Fifty-two Bay Area public schools sit so close to the bay's high-tide line that they're already at risk of being inundated with ocean and ground water, and their risk will grow as seas continue to rise, according to an analysis by KQED and Climate Central.
Our analysis likely underestimates the real-life flood risk, according to flood experts we spoke with, because it doesn't capture other factors, like intensifying rainfall and localized land subsidence.
For the coastal flood analysis, we considered the risk of inundation during a 100-year-storm, which state law requires all schools to be constructed to withstand.
Groundwater floods depend on underground, out-of-sight factors like topography, soil composition and the water table. In the absence of a detailed subsurface geology map for the region, the model uses a range of plausible geologies based on the research that does exist.
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