Impacts of a Medium Intensity Storm Surge Event on Groundwater Level and Conductivity along the North Atlantic Coast

Sea level rise and storm surge events, clear indicators of climate change, are the main drivers of coastal area conversion. Flooding and salinization events cause coastal forest retreat, cropland death, urban green space defoliation and consequently marshland expansion. Global warming has intensified the storm surge events over the years. Storm surge can be felt in the groundwater level and conductivity trend as increases of initial values. Analysis done on hurricanes effect demonstrated these increases. Here a medium intense storm surge, during the Melissa tropical storm (11th-14th of October 2019) is analyzed. Groundwater level and conductivity data collected in wells along North America Atlantic coast are correlated to topographic variables and time to recover from storm surge effect is calculated. Firstly, a regression analysis suggests a significant correlation between groundwater level and ground surface elevation and distance from the ocean (R2>0.4, pvalue< 0.05). Secondly, time to recover is higher for conductivity than groundwater level. Finally, after the storm surge event, the groundwater level and conductivity values reach values higher and similar each other. The results achieved are crucial to study the ecological responses of each site in front of flooding and salinization events of medium intensity.