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Abstract
Storm surge, the coastal inundation that occurs due to tropical cyclones, is the most deadly and costly aspect of tropical storms and hurricanes. To accurately simulate hurricane storm surge, numerical models should include an up-to-date and accurate representation of the coastal landscape. Contemporary storm surge models leverage unstructured, finite element meshes. Unstructured triangular meshes can resolve complex geometries while also balancing computational efficiently through coarse resolution in areas that do not require it. A substantially new development in mesh generation across the coastal floodplain includes the representation of significant vertical features such as dunes, highways, and railways. In addition, newly introduced meshing technology has evolved to allow for automated meshing based on certain user-based domains and geographic inputs. An unstructured, finite-element mesh with integrated geographic features is generated using automatic mesh generation software for coastal flood research and real-time hurricane landfalling prediction purposes. The thesis presents the development of an unstructured storm surge model mesh for coastal Georgia using the latest mesh generation tools and most recently available topographic and bathymetric data.