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  • IWR Leads USACE Participation in United Nations’ Water and Disasters Panel

    ALEXANDRIA, Va. (April 17, 2024) — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is a participant in the United Nations' (UN) High-level Experts and Leaders Panel on Water and Disasters (HELP). Established in 2007 at the request of the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation (UNSGAB), HELP comprises 21 international organizations to address water disaster preparedness and response. The group collaborates closely with the UN Secretariat for the Office for Disaster Reduction (UNDRR). The USACE representative to HELP is the USACE chief of engineers, Lt. Gen. Scott Spellmon.

  • Incorporating environmental flows through the Sustainable Rivers Program to support lake sturgeon spawning continues to prove successful

    The lake sturgeon, an ancient whisker-snouted fish from the Cretaceous period, is tied to present-day conservation efforts on the Mississippi River at the Melvin Price Locks and Dam in West Alton, Missouri. Despite their name, lake sturgeon, also known as “rubbernose or rock” sturgeon, are found in rivers and lakes. Evolving 150 million years ago, long before the evolution of the T-Rex and the other dinosaurs, they have scale-less skin and diamond-shaped plates along their back. Mature lake sturgeon live up to their unique legacy by reaching eight feet in length, weighing more than 200 pounds, and living over 100 years, making them extraordinarily impressive fish. These giants of the fish world are sustained from a diet of snails, crayfish, mussels, and aquatic insects found with barbel sensors and their suction-like toothless mouths.

  • Enabling Understanding of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Agent Wargaming Decisions through Visualizations

    Abstract: The process to develop options for military planning course of action (COA) development and analysis relies on human subject matter expertise. Analyzing COAs requires examining several factors and understanding complex interactions and dependencies associated with actions, reactions, proposed counteractions, and multiple reasonable outcomes. In Fiscal Year 2021, the Institute for Systems Engineering Research team completed efforts resulting in a wargaming maritime framework capable of training an artificial intelligence (AI) agent with deep reinforcement learning (DRL) techniques within a maritime scenario where the AI agent credibly competes against blue agents in gameplay. However, a limitation of using DRL for agent training relates to the transparency of how the AI agent makes decisions. If leaders were to rely on AI agents for COA development or analysis, they would want to understand those decisions. In or-der to support increased understanding, researchers engaged with stakeholders to determine visualization requirements and developed initial prototypes for stakeholder feedback in order to support increased understanding of AI-generated decisions and recommendations. This report describes the prototype visualizations developed to support the use case of a mission planner and an AI agent trainer. The prototypes include training results charts, heat map visualizations of agent paths, weight matrix visualizations, and ablation testing graphs.

  • USACE completes appeal process for proposed Pebble mine

    The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers – Alaska District finalized the appeal remand decision for the Pebble Limited Partnership’s application to develop a copper-gold-molybdenum deposit as a surface mine in Southwest Alaska this week.

  • USACE seeks public comment on Pajaro River environmental document

    The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers San Francisco District (USACE) has achieved another key milestone in its efforts to advance construction on the Pajaro River Flood Risk Management Project. USACE conducted an environmental analysis in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, as amended (NEPA). The Supplemental Environmental Assessment (EA) dated April 2024 for the Pajaro River at Watsonville, California, Reach 6 Flood Risk Management Project addresses design refinements for the authorized flood risk management project along Corralitos Creek in the City of Watsonville. Reach 6 remains on schedule to start construction later this year.

  • Temporary full road closure of Highway 178 across Bull Shoals Dam

    The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is scheduling a full road closure for Highway 178 across Bull Shoals Dam from 6:30 a.m. April 23 until 5 p.m. April 25, 2024, to deploy and remove equipment used to perform maintenance on the dam.

  • April 23 event to showcase $4B investment in Sac area flood risk management projects

    The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Sacramento District will host an event at the Sacramento Weir to

  • Charlevoix channel dredging scheduled to conclude by May 15

    About 13,000 cubic yards of material is scheduled to be removed from the Charlevoix Harbor channel before May 15, as part of a maintenance dredging contract under the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Detroit District.  Great Lakes Dock and Materials, LLC., located in Muskegon, will perform the work for the Corps of Engineers for approximately $480,000 and place the dredged materials in open water in Lake Michigan. The state-approved open water is located about a mile and a half northwest of the harbor entrance. 

  • Team holds meetings across the region for Lower Missouri River system plan

    Officials will hold a series of public meeting for the Lower Missouri Flood Risk and Resiliency Study, also known as the system plan, throughout the region in April. The meetings, which will be held by the Kansas City District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, will provide an overview of the study, a status update, input on reach measures, flow and stage frequency analysis update and an open discussion. This is an opportunity for the public to ask questions and provide input regarding the Lower Missouri Flood Risk and Resiliency Study.

  • Public invited to attend meeting for Lower Missouri Jefferson City spin-off study

    Officials will hold a public meeting for the Lower Missouri Jefferson City spin-off study on April 25, 2024, in Jefferson City, Missouri. The meeting, which will be held by the Kansas City District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, will provide an overview of the study, a status update and an open discussion. This is an opportunity for the public to ask questions and provide input regarding the Lower Missouri Jefferson City spin-off study.