Florida Atlantic University

Austin Scheinkman is a 2nd year Masters student at Florida Atlantic University studying Geosciences under Tiffany Roberts-Briggs. He did is Undergraduate at the University of Florida and studied Geology and how a Hurricane impacted a beach on the South Florida Coast under Peter Adams. His interest lie in management of the coast and inlets.

North Carolina State University

Brooke is currently a second year Master’s student working with Dr. Casey Dietrich at North Carolina State University. She is originally from Charleston, West Virginia. In 2019, she received her Bachelor’s degree in civil engineering at Marshall University. She decided to pursue coastal engineering for her Master’s as it allowed for her to apply what she had learned in her undergraduate degree for one of her favorite places. Her current research revolves around using a coastal ocean model. She hopes to continue modeling in her future career.

University of Delaware

I am a master’s student at the University of Delaware working with Dr. Jack Puleo. I grew up in Rhode Island where I also attended the University of Rhode Island, where I obtained a degrees in ocean engineering and marine biology. My field of research is in extreme storm modeling and monitoring; specifically analyzing the morphological changes that occur to the coastline caused by extreme events. I like to think I am a climatologist. What excites me about my research is that we are analyzing a prevalent issue in today’s world; climate change is increasing the frequency of extreme events.

The USA comprises over 95,000 miles of shoreline and roughly 59% of the coastline is sheltered from the open ocean (e.g. estuaries, bays, lagoons) (NOAA 2020). Barrier islands are sand island strips that shelter approximately 10% of the world’s coastlines (Linhoss, 2018). Being directly exposed to the open ocean, they are vulnerable to energetic ocean events such as extreme storms and hurricanes, which influence the wave and current action that shape the feature (Wang et al., 2015). However, despite their vulnerability, barrier islands are often highly developed and populated. Thus extreme events have caused billions of dollars in infrastructure damage over the past decade (Kobell, 2015). There has been a notable rise in extreme storms over the past decades with damages also increasing with effects of sea-level rise (Kobel 2015).
Survey data can be used to measure morphological changes pre- and post-storm, but data on the hydrodynamic and morphodynamic processes that shape the beach during the event are sparse. Understanding intra-event storm processes may assist in improving predictive models on the effects of extreme events on barrier island morphodynamics. XBeach is a 2-dimensional modeling system that simulates morphodynamic processes using depth-integrated and short-wave average hydrodynamics to predict bathymetric behavior during extreme events (Roelvink et al. 2009). Xbeach was used to model the domain of Bethany Beach, DE an area which falls victim to extreme Nor’Easter events annually. Simulations were forced using wave information from a NOAA buoy located roughly 11 km offshore. Simulations were run to determine beach response for multiple past extreme events. Additional simulations undertook varying mean wave angle, wave height, and water level to determine the effect on beach morphology. Eventually, data from the 2021/22 Nor’Easter season will be used to calibrate XBeach for intra-event processes and quantify the time scales of beach erosion and effect of berm lowering on morphodynamic processes.
References
Kobell, R. 2015. “For Vulnerable Barrier Islands, A Rush to Rebuild on U.S. Coast”. YaleEnviorment360.
Linhoss. A. 2018. “Barrier islands are natural coast guards that absorb impacts from hurricanes and storms” The Conversation.
NOAA. 2020. “Shoreline Mileage of the United States.”
Sallenger, A. 2000. “Storm Impact Scale for Barrier Islands”. Journal of Coastal Research, vol.16, no. 3.
Roelvink, J.A. et al. 2009. “Modelling storm impacts on beaches, dunes and barrier islands”. Coastal Engineering 56, 1133–1152.
Wang et al. 2015. “Chapter 10 – Storm-Induced Morphology Changes along Barrier Islands and Post Storm Recovery”. Coastal and Marine Hazards, Risks, and Disasters.”

University of South Alabama

Kaylyn received her Bachelors of Science in Geology from the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Alabama and is currently pursuing a Masters of Science in Coastal Engineering at the University of South Alabama. She is a native of Biloxi, Mississippi and has enjoyed spending her childhood at some of the Mississippi Barrier islands (Horn and Ship Island) beach-combing and looking for shark teeth.

United States Naval Academy

Midshipman Nicole Nguyen is studying Ocean Engineering at the United States Naval Academy. She will graduate and commission as an officer in the US Navy in May 2022.

An XBeach numerical model was used to investigate sediment transport dynamics under storm conditions for the existing conditions at the Chandeleur Islands and to determine how sediment placement design may best provide ecosystem benefits in the context of storm response and resiliency. Four storm conditions (weak, intermediate, strong, and extreme) were run on three island conditions (FWOA, dune endmember restoration, marsh endmember restoration). A high dune favors collision regime impacts and transport of sand from the island toward the surf zone for a longer duration during all storms, resulting in a decrease in subaerial sediment volume post-storm. In contrast, the marsh end member restoration enhances sand overwash from the island to the backbarrier marsh platform resulting in an increase in subaerial sediment volume. Our results show that the marsh end member restoration template maximizes sediment capture enabled by inundation and overwash processes, retaining sand within the system while building up a platform for deposition of that material during storms.”

University of North Carolina Wilmington

Dr. Mieras is an Assistant Professor of Coastal Engineering at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. His research encompasses sediment transport and hydrodynamic processes in nearshore and wetland environments, via field and laboratory studies, in order to improve predictions of coastal geomorphic change. Overall, Dr. Mieras’ Coastal Sediments and Hydrodynamics Laboratory (CSHL) conducts basic and applied research to improve our understanding of the physical processes driving coastal flooding and geomorphology in a changing climate, leading to more effective coastal protection strategies against increasingly frequent intense storms and rising sea levels.

US Army Corps of Engineers, ERDC

Dr. Bukhari earned her Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from North Carolina State University after completion of her B.S. from the University of Alaska Anchorage and M.S. from State University of New York at Buffalo (Both in Civil Engineering). She focuses on studies that involve evaluating engineering structures for their impact to increasing coastal resilience and reducing risk from storm damages using numerical storm surge models such as ADCIRC. She serves a Research Civil Engineer for the US Army Engineer Research & Development Center – Coastal & Hydraulics Laboratory.

University of Delaware

Jack Puleo is a Professor and Chair in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and a core faculty member of the Center for Applied Coastal Research (CACR) at the University of Delaware (UD). He completed the Ph.D. from the University of Florida in 2004. He was a Fulbright Scholar and visiting Professor at Plymouth University in 2011-2012 and is presently an intermittent faculty member at NRL. Puleo conducts research on small-scale hydrodynamic and sediment transport processes in coastal environments. His research involves designing sensor networks, developing new sensors, and conducting rapid-response deployments to quantify intra-storm processes.

Taylor Engineering, Inc.

Natalie Lamb serves as a Geologist at Taylor Engineering. Ms. Lamb assists in the company’s Coastal & Marine Geosciences Lab, specializing in sediment quality evaluation for dredging, shore protection, and sand source investigation projects throughout the state.

Part 1 of this project was a desktop study to quantify sand needs and available sand sources for each county within the SAD over the next 50 years. The project team determined the sand needs based on the nourishment history or recorded erosion rates for all federal and non-federal beach projects. Identified sand sources included offshore, upland, and Regional Sediment Management (RSM) beneficial use sources, such as navigation channels or inlet complexes. The project team compared the sand needs to the available sand sources for each county in the study, calculating the sand balance of each.

Based on the sand balance results of the Part 1 study, the USACE Jacksonville District identified four counties in southeast and southwest Florida for further investigation– Broward, Miami-Dade, Sarasota, and Manatee. USACE chose these counties due to lack of sufficient long-term sand sources currently identified. USACE tasked Taylor Engineering with the collection and analysis of sediment data for these counties, including geophysical surveys and vibracore samples. The project team reviewed preexisting geophysical data and identified new offshore sites for investigation. Before collecting vibracore samples, the team conducted geophysical surveys (multi-beam, sub-bottom, side scan, and magnetometer) to determine which areas had the best potential for beach quality sand deposits and appeared to have sand deposits of reasonable thickness for dredging activities. The team collected 120 vibracores from 75 investigation areas throughout the four counties.

The cores arrived at Taylor Engineering’s Coastal & Marine Geosciences Laboratory in Jacksonville, FL where Taylor’s geologists split, logged, and photographed them. USACE chose samples based on initial draft logs provided by Taylor Engineering, who then analyzed the selected samples for gradation, carbonate content, visual shell, and moist/dry Munsell color. Taylor Engineering deemed core layers as compatible or not compatible based on the beach nourishment sediment criteria for each county. The results showed a total of 54 investigation areas contained beach compatible sediment—of these 54 areas only 36 were volume-contributing based on sediment thickness. The definition of compatible sediments for this study included state and county sand attributes and at least five feet of sediment thickness to align with the industry-standard dredgeable minimum, with an included two-foot dredge buffer (a total of five feet of sand depth). Once compatible layers were identified, Taylor Engineering calculated potential volumes of available sand for each volume-contributing investigation area. The study identified approximately 39 million cubic yards of potential sand across all four counties, with the largest sand deposits found in Manatee County. Further investigations are necessary to better define and permit these investigation areas.

This poster is most applicable for USACE staff, state agencies, staff of local municipalities, local and regional planners, and private industry professionals. The poster will provide an overview of the geophysical and geotechnical sand search results, as well as where new sand deposits in southeast and southwest Florida merit more detailed investigation.

University of Delaware

Dr. Gangadharan, Manoj Kumar is a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Applied Coastal Research, University of Delaware, Newark. He received his MS and Ph.D. dual degree in Ocean Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India, for his thesis on “development of a hybrid numerical model for simulating wave structure interaction.” His research interest includes wave structure interaction, extreme waves, hybrid numerical models, computational fluid dynamics, and environmental flows in general.