Catch the King 2024: Documenting Floods With Community Science
Catch the King is a Guinness World Record-breaking community science program, founded and organized by environmental nonprofit Wetlands Watch, that recruits volunteers in coastal Virginia to collect GPS mapping data and observations during king tide flood events. To collect data, Wetlands Watch developed the Sea Level Rise phone app as a bridge for improving data collection to better inform local adaptation planning while empowering the public to become part of their community’s climate adaptation effort by reporting the impacts they’re experiencing. As climate-driven sea level rise and heavier rainfall events continue to pose challenges for everyday life, studying the impacts of seasonal king tides affords our communities a glimpse into the future, and can help prioritize where actions to mitigate flood waters and adapt to these changes should be taken. Catch the King was launched in 2017 and has grown a network of over 1,000 volunteers collecting a cumulative total of over 250,000 unique GPS pins that delineate where water travels during a king tide event. This session will review the results of our data from 2024, the volunteer groups we engaged, and the partners (including the Virginia Institute of Marine Science) who utilize the data for adaptation planning and capacity building. The session will also feature discussions about the value of community science in helping to improve local understanding of the impacts of sea level rise, while empowering the public with an opportunity to be part of the climate adaptation discussion.
Author Bio
Gabi Kinney is the Assistant Director of the Living Infrastructure program at Wetlands Watch holding a B.S. in Marine Biology from UNC-Wilmington and an M.S. in Natural Resources and Global Sustainability from Virginia Tech. Supporting her work in local government resilience planning and sea level rise education, Gabi is a Certified Floodplain Manager and a Chesapeake Bay Landscape Professional (CBLP) Level I stormwater management certificant. Gabi has served as the lead coordinator for Wetlands Watch's community science program, Catch the King, and is developing education materials aligned with Virginia's Standards of Learning that focus on bringing youth into the discussion about climate adaptation and local resilience. In her current role, Gabi is co-coordinating CBLP training across the state to build a workforce for the design, installation, and maintenance of nature-based approaches to stormwater and floodplain management.
