Title: Pluvial flood modeling for coastal areas under future climate change – A case study for Prince Edward Island, Canada

Journal: Journal of Hydrology

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2024.131769

Abstract: It has been increasingly understood that pluvial flooding poses a substantial risk to numerous communities across the globe. This is especially relevant for the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island (PEI), which is susceptible to a compound flood consisting of both inland and coastal flooding. Despite various studies, a comprehensive pluvial flood model still lacks that addresses the complex interplay of compound floods. Therefore, this research aims to bridge the gap in flood mitigation by developing a pluvial flood model for PEI’s coastal communities. The Intensity-Duration-Frequency (IDF) curves under current and future climatic conditions were used to portray rainfall intensity over the study area corresponding to 10-year, 25-year, 50-year, and 100-year return periods. In addition, a hydraulic model (HEC-RAS 2D) was used to drive pluvial flood maps based on two configurations, including detailed flood maps for major municipalities and an island-wide level. The validated results showed consistency in model simulation when compared to observations. The high-resolution flood maps produced by this study can support the development of flood mitigation and adaptation strategies in PEI and other parts of the world.

Title: Spatiotemporal and weather effects on the reproductive success of piping plovers on Prince Edward Island, Canada

Journal: Ecology and Evolution

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.11581

Abstract: Piping plovers (Charadrius melodus sp.) rank among North America’s most endangered shorebird species, facing compounding environmental challenges that reduce habitat availability and suppress recruitment and survival rates. Despite these challenges, research on the direct effects of climate variability and extremes on their breeding ecology remains limited. Here, we employ a spatiotemporal modelling approach to investigate how location, nest timing and weather conditions influence reproductive success rates in a small breeding population of C. m. melodus in Prince Edward Island (PEI), Canada from 2011 to 2023. Analysis of 40 years of monitoring records from a subset of nesting sites revealed that flooding and predation have been persistent sources of reproductive failures in this population, with unexplained losses increasing in recent years. Contrary to our hypotheses, our modelled results did not support a negative impact of extreme high temperatures and strong precipitation events on reproductive outcomes. Instead, we identified a positive effect of T_MAX and no effect of strong precipitation, perhaps due to limited exposure to extreme high temperatures (>32°C) and context-specific risks associated with precipitation-induced flooding. However, trends in regional climate change are likely to increase exposure to—and the influence of—such factors in the near future. Our models also identified spatiotemporal variability in apparent hatch success over the study period, as well as worse hatch outcomes across popular beachgoing regions and for delayed nesting attempts. While our results offer preliminary insights into factors affecting breeding success in this population, further research will be imperative to enhance understanding of constraints on recruitment. To this end, we encourage the collection and analysis of additional time-series data of prey populations, human activities, fine-scale weather data and predator/flood risks associated with each nest on PEI.