Developing a Comprehensive Flood Mitigation Strategy for Palmer Township: A Community-Driven Approach to Managing Riverine Flooding and Stormwater hazards

Acerca de la Comunidad

Palmer Township is a rapidly growing community in Lehigh Valley, PA, with a population of approximately 23,000 residents (about the seating capacity of Madison Square Garden). Historically a rural agricultural village, Palmer Township has transformed into a diverse suburban municipality over recent decades. This growth has brought numerous challenges, particularly concerning stormwater management and flood mitigation, exacerbated by more intense and frequent storms attributed to climate change. 

Palmer Township has faced significant flooding issues, both from inadequate stormwater infrastructure and from its creeks, Bushkill and Schoeneck, which often overflow during heavy rains. The lack of proper stormwater management in older residential and industrial areas, combined with increased storm intensity, has led to frequent and severe flooding. The community seeks to understand the impacts of these events and develop actionable mitigation plans. 

Palmer Township’s Hazard Mitigation Plan, 

Lehigh Valley Hazard Mitigation Plan, and  

Making Sense of Uncertainty: Improving the Use of Hydrologic Probabilistic Information in Decision-Making 

Sobre el proyecto

Palmer Township seeks to partner with a scientist experienced in stormwater management and riverine flood monitoring to develop a comprehensive flood mitigation plan. The project aims to leverage a combination of community-sourced data and ancillary datasets to enhance local decision-making and disaster response. 

What? 

• Data Types: Modeled climate projections, weather data, soil saturation, soil permeability, catchment hydrology and infrastructure assessments. 

• Specific Needs: Historical and real-time data for flood mapping, UAV/Drone survey and active flood monitoring. 

Where? 

• Focus Area: Palmer Township, with potential scalability to other regions with similar challenges. 

• Data Extent: Localized datasets with the ability to incorporate broader regional or nationwide data for comprehensive analysis. 

When? 

• Timeline: Immediate start with historical data review, followed by real-time data integration and continuous monitoring. 

How? 

• Data Accessibility: Open-source datasets requiring minimal processing, suitable for integration with existing community data collection efforts. 

 Key Challenges: 

1. Stormwater Management: Many areas lack proper stormwater facilities, leading to flooding in residential yards, driveways, and roads.
2. Riverine Flooding: Creeks overflow into neighborhoods, parks, and trails, causing substantial damage to infrastructure and natural resources. 
3. Community Impact: Frequent flooding affects the daily lives of residents, damages property, and strains municipal resources. 

Community Vision and Engagement 

Palmer Township envisions a project that not only addresses immediate flooding concerns but also educates residents on stormwater management and engages them in sustainable practices. The community aims to develop a stormwater management guide for homeowners and implement infrastructure improvements to mitigate flood risks. 

Community Involvement: 

• Active engagement with residents through public meetings and stakeholder consultations. 

• Collaboration with local partners, including the Palmer Township Stormwater Authority and Bushkill Creek Conservancy. 

• Ongoing educational efforts to raise awareness and involve residents in flood mitigation initiatives. 

By addressing these challenges through a collaborative, data-driven approach, Palmer Township hopes to create a resilient community better prepared for future climatic events. 

Timeline and Milestones 

Proposed Project Timeline: 

• September 2024: Search for and select scientific partner(s). 

• October-December 2024: Collaboratively identify useful datasets and prepare them for application. 

• January 2025 onwards: Incorporate datasets into community science efforts, including community engagement and back-end processing. 

This project will be iterative, requiring regular communication with scientific partners to adapt to the unique needs of Palmer Township and refine the approach as new data and insights emerge. 

Líderes comunitarios

Craig Beavers serves as the Assistant Director of Planning for Palmer Township, Northampton County. Craig manages the land development process for the Township, including processing development applications, reviewing projects for compliance with local and state legislation and community goals, and overseeing construction projects. He also provides staff support to the Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors, helping to implement the 2018 Comprehensive Plan for the community. Craig received his B.A. in Administration and a minor in Business from Marywood University in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and is currently pursuing a Master’s in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Florida. He holds professional certification as a Certified Floodplain Manager and volunteers as the Chair of the Lehigh Valley Section of the American Planning Association. 

Paige Strasko is the Environmental Administrator, MS4 Coordinator, and Tree Coordinator for Palmer Township, Northampton County. She is a Certified Stormwater Inspector (CSI) and is an Environmental Science graduate from the University of Maine with experience in water sampling and testing, laboratory work, and data collection. Paige has worked with Palmer Township to develop and implement their stormwater program to remain compliant with the Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) Permit.  She has experience with stormwater education for the public, inspections of stormwater infrastructure, organizing community events, public relations and communications, and working with local volunteer organizations. Paige’s expertise is in Mycology, but she has a passion for helping build her community through her work in public service.  

Científicos comunitarios

Dr. Amrit Prasad Sharma has been engaged in disaster risk management, from policy formulation to on-the-ground implementation, since 2009. He holds a PhD in Hydraulic Engineering with a focus on hydraulic modelling for riverine floods, and he also developed the Risk-Integrated Resilience (RiR) framework that links flood risk components with resilience attributes. Dr. Sharma has gained experience working across NGO (ECO-Nepal), INGO (terre des hommes, Germany), and academic institution (Tribhuvan University, Nepal), and has also served as an expert on projects supported by UNDP, ADB, and the World Bank, pertaining to the development of river basin master plans, community-based flood forecasting systems, climate and multi-hazard risk assessments across the Hindu Kush Himalaya region. His field of interest includes to bridge the advanced expertise in open-channel hydraulics, hydrology, and flow modeling with community-based resilience approaches to inform and support evidence-based policy and planning. He currently serves as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Science at Patan Multiple Campus, Tribhuvan University, Nepal.

Manmeet Singh is Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow at the Jackson School of Geosciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, USA. He served as a Staff Scientist at the nodal national lab on weather and climate in India, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Govt of India for 11 years from 2013-2024. He was also a Fulbright-Kalam fellow at the Jackson School of Geosciences, The University of Texas at Austin in 2021. His research interests include climate solutions to the problems on land, ocean and atmosphere using mathematical models, particularly numerical weather prediction systems. He is especially interested in AI/ML techniques, causal approaches, recurrence plots, complex networks and non-linear time series analysis for solving grand challenges in Earth System Science. He is an experienced climate modeller having contributed to the IITM Earth System Model simulations towards the IPCC AR6 report. Together with his PhD co-advisor, he developed and coupled the aerosol module of the IITM Earth System Model. He is active in teaching and has given invited talks at venues such as the NASA/UAH Seminar series, Microsoft India podcast among others. His PhD focussed on the impacts of the proposals suggesting volcanic eruptions as an analogue of solar geoengineering to halt climate change. Recently, his work has shown substantial improvements in high-impact short-range numerical weather predictions using deep learning and he has also developed novel physics inspired deep learning algorithms for high-resolution downscaling.

Dr. Chengye Li received his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Chang’an University,
China and earned both his Master and Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of
Missouri–Kansas City, USA. His doctoral research focused on predictive flood vulnerability
assessment, integrating geostatistical analysis, sensitivity studies, and artificial intelligence
techniques. Dr. Li is currently a Water Resources Engineer at WSP, where he specializes in
climate change impacts, hydrology, and flood risk management. He is committed to
advancing climate resilience by bridging technical innovation with practical, community-
centered solutions that support both stakeholders and the public.

Bamikole Olaleye Akinsehinde, AFHEA, is a doctoral researcher in Computer Science at Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, United Kingdom, specialising in AI for weather and climate-related predictions, with a research focus on applying Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) to develop fuzzified neural architectures, ensemble methods, and advanced feature selection for generalisable prediction of rainfall and other meteorological variables across diverse terrains. He is a member of the IEEE and the American Meteorological Society (AMS). He has collaborated on studies addressing environmental contamination and sustainability through adsorption technologies, magnetic sorbents, seed germination under polluted conditions, bioenergy and waste reduction frameworks, as well as related environmental safety and conservation initiatives. With a BSc in Applied Physics (Geophysics), a Master’s degree in Creative App Development, and a postgraduate programme in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, his research emphasises sustainable development, interpretable models, and clear uncertainty communication. His expertise includes AI research and development, weather forecasting, climate science, numerical weather prediction, predictability and ensemble forecast systems, flood risk management, environmental impact assessments (EIA), conservation programs, and the analysis of weather datasets to enhance decision-making in disaster management, with a focus on applying data science at the intersection of environmental impact and sustainable development. His skills include predictive modelling, generative AI solutions, data engineering and analysis, MLOps – building reproducible ML pipelines (data preprocessing, training, deployment), stakeholder-focused reporting, and professional training.

Becario científico comunitario

Bashudev Neupane is a doctoral researcher at Tor Vergata University in Rome, Italy, and a member of the Global Alliance for Inter- and Transdisciplinarity (ITD Alliance). He possesses extensive experience in managing both non-profit and for-profit organizations and has served as a consultant to government and non-governmental agencies, as well as local, regional, national, and international organizations. He has been awarded by UNESCO for his contributions to science communication. 

His expertise spans trans-disciplinary research, environmental engineering, integrated water resources management, hydrological modeling, GIS, remote sensing, data science, and water quality and quantity assessment. Bashudev has led basin and catchment scale planning and has a special interest in the criticality of infrastructure and the heritage prospects of them.  

• Nurture Nature Center 
• Bushkill Stream Conservancy 
• Palmer Township Stormwater Authority