App from SC Aquarium helps scientists prepare for flooding in the Lowcountry

CHARLESTON COUNTY, S.C. (WCIV) — Flooding, erosion, and sea level rise are all issues in the Lowcountry. But the SeaRise Project, a one-stop shop on the South Carolina Aquarium Citizen Science app, intends to make the public more resilient in the future.

The app allows users to input information that will help scientists gather flooding data around Charleston.

"All you do is hit add observation, identify the type of flooding, and take a picture," South Carolina Aquarium Director of Conservation Sarah McDonald said.

Read more: Charleston pioneers elevation-based zoning in response to rising sea levels

With the help of artificial intelligence, those pictures will provide critical information to researchers like Erfan Goharian, an assistant professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at the University of South Carolina. But that information is just part of what is needed to run the flood model he and his team built.

"What's the depth of water?" Goharian said. "What's the inundation area in that picture that you see if water is moving? What's the velocity of water? What's the discharge rate where the water potentially can go after this point?"

"We need to have historical information," he continued. "If we had the 2015 famous flood, we need to know where were the locations that get flooded and how much was the depth of flood. We need that information in order to make a better model and validate and calibrate."

Said McDonald, "He's creating the product the municipal leaders can use and the decision makers can use. We're on the data collection end of it."

Read more: Mayor Cogswell unveils flooding mitigation plan for severe weather readiness in Charleston

In order to make the model as accurate as possible, more data in needed from all around the area. The SeaRise Project is encouraging people around the Lowcountry to report flooding through signs posted on Shem Creek, Charleston County Parks, and downtown Charleston. 10 signs will be going up on Folly Beach in the near future. The ultimate goal is to get enough data to run an accurate flood model, which can then help with local resilience planning.

"We are working with the city's GIS department," McDonald said. "They have a website called TideEye that displays road closures during flooding events. And they want people to upload flooding photos to the Sea Rise Citizen Science project. All that can work in concert with their TideEye website to help display road closures."

The City of Charleston declined an interview on the SeaRise project.

Read more: West Ashley begins work on $5M stormwater relief project with promised parks and trails

Organizers are working on expanding to other communities besides the City of Charleston.

For more on The SeaRise Project: https://www.anecdata.org/projects/view/182