Assessing Future Risk of Wave Overtopping at the Galveston Seawall under Uncertainty in Coastal Forcing and Changing Weather Patterns

This project presents a predictive tool designed to assess and forecast sea water levels at the Galveston Seawall, Texas, with a specific focus on evaluating wave overtopping risks that threaten local infrastructure and public safety. By leveraging both historical and projected environmental datasets, the tool supports data-driven decision-making for coastal resilience and infrastructure planning.
The model integrates key environmental variables—including offshore wave conditions, offshore and local wind speeds, tide levels, and sea water levels at the seawall—to forecast potential hazard scenarios such as wave overtopping. What sets this project apart is its comprehensive use of multiple publicly available data sources: NOAA Tide & Currents, the USACE Sea-Level Change Curve Calculator, and GFDL-based climate projections from the USGS Coastal and Marine Geology Program. Unlike conventional tools that rely solely on historical data, this model combines past observations with future projections to offer forward-looking insights for long-term adaptation and disaster preparedness.
The predicted future sea water levels generated by this tool can be repurposed for a variety of applications, including the refinement of coastal engineering models, development of climate adaptation strategies, and support for policy and infrastructure risk assessments.
Target users include coastal engineers, environmental scientists, urban planners, emergency managers, and policymakers involved in flood mitigation and infrastructure resilience. The tool is also designed to be adaptable—users may incorporate their own regional datasets to apply the framework elsewhere, though doing so requires retraining or replacing the Gaussian Process regression model to reflect the new context.
A detailed explanation of the methodology and tool development can be found in: Zhang, X., & Noshadravan, A. (2025). Data-Driven Stochastic Approach for Assessing Future Risk of Wave Overtopping in Coastal Defense Structures. Journal of Engineering Mechanics, 151(8), 04025031.