Storm surge and coastal inundation warning system for the state of São Paulo littoral, focusing on climate change impacts

Abstract

In November/2016, the Civil Defense State Coordination of São Paulo - CDSC, in collaboration with Geological Institute and other institutions, has published the "Preventive Plan of Civil Defense for Coastal Erosion, Inundations and Floods/Fords caused by Extreme Meteorological-Oceanographic Events, such as Storm Surges and Storm Tides". By this time, because of the inexistence of studies focused on this subject, one of the major challenges was to establish some criteria and key-indices in order to qualify the three warning levels - observation, attention and alert. The main objective of this project is to develop a prototype of an online automated Warning System for Storm Surges and Coastal Inundations applied to the São Paulo coastline, based on a method of operationalization and integration of numerical models (meteorological, hydrodynamic/sea level, and sea disturbance/waves) with focus in extreme events forecasts, and operating within a free software platform. Besides, a databank on extreme events considering their boundary conditions for the entire littoral, similar to that developed for the Baixada Santista region (1928-2016), will be constructed too. Meteorological and oceanographic indices will be established through the statistical analyses of long-term series and current monitoring of extreme events. The Warning System will be accoupled to the Coastal Erosion Risk Map, so that beaches will be the spatial units for decision-making. Having the CDSC as a partner, it is expected that the prototype can be replicated and embed into the Municipal Contingency plans, which elaboration will be support by this project. (AU)