Improving coastal resilience with ASBPA’s water level observing network
Lillian Street in, Kitty Hawk, NC, October 2015. (Photo credit: National Weather Service, used with permission.)
In partnership with ASBPA, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Engineering Research and Development Center (ERDC), and the U.S. Geological Survey’s Coastal Marine Geology Program has awarded $265,672 in federal funding to directly support academic research to investigate dune management challenges on developed coasts. Each university was awarded $40,000-$50,000 for the following projects, which all partnered with local coastal managers to define their research questions:
• University of Pennsylvania: Wind Tunnel Analyses of Vegetation Species Differences in Sand Capture Efficiency & Dune Morphology for Natural & Nature Based Dune Management — Principle Investigator (PI) Brenda Casper
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: Modeling Dune Growth on Managed Coasts — PI Laura Moore
• Texas A&M University: Perceptions, governance, and stakeholder relationships along the Texas Coast — PI David Cairns
• Oregon State University: Simulating Dune Evolution on Managed Coastlines: Exploring Policy Options with the Coastal Recovery and Storms Tool — PI Peter Ruggiero
• North Carolina State University: Development of Dune Design Criteria for Overtopping Considering Constructed Beach Berm — co-PIs Elizabeth Sciaudone and Margery Overton
• University of Alabama: Estimating Coastal Dune Vulnerability to Storm Sequences — PI Douglas Sherman
“This exciting award is part of a larger effort to invigorate coastal research and interagency collaboration,” said Nicole Elko, Ph.D., ASBPA’s Vice President of Science and Technology. “Here, we have linked the management and academic communities to address difficult science and engineering questions related to coastal sand dunes.”
The awards are the outcome of a workshop hosted by ASBPA Oct. 26-28, 2015, in Kitty Hawk, NC – a community with significant dune management challenges (see photo). Nearly 100 members of the coastal management and research communities met to bridge the apparent gap between the coastal dune research of scientists and engineers and the needs of coastal management practitioners. The workshop aimed to identify the challenges involved in building and managing dunes on developed coasts, assess the extent to which scientific knowledge can be applied to the management community, and identify approaches to provide means to bridge the gap between needs and potential solutions.
The performance period is up to two years, with an expectation that the awardees will present preliminary findings at ASBPA’s Coastal Conference during a dedicated session in October 2017.