The northwest Pacific Ocean is a hot spot for sea level rise and increasing frequency of stronger storms. It is where Supertyphoon Haiyan formed, the strongest storm on record to hit land, which provided a window into the hydrologic impacts of an extreme storm.

This talk presents results of detailed documentation of flood levels, groundwater table elevations, groundwater geochemistry, electrical resistivity, and flow and transport modeling. Through surveys, it was discovered that the storm surge infiltrated and contaminated crucial aquifers with seawater. As warmer seas generate more powerful storms, the vulnerability of aquifers is a growing concern for coastal communities.

M. Bayani Cardenas is a hydrology professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences of the Jackson School of Geosciences at the University of Texas at Austin. His research seeks to understand flow and transport processes across different hydrologic settings, water quality and quantity problems, and scales, using a combination of theoretical, computational, and observational methods.