US Virgin Islands Flood Hazard and Community Vulnerability Assessment, 2023-2024

From 2023-01-01 to 2024-08-30, the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS) produced an estate-level assessment of flood hazard and community vulnerability for the United States Virgin Islands. The dataset integrates multiple indices, including social vulnerability, structural exposure, and nearshore environment protection benefits, aggregated to U.S. Census Bureau estate-level geographies. It also includes raster-based datasets for stormwater flooding potential, orbital velocity, and land use diversity.

Use Cases

• Prioritizing flood mitigation investments based on estate-level compounded flood hazard scores.
• Mapping social and structural vulnerability co-occurrence for community planning using bivariate choropleth methods.
• Assessing environmental protection benefits of nearshore areas for coastal management.
• Analyzing land use diversity and vegetation indices for walkability and environmental health studies.

Strengths

• Integrates multiple vulnerability and hazard indices (e.g., social vulnerability, structural exposure) into a single geospatial assessment.
• Data is aggregated to a standardized estate-level geography provided by the U.S. Census Bureau.
• Includes both vector (estate-level scores) and raster-based (e.g., stormwater flooding) data products.
• Methods are documented in a NOAA Technical Memorandum (NOS NCCOS 334).

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to the specific focus on the United States Virgin Islands.

Provenance

Source

National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce

Collection Method

Geospatial, indicator-driven approach using publicly available data, renormalized with min-max normalization and aggregated to estate-level geographies.

Time Range

2023-01-01 to 2024-08-30

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 20:38:52.362378; freshness should be verified.

Geography

United States Virgin Islands