Carolina Science Cafe | Floods, Forecasts, and the Future

Flooding is one of the most costly and frequent natural hazards in the United States, and its impacts are growing due to climate change, urban development, and aging infrastructure. In this talk, Dr. Antonia Sebastian will explore how science, data, and community knowledge come together to help us better understand—and adapt to—evolving flood risks.

Drawing on her research in North Carolina and beyond, Dr. Sebastian will share how new models and data are being used to uncover patterns of exposure, assess who is most vulnerable, and inform smarter, more equitable approaches to resilience. She will also discuss how local stories of adaptation, from rural coastal towns to urban neighborhoods, offer powerful insights into what it means to live with water in a warming world. Delving into common questions like “Is it really flooding more often?” and “What is the 100-year flood?”, Dr. Sebastian will speak about what we know about floods and what drives them to help make sense of the changing risks we face and how we can prepare for a wetter, more uncertain future.

About the Speaker

Dr. Antonia Sebastian is a flood scientist who studies how people and places are affected by extreme weather and what we can do to build a safer, more resilient future. She is an Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she holds a joint appointment in the Department of Earth, Marine and Environmental Sciences and the Environment, Ecology and Energy Program (E3P). Dr. Sebastian’s research blends cutting-edge data and computer models to answer questions like: Who gets hit hardest when floods happen? Why are some communities able to bounce back faster than others? And how can we better prepare for the next big storm?

Prior to joining the faculty at UNC, Sebastian was an Associate Research Scientist at Texas A&M University at Galveston (2017-2019), where she helped to establish the Institute for a Disaster Resilient Texas (IDRT). She has also held positions as a postdoctoral researcher (2016-2017) and Netherlands-America Foundation (NAF)/Fulbright Flood Management Fellow (2014-2015) in the Department of Hydraulic Engineering at Delft University of Technology. Sebastian currently serves as a member of the Board of Deltares USA, a Guest Editor for the journal of Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, and a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) scientific committees on Climate Adaptation and Coastal Engineering Sciences.