Extreme Weather Toolkit: Coastal Flooding

The frequency of coastal floods has risen sharply in recent decades. Rising sea levels due to human-caused warming will continue to increase both tidal flooding and flooding from extreme weather events in the years ahead.

Globally, sea levels have risen about seven inches since the beginning of the 20th century  due to melting glaciers and ice sheets and the expansion of seawater as the oceans warm. This heightened level of water is increasing the number of coastal floods during regular high tides and during coastal storms, whether those storms are tropical systems or non-tropical systems such as Nor’easters. About 30% of the U.S. population lives in coastal counties.

Updated: July 2023

Resources

These resources explore the science, trends, and local impacts of coastal flooding and sea level rise

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Climate Matters

Picturing Our Future

Climate Central releases an international collection of videos and interactive visualizations of long-term sea level rise that show what we can save—if we choose to act now.

Tool

Coastal Risk Screening Tool

Explore local sea level rise and coastal flooding risks worldwide with maps that use the most advanced available global model of coastal elevations.

Report

Sinking Tax Base

Land and property at risk from rising seas

Climate Matters

Coastal Wetlands at Risk

On World Oceans Day, a new Climate Central study explores how wetlands—and the benefits they provide to coastal communities, economies, and ecosystems—can, or cannot, adapt to rising sea levels.

Climate Matters

Climate change impacts seniors living near the coast

A new Climate Central report examines how climate change threatens America’s aging coastal population—with rising sea levels and increasing hurricane intensity, posing risks to seniors’ safety, health and financial security.

Report

Report: Coastal Flood Risk to Affordable Housing Projected to Triple by 2050

A new analysis conducted by scientists at Climate Central and published in Environmental Research Letters highlights the equity implications of sea level rise in the first nationwide assessment of risk to the country’s affordable housing supply.

Climate Matters

Ocean at the Door

Sea level rise will threaten hundreds of thousands of homes in the coming decades — and many communities have built a striking number of new homes in the future flood zone.