'Catch the King' Tide
Let's map how far it floods...
Catch the King is the world's largest environmental survey. It leverages citizen science to aid in GPS flood data collection throughout coastal Virginia. Catch the King aims to map the king tide's maximum inundation extents with the goal of validating and improving predictive models for future forecasting of increasingly pervasive "nuisance" flooding. The project's current focus is centered on mapping inundation extents in coastal Virginia, within the automated mapping scope of VIMS' Tidewatch storm tide forecast map, but we welcome volunteers from outside of our present focus region who are willing and eager to contribute to this endeavor. Please sign up below!
- Volunteer Registration (so we can attempt to organize your flood mapping efforts):
http://kingtide.whro.org | https://facebook.com/groups/435962326798729 - Mobile App Registration (free on iOS & Android; use your phone's GPS to map floods):
https://tinyurl.com/SLRiOS | https://tinyurl.com/SLRAnd - VIMS' Inundation Model Forecasts (help validate & improve future flood forecasts in VA):
http://AdaptVA.org/info/forecasts.html (AdaptVA.org features VIMS' short- and long-term flood forecasts, and is run by the CCRM's open-source SCHISM Hydrodynamic Model)
{{youtube:medium|CTZKK1jM2i8, See Catch the King's Recent Media Coverage on CBS This Morning.}}
This year's Catch the King event will focus on the highest predicted astronomical tide of 2019, the king tide, taking place on the morning of Sunday, October 27. This will serve as the annually scheduled dress-rehearsal for a coordinated volunteer network to learn how to map the flood extent of an inundation event using the GPS on their mobile device in preparation for more significant floods caused by hurricanes, nor'easters, heavy rainfall, and wind tides.
Did you hear about Catch the King on CBS This Morning?
Looking to get involved and don't live in Virginia? Check out our video tutorial and PDF walkthrough to learn how to map flooding in a community near you!
Each year, prior to the king tide flood event, Dr. Loftis at the CCRFR designs a webmap to direct volunteers to public places that are forecasted to flood during the king tide using VIMS' hydrodynamic models. Then, during the king tide, GPS data points are collected by many volunteers to effectively breadcrumb/trace the high water line. This approach is used each year to map flooding extents across coastal cities and counties in Virginia by pressing the 'Save Data' button in the 'Sea Level Rise' mobile application every few steps along the water's edge during annual king tides and after major storm events.
{{youtube:medium|3J9VtXM7hBQ, Learn how Dr. Derek Loftis uses data collected by volunteers during Catch the King events to validate VIMS' street-level flood model.}}
Catch the King's greater scientific aspiration involves using this information to validate VIMS' inundation models via calculated distance differences as demonstrated in the embedded video example below, and by inferred volume differentials, when GPS flood extent data are translated to lidar-derived digital elevation models. Citizen scientists' data are then used to correct elevations and hone spatially varying friction parameterization assumptions in VIMS' models to improve future inundation predictions.
Map of Past Catch the King Flood Monitoring Data
GPS high water mark data from Catch the King 2017 
and 2018 
appear on the embedded map below as aggregated colored dots to mark where volunteers have collected data during past king tide mapping events. This map is useful to illustrate mapping locations observed from past mapping events and to identify areas where there are gaps in previous years' observation efforts. Zoom in on the map to separate the aggregated points at each mapping site. If you wish to access these GPS data as GIS shape files, they are available for download at these pages:
Catch the King 2017
Catch the King 2018
View Full Screen Map in New Window
Response from Catch the King's dedicated volunteers in 2017, fueled by constant media coverage leading up to the event, caused Catch the King to become the largest citizen science/crowdsourcing survey event in the world. Over 35 separate volunteer training events were held all over Hampton Roads resulting in 510 known participants collecting 53,006 time-stamped GPS maximum flooding extent measurements and 1,126 geotagged photographs of the king tide flooding during the 4-hour event. Click here for a map with an illustrative visual distribution of these statistics.
Did you hear about Catch the King on NPR's Science Friday?
Looking to get involved and don't live in Virginia? Check out our video tutorial and PDF walkthrough to learn how to map flooding in a community near you!
WHRO Public Media, the lead media sponsor for Catch the King, is stepping up promotion of the event as part of a year-round environmental education program for high school students. With a grant from the Hampton Roads Community Foundation and additional funding from the Batten Environmental Education Initiative, WHRO offers incentives to dozens of schools to join in its resilience education effort. Catch the King enables students to share in a project-based outdoor learning experience, utilizing smartphones in a way that’s educational and positive while contributing to a better understanding of the most central of challenges to Hampton Roads: sea level rise. Though this year’s focus will be on attracting more students, Catch the King organizers welcome all individuals and organizations to participate. Catch the King is grateful for the support of tHRive, the young professionals of the Hampton Roads Chamber. This year’s Catch the King also welcomes the sponsorship of the Hampton Roads Sanitation District.
Catch the King is also made possible by the nonprofit groups, Wetlands Watch and Concursive Corp., creators and developers of the citizen-science Sea Level Rise app (iOS and Android) used in the event. Our science liaison is Dr. Derek Loftis of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, whose work is funded in part by the Commonwealth Center for Recurrent Flooding Resiliency. Our volunteer coordinator is Qaren Jacklich. The dynamic story map below was developed in to recruit the event's many volunteers in 2018 and 2019
Dynamic Story Map
The 2017 Volunteer Recruitment Story Map was viewed >10,000 times prior to the king tide due to the gracious media support and coverage articles below along with help from our dedicated volunteers.
Data Archive
View all data Catch the King has collected through the Sea Level Rise App (by year)
Catalogue of Media Coverage of Catch the King:
2019
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2018
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2017
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