shore are affected both by water level rise in the Chesapeake Bay estuary and its tributaries, and by increasingly intense precipitation over land. The proposed research aims to improve understanding of how increasingly frequent flooding events affect local residents in terms of access to emergency services, how various communities may be differently impacted by floods, and how protective measures for roads may be beneficial and for whom.