Penn State to host flood risk management forum Sept. 9 and 10

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State faculty are addressing flooding from every angle, including developing tools to help families understand their risks, partnering with municipalities on levee management, modeling nature-based solutions, rethinking infrastructure and training the next generation of engineers. Their work will be highlighted on Sept. 9 and 10 at the Goddard Forum 2025 — Flood Risk in the Mid-Atlantic. The program, which will take place at Penn State Harrisburg’s Madlyn L. Hanes Library, aims to enhance collaboration and engagement in flood risk management efforts in Pennsylvania and the Mid-Atlantic. 

The event comes on the heels of the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina hitting the Gulf Coast in August 2005. The disaster revealed not just the destructive force of water but also the failures of infrastructure, inequities in disaster response and the long shadow that floods can cast on communities. For many researchers at Penn State, Katrina was a turning point. It shaped their careers, deepened their understanding of risk and fueled work that now reaches communities across Pennsylvania and beyond. The work will be the subject of discussion at the Goddard Forum, the latest in a series focused on past and ongoing efforts to address flood risks.  

“It is just a matter of time that the U.S., including the Mid-Atlantic, will be devastated by hurricanes of greater fury than Katrina,” said Christopher Scott, the Maurice K. Goddard Chair of Forestry and Environmental Conservation and professor of ecosystem science, who leads the forum. “We need all hands on deck: researchers, public agencies, civil society and the public.” 

At the time of Katrina, Scott had just begun working at the National Weather Service. Despite sophisticated forecasts, he said he watched in disbelief as New Orleans was overwhelmed.  

“I was very confident in our systems for disaster preparedness and response, but not after Katrina,” said Scott, who is also an associate director of the Institute of Energy and the Environment leading the Water Sustainability research theme. “I came to better understand how landscapes, watersheds and river deltas are formed by flooding, and how human societies are inseparable from rivers and their flood cycles. Humans have evolved with floods but rarely, if ever, in harmonious ways.”  

Scott’s experience and research focus parallels many of his colleagues who were also motivated by the need to be better prepared for another such disaster.  

Katrina’s lasting imprint 

For Maurie Kelly, director of Pennsylvania Spatial Data Access, the storm changed the trajectory of her career. Visiting New Orleans shortly after the disaster, she said she was struck not only by the devastation but also by the human stories.  

“They talked about not having access to food, water, communications or a place to live,” she said.  

That experience inspired her dissertation on community organizing in post-Katrina New Orleans and reinforced her focus on making flood data accessible to the public. Now, she helps communities visualize their risk through the PA Flood Risk Assessment Tool, an interactive web map application developed by Penn State with funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.  

“The tool allows anyone in the state to learn more about their own flood risk just by typing in their address in the app,” Kelly said. “It is a critical resource in a state where flooding is the most common natural disaster.” 

And for Shirley Clark, who grew up on the Gulf Coast of Alabama and visited New Orleans regularly, Katrina exposed how disasters disproportionately affect those with the fewest resources.  

“The people most vulnerable, unable to evacuate due to physical or financial barriers, suffered the most,” said Clark, professor of environmental engineering in Penn State Harrisburg’s School of Science, Engineering, and Technology. “They were asked why they didn’t evacuate, rather than how could we have helped you evacuate.”

From levees to the streets 

Clark’s work often starts not with large infrastructure but on the streets where people live. After a 2017 cloudburst dropped nearly five inches of rain in under 90 minutes in Middletown, Pennsylvania, her students studied the borough’s historic development patterns and how buried streams and compacted soils contribute to flooding.  

“This research has shown that shallow soil restoration to increase the storage capacity of the soil by a few inches can lead to significant reductions in flood volumes and flow rates,” Clark said. 

Alfonso Mejia, professor of civil and environmental engineering, said that, like New Orleans, communities across Pennsylvania also depend on levees, many of which are outdated or underfunded.  

After Katrina, federal rules required levees to be accredited, but the process is costly and often out of reach for small municipalities, Mejia said. His team is piloting new approaches to levee assessment that reduce costs and improve safety. 

Christine Kirchhoff, associate professor of engineering in Penn State’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, conducts research on topics related to flooding, with core concerns of climate adaptation and infrastructure resilience. She has also been involved in levee research with Mejia, partnering with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and rural communities.  

“The accreditation requirement itself stems from Katrina,” Kirchhoff said. “It was intended to ensure levees provide the flood protection communities rely on.” 

Data, tools and community partnerships 

Peter Stempel, associate professor of landscape architecture, creates 3D flood visualizations. He said he wants to make the risks tangible for both experts and everyday people.

“The 3D visualizations of flooding make potential flood impacts relatable to wide audiences,” he said. “This helps everyday people and experts communicate on more equal footing about what their concerns are and how to address impacts of storms. I also develop tools that help emergency managers better predict the impact of storms, for instance, how an impending storm will affect a port or emergency facility so that people can better prepare.” 

Scott brings a global perspective through projects ranging from flood preparedness in the Mid-Atlantic to glacier-related flooding in the Himalayas. He said that planning for high-impact, low-probability events, like Katrina, is essential. 

“What this means for the future is a need to completely rethink and replan our cities, settlements and economic activities, especially very high-risk ones like nuclear power plants and other critical infrastructure,” he said. “We need a systematic and socially vetted triage approach to our systems. And we will need greatly improved scientific capacity and heightened funding for public and private institutions that address these challenges.” 

Kelly said she sees the same urgency at the data level. For three decades, her group has worked to make floodplain maps, infrastructure data and high-water marks publicly available.  

“The importance of data access in this space can’t be overstated,” she said. “Without this data it would be impossible to plan for and respond to emergencies such as floods.” 

A shared responsibility 

Two decades after Katrina, the lessons remain urgent, Scott said: Infrastructure must be updated, risks must be clearly communicated and communities must be supported long before disaster strikes. 

“At Penn State, that work spans disciplines — engineering, data science, policy, design and community engagement,” Scott said “With the upcoming forum and similar events, we aim to connect with other stakeholders to help shape how Pennsylvania and other regions confront the realities of flooding in a changing climate.”