This report has been developed in response to Item 451 (D) of Chapter 2 of the 2022 Special Session I Acts of Assembly (the “Appropriation Act"). The Appropriation Act directed the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT or the “Department"), with the assistance of the Virginia Institute for Marine Science (VIMS), to provide an annual update on the status of the “Coastal Virginia Transportation Infrastructure Inundation Study" including: an up-to-date identification of at-risk rural, suburban and urban infrastructure, and planning and options to mitigate or eliminate the identified risks; and a report on what work remains to be completed and estimated time frame for the completion of its work.

In 2019, VDOT’s Virginia Transportation Research Council (VTRC) entered into an agreement with VIMS requesting that VIMS conduct a five-year study to develop a strategy for understanding and addressing sea level rise, land subsidence, and recurrent flooding impacts on existing and planned road infrastructure, as well as how that infrastructure will impact natural ecosystems in Virginia’s coastal zone as the climate changes (the “VIMS Study"). This report summarizes the overall cumulative progress of the VIMS Study, provides an update on significant findings made since the submission of last year’s report in December 2021 (“Study Year Three"), and identifies how data from the VIMS Study is being incorporated into VDOT’s statewide resilience planning efforts to manage identified risks to transportation infrastructure.

Alongside the VIMS Study, VDOT has independently developed a statewide Resilience Plan—a roadmap to incorporate a framework of resiliency principles in the Department’s transportation planning, project development, delivery, operations, maintenance, and asset management efforts.

One of the main objectives included in VDOT’s Resilience Plan is the identification of available resilience measures to mitigate and/or eliminate identified risks to transportation infrastructure throughout planning, design, operations, and maintenance programs. The available measures will include (i) adaptive design criteria based upon the best available, forward looking data; (ii) physical enhancement measures; (iii) nature-based resilience measures; (iv) operations, maintenance, and emergency management enhancement measures; and (v) other administrative/policy measures. Once VIMS has completed its work on the flood hazard zone assessment, network flooding analyses, and the infrastructure interactive viewer tool, the appropriate options to mitigate or eliminate identified risks may be selected and implemented by decision-makers in conjunction with VDOT’s Resilience Plan.

The anticipated completion date of the VIMS Study is September 2024. The remaining work includes expanding network flooding analyses for the remainder of Virginia’s coastal area beyond the south Hampton Roads region and Planning District 8.