Articles | Volume 26, issue 1
https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-26-531-2026
https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-26-531-2026
Research article
 | 
26 Jan 2026
Research article |  | 26 Jan 2026

Quantifying the influence of coastal flood hazards on building habitability following Hurricane Irma

Benjamin Nelson-Mercer, Tessa Swanson, Seth Guikema, and Jeremy Bricker

Data sets

Gridded Bathymetry Data GEBCO https://www.gebco.net/data-products/gridded-bathymetry-data

Digital Elevation Models Global Mosaic (Elevation Values) NOAA NCEI https://noaa.maps.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=c876e3c96a8642ab8557646a3b4fa0ff

National Land Cover Database (NLCD) 2019 Products (ver. 3.0, February 2024) Jon Dewitz and USGS https://doi.org/10.5066/P9KZCM54

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Short summary
Habitability functions are developed to estimate the probability of a building becoming uninhabitable due to coastal flooding. These functions are created by combining a Hurricane Irma flood model with cell phone data showing which buildings people returned to following Irma. We find that unit discharge is the best predictor of building habitability. By quantifying the dependence of building habitability on flood hazards, this work improves how coastal communities prepare for flood events.
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