Abstract

The Maine Department of Transportation (MaineDOT) pilot project dovetailed with a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)-funded Project of Special Merit (POSM) that studied the effect of sea level rise on marsh migration. Transportation assets may be a barrier to marsh migration or may be affected by marsh migration; the MaineDOT pilot identified specific transportation assets that are currently vulnerable to flooding, and leveraged the marsh and sea migration maps to assess the vulnerability of assets to storm surge and sea level rise. The project team applied a previously-developed infrastructure tool and modified it to be specific to transportation assets. The team used the Transportation-version of the Coastal Adaptation to Sea level rise Tool (T-COAST) to evaluate the benefits and costs of alternative design structures.

Scope

The assessment focused on state-owned roads, bridges, and culverts in the POSM’s six coastal study towns (Bath, Bowdoinham, Georgetown, Phippsburg, Scarborough, and Topsham). It evaluated vulnerability and adaptation options to sea level rise and storm surge.

Objectives

• Evaluate the vulnerability and criticality of assets for further analysis.
• Through application of T-COAST, analyze the benefit-cost and determine fiscal efficiency of various candidate adaptation designs under a range of sea level rise and storm surge scenarios.