Hazards, Risk & Resilience |

Hazards, Risk & Resilience

Baird uses quantitative hazard, risk and resilience assessment to mitigate exposures facing the environment, communities, and infrastructure. Baird evaluates flood and erosion hazards associated with extratropical storms, hurricanes, cyclones, storm surge, rainfall, wind, tsunamis, and sea level rise. Our clients include insurance sector, ports and terminals, and public and private sector managers of coastal and riverine facilities and infrastructure.

A cornerstone of our Hazards, Risk and Resilience work is the inclusion of climate change considerations into our analyses, forecasts and designs. We continue to innovate in how we apply the latest science and research on climate change impacts, including sea level rise, changing storm patterns, surge and flooding as part of our Climate Change Engineered^TM approach.

The goals of this work are to:

Protect human life and health through a managed approach to flood and erosion impacts
Implement sound use of numerical modelling and analytical approaches that are proven to work
Support sustainable development that considers future climate change
Enhance the prosperity of community and country
Reduce damage to property and promote economic resilience
Protect and enhance coastal and inland environments
Spend public and private funds responsibly and effectively

River Flood Studies

Baird has undertaken flood studies in challenging environments around the world. Our past clients include FEMA; USACE; IJC; and other federal, state and provincial agencies. We have undertaken flood mapping in response to extreme rainfall events, dam and levee breaches, hurricane events (surge, rainfall and combined events), including Hurricanes Katrina, Sandy and Irene. Our flood studies are supporting some of the largest waterfront development and environmental restoration projects ever undertaken in North America.

Coastal Flood Studies

Coastal zones encompass diverse elements, including shorelines, waterfront development, environmentally sensitive habitats, cities, marine sanctuaries, public and private infrastructure, and industry.

To address the demands on coastal zones, and to protect them from risks, an integrated approach to flood prediction, risk and resilience is needed. A successful methodology must be founded on a full understanding of the natural processes underlying the dynamics of the coastal zone. This includes metocean analysis, storm hazard, surge and tide modelling, and wave runup prediction. These approaches have supported our advice to several local and state governments, as well as national organizations such as the US Army Corps of Engineers, the Government of Canada and other international authorities.

Erosion Studies

The investigation of coastal erosion is a critical component to many of Baird’s studies. Our approach investigates the historical and contemporary evolution of shorelines and their associated landforms, with particular attention to physical processes. On rivers, one, two and three-dimensional models of sand transport, bank erosion and bed change are applied to support geomorphic analysis. In estuaries and inlets 2- and 3-dimensional models are used to assess the role of tides, river flows and waves in moving sediments and shaping shoals and coastlines. On open coasts one and two-dimensional models are applied to simulate the erosion of beaches and dunes and bluff/cliff environments.

Risk Analysis

Baird’s expertise in statistical methods and numerical modelling is applied to risk analysis of flood-generating storms. From a 10,000-year synthetic tropical cyclone dataset to risk aggregation of regulation plans on the Great Lakes, Baird’s risk analyses help inform decision making with science-backed methods. Our state-of-the art visualization tools take things one step further – visualizing risk for end users in clear and concise ways.

Resilience Studies

The resilience of infrastructure systems exposed to flooding is an emerging field in engineering, with increasing research in the quantification of resilience. Indicators such as transportation connectivity, utility service disruption, and housing habitability are now part of the resilience framework. System recovery time is an increasingly important subject as planners look beyond hard structural solutions into flexible, adaptable solutions.