My Coast App Defines Coastal Flooding

During Cape Cod Coastal Resilience week, the Coastal Zone Management department of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts shared ways that citizen science - through the My Coast App - can help inform policy and train people in how to make best use of it.

What is extreme weather on Cape Cod?

Building stronger and more resilient coastal communities is a necessity on the CapCape Codders are seeing not only more frequent storms, flooding and higher tides, but also longer lasting and more damaging. In a community effort, The Office of the Coastal Zone Management is asking people to snap photos of the aftermath of weather events to help storm damage assessments, flooding predictions and spotting trends over time. During the Cape Cod Coastal Resilience Week, from June 8 to June 15, the CZM is training volunteers to upload the photos to the the MY Coast App.

What specific challenges does Cape Cod pose?

The biggest cause for concern on the Cape are the low lying portions of two major routes 6A and 28, according to Julia Knisel, Coastal Shoreline And Flood Plain Manager at the Massachusetts Coastal Zone Management. Knisel says it is a question of when, not if, evacuations on Cape Cod are necessaary – only two feet of surge cause flooding along these heavy trafficked routes. A combination of NOAA forecasts, tide predictions and data from the My Coast App makes it possible for CZM to understand when the roads will flood, where Towns may need to close off roads and evacuations will be necessary.

What is a King tide?

Chatham is an especially dynamic town to showcase the different uses of the My Coast App. The fish pier area has a low lying parking lot, cove barrier, steep dunes below residential houses and clear marks of high tides and flooding – showing vulnerabilities for erosion, flooding, impacts to infrastructure such as seawalls, revetments and access stairs.

     CZM has a staff of 80 people documenting during extreme weather, primarily the Coastal Storm Damage Assessment Team, but Julia Knisel emphasizes that safety comes first. That is why they are asking the public to mostly document safer events such as damage after a storm, or King Tides, a phenomenon where the high tide rises to extreme levels under a full moon. With a growing base of 500 users CZM hopes to better their planning and project design.