University of Delaware civil engineers are leading a multi-institutional effort to identify the best models to calculate flood risk at coastal military installations where climate change threatens to increase the risk of flood damage from sea level rise and storm surge.
The four-year project, which launched in spring 2022 and will run through spring 2026, is funded by a $2.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). Project partners include faculty and students from the Netherlands, North Carolina State University, the University of South Alabama, Texas A&M and the United States Geological Survey (USGS).
“Many military installations are located along the coast, and they can’t be easily relocated. They need to be protected,” said Jack Puleo, chair of UD’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and project lead. “To do that, we need to understand what the flooding risk is.”
Read more at: University of Delaware
This image shows one of the areas a team of civil engineers will be focusing on — the coastline near Tyndall Air Force Base along the Gulf of Mexico — during a multi-year research project to examine the varying strengths and weaknesses of coastal flooding models, particularly in the face of changing water levels. (Photo Credit: Christopher Lashley, Stephanie Patch and NASA)