Effectiveness of the Ike Dike in mitigating coastal flood risk under multiple climate and sea level rise projections

In the aftermath of Hurricane Ike in 2008 in the United States, the “Ike Dike” was proposed as a coastal barrier system, featuring floodgates, to protect the Houston-Galveston area (HGA) from future storm surges. Given its substantial costs, the feasibility and effectiveness of the Ike Dike have been subjects of investigation. In this study, we evaluated these aspects under both present and future climate conditions by simulating storm surges using a set of models. Delft3D Flexible Mesh Suite was utilized to simulate hydrodynamic and wave motions driven by hurricanes, with wind and pressure fields spatialized by the Holland model. The models were validated against data from Hurricane Ike and were used to simulate synthetic hurricane tracks downscaled from several general circulation models and based on different sea level rise projections, both with and without the Ike Dike. Flood maps for each simulation were generated, and probabilistic flood depths for specific annual exceedance probabilities were predicted using annual maxima flood maps. Building damage curves were applied to residential properties in the HGA to calculate flood damage for each exceedance probability, resulting in estimates of expected annual damage as a measure of quantified flood risk. Our findings indicate that the Ike Dike significantly mitigates storm surge risk in the HGA, demonstrating its feasibility and effectiveness. We also found that the flood risk estimates are sensitive to hurricane intensity, the choice of damage curve, and the properties included in the analysis, suggesting that careful consideration is needed in future studies.