Another Successful Year of Catch the King Flood Data Collection in Virginia. Catch us in North Carolina too!

Image by Don Kinney: Young Catch the King volunteers work with Wetlands Watch staff member Gabi Kinney to collect flood data at Norfolk’s Haven Creek Boat Ramp using the Sea Level Rise app.

SNAPSHOT: Last month, 122 volunteers up and down the coast of Virginia joined Wetlands Watch in our annual flood data collection event: Catch the King. This crowd-sourced tidal flood monitoring program, which occurs during one of the Fall’s highest king tides, has become a trusted means for collecting critical flood data in at-risk places. Thanks to a generous grant from NOAA, we’ve expanded the program into North Carolina as well. We are proud of this data-driven program that brings community members together to contribute to important and relevant climate science.

BACKGROUND: Over the weekend of October 27th-29th, 2023, Wetlands Watch organized our 7th annual community science event: Catch the King. This event is truly one of a kind, and holds the Guinness World Record for “most contributions to an environmental survey.” During this event, we invite local volunteers of all ages to collect real-time flood data using our Sea Level Rise app during the king tide. This tool allows users to sketch out the extent of flood waters by dropping GPS pins on their cell phones.

Source: NOAA, “What is a perigean spring tide?"

“The King” in Catch the King refers to flooding that occurs during king tides, when the full or new moon is in perigee. This is when its orbit comes closest to the Earth and is aligned with the sun. During this time, the combined gravitational pull of the aligned moon and sun elevates sea levels and brings extensive flood waters into the streets of coastal communities at high tide. 

We use king tides as future-casting tools that allow us to predict the flood lines of the future. Due to climate-induced sea level rise, today’s extreme events become the everyday flooding events of tomorrow. Typical sunny-day flooding is predicted to occur nearly one-third of the year by 2050 in Virginia’s Hampton Roads alone.

Through partnership with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS), Catch the King data is being used to help validate and improve flood prediction models. These are the tools that local planners and community decision-makers use to ensure that the choices made today are based on the best available local data. 

While Catch the King data is essential in the fight to limit the negative effects of climate-induced flooding, Wetlands Watch is also monitoring how inland inundation impacts inland ecosystems. We are also concerned about the fate of Virginia’s Wetlands. Wetlands in Virginia can’t keep up with sea level rise and as much as 89% of our tidal wetlands will drown in place by 2080 if we don’t make space for them to migrate landward over time.

Image by Don Kinney: Flooded area of The Hague in Norfolk with inundated protected bird habitat. Marsh plants can be seen on both sides of the road.

Image by Don Kinney: Marsh grasses have “jumped” across the road and are now migrating into available green space on the other side.

RESULTS: Catch the King is strongly supported by local volunteer organizations, school groups, and environmental nonprofits to help us cover Virginia’s extensive tidal regions. During this year’s event, our 122 volunteers collected nearly 14,000 data points from Virginia Beach all the way up to Fredericksburg. This year, we collected data in more new places than ever before!

Congratulations to all of our top Catch the King volunteers and regions!

We could not have done this work without the dedicated help of our “tide captains,” spectacular individuals who recruited volunteers and organized events in their regions. Through their efforts, we were able to engage such groups as the Master Naturalists, the University of Virginia’s Coastal Research Center, and Friends of the Rappahannock, and extend into more regions on the Eastern Shore, the Middle Peninsula, and the Northern Neck.

This year Wetlands Watch was fortunate to have received a generous grant from NOAA to expand Catch the King in North Carolina. This work allows us to ground-truth the impacts of climate change in a neighboring state. So far, twenty volunteers from North Carolina have collected almost 2,000 data pins; more will follow when they collect data on the final king tide event of the season, which will occur November 25th through the 28th.

We are grateful for the energy and dedication of all of our North Carolina partners, including NC King Tides, NC DEQ’s Division of Coastal Management, NC Sea Grant, Cape Fear River Watch, the NC Coastal Federation, the Plastic Ocean Project, and many others. Following their truly impressive work this year, we’re looking forward to exploring how we can work together to enhance flood resilience implementation projects, public safety initiatives, and promote local climate change awareness in North Carolina. 

We extend a very special thanks to groups who return to our program year after year including the Girl Scouts of the Colonial Coast, Old Dominion University’s Measure the Muck, Northern Neck Master Gardeners, Peninsula Master Naturalists, corporate groups AECOM and HRSD, WHRO Public Media, and so many more. We couldn’t do it without you.

Be on the lookout for a “Save the Date” to our Catch the King Appreciation Event to be held in early 2024. We’ll review the data we’ve collected, and invite our partners, volunteers, and tide captains to share their experiences and successes monitoring the king tides.

If you haven’t already, subscribe to our Catch the King newsletter to stay in the loop and sign up for High Water Watch alerts so you can stay ahead of the next flood event!