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Projected flooding extents and depths based on 10-, 50-, 100-, and 500-year wave-energy return periods, with and without coral reefs, for the States of Hawaii and Florida, the Territories of Guam, American Samoa, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands

Metadata Updated: November 27, 2025

This data release provides flooding extent polygons (flood masks) and depth values (flood points) based on wave-driven total water levels for 22 locations within the States of Hawaii and Florida, the Territories of Guam, American Samoa, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. For each of the 22 locations there are eight associated flood mask polygons and flood depth point files: one for each four nearshore wave energy return periods (rp; 10-, 50-, 100-, and 500-years) and both with (wrf) and without (worf) the presence of coral reefs. These flood masks can be combined with economic, ecological, and engineering tools to provide a rigorous financial valuation of the coastal protection benefits of coral reefs of the United States, Territories, and Affiliated Islands. The degradation of coastal habitats, particularly coral reefs, raises risks by exposing communities to flooding hazards. The protective services of these natural defenses are not assessed in the same rigorous, economic terms as artificial defenses such as seawalls, and therefore often not considered in decision-making. Engineering, ecologic, social, and economic tools were combined to provide a quantitative valuation of the coastal protection benefits of the coral reefs of the United States. The goal of this effort was to identify how, where, and when coral reefs provide the most significant coastal flood reduction benefits socially and economically under current and future climate change scenarios. A risk-based valuation framework to estimate the risk reduction benefits from coral reefs and provide annual expected benefits in social and economic terms was followed. The methods follow a sequence of steps integrating physics-based hydrodynamic modeling, quantitative geospatial modeling, and economic and social analyses to quantify the hazard, the role of coral reefs in reducing the hazard, and the resulting consequences (described in Storlazzi and others, 2019).

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

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Dates

Metadata Created Date September 13, 2025
Metadata Updated Date November 27, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI USGS DCAT-US

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date September 13, 2025
Metadata Updated Date November 27, 2025
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
Identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/usgs-5bd77b33e4b0b3fc5ce825d8
Data Last Modified 2021-10-13T00:00:00Z
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://ddi.doi.gov/usgs-data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 786f0430-1498-4933-8949-fec4e8539872
Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
Metadata Type geospatial
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 43f876979265d546ac37444c119a91141f292394e853fd16ff4e203410de5e12
Source Schema Version 1.1

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