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Salinity measurement of groundwater inundation in a Waikīkī basement — Chloe Obara

Monitoring Coastal Groundwater to Identify Sea Level Rise Related Infrastructure Impacts

Contact Shellie Habel
The purpose of this research is to improve the understanding of coastal groundwater and how various phenomena (long-term sea level rise, tides, and rain events) influence its elevation. The position of the groundwater is an important consideration in infrastructure management owing to its known contributions to structural damage. Objectives of this effort include the development of a coastal groundwater monitoring network to improve simulations of sea level rise induced groundwater lift. Such simulations have been produced by this research group for Honolulu’s Urban Core and used to determine sea level rise induced vulnerabilities of low-lying and buried municipal infrastructure such as roadway and drainage networks. The monitoring will help to build upon past work by extending modeling to additional locations and by incorporating the influence of rainfall events, a main driver of groundwater elevation change. The primary purpose of producing these simulations is to inform planning and infrastructure management in consideration of elevated sea levels.