• Corps of Engineers debuts video series

    DETROIT- The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers releases a new Great Lakes water level video series today. ‘On the Level’ will provide monthly information and updates about the Great Lakes’ water levels and forecasts from Detroit District Hydraulics and Hydrology experts. “Our team is always looking for new ways to share information about the Great Lakes water levels and we are really looking forward to adding the ‘On the Level’ video series to our repertoire,” said district Great Lakes Watershed Hydrology Chief Keith Kompoltowicz. “We plan to share a wide variety of material and we hope folks will look forward to them every month.”
  • Park rangers teaming up with Nashville Shores on water safety

    HERMITAGE, Tenn. (Aug. 12, 2021) – J. Percy Priest Lake park rangers are teaming up with Nashville Shores Lakeside Resort every Friday for another exciting summer of water safety education. From noon until 2 p.m., rangers hand out orange goodie bags filled with various water safety trinkets and informational pamphlets.
  • Corps seeks public comments on Humble Canal Draft Environmental Assessment

    The New Orleans District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released the draft environmental assessment for the “Mississippi River and Tributaries, Morganza to the Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana Humble Canal Gate Site Preparation and Initial Levee Preload,” and is seeking public comment through Sept. 11, 2021.
  • AMC deputy chief of staff visits Huntsville Center

    A senior civilian at the Army’s primary logistics and sustainment command visited the Army Corps of Engineers Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville Aug. 10 to learn more about the Center’s capabilities and programs. Huntsville Center leadership presented Dr. Juanita Christensen, deputy chief of staff for logistics (G4), facilities and environmental at Army Materiel Command, a capabilities briefing focusing on the specialized technical expertise and global engineering solutions the Center deploys through its centrally managed programs.
  • Rapid Tidal Reconstruction for the Coastal Hazards System and StormSim Part II: Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands

    Abstract: This Coastal and Hydraulics Engineering Technical Note (CHETN) describes the continuing efforts towards incorporating rapid tidal time-series reconstruction and prediction capabilities into the Coastal Hazards System (CHS) and the Stochastic Storm Simulation System (StormSim). The CHS (Nadal-Caraballo et al. 2020) is a national effort for the quantification of coastal storm hazards, including a database and web tool (https://chs.erdc.dren.mil) for the deployment of results from the Probabilistic Coastal Hazard Analysis (PCHA) framework. These PCHA products are developed from regional studies such as the North Atlantic Coast Comprehensive Study (NACCS) (Nadal-Caraballo et al. 2015; Cialone et al. 2015) and the ongoing South Atlantic Coast Study (SACS). The PCHA framework considers hazards due to both tropical and extratropical cyclones, depending on the storm climatology of the region of interest. The CHS supports feasibility studies, probabilistic design of coastal structures, and flood risk management for coastal communities and critical infrastructure. StormSim (https://stormsim.erdc.dren.mil) is a suite of tools used for statistical analysis and probabilistic modeling of historical and synthetic storms and for stochastic design and other engineering applications. One of these tools, the Coastal Hazards Rapid Prediction System (CHRPS) (Torres et al. 2020), can perform rapid prediction of coastal storm hazards, including real-time hurricane-induced flooding. This CHETN discusses the quantification and validation of the Advanced Circulation (ADCIRC) tidal constituent database (Szpilka et al. 2016) and the tidal reconstruction program Unified Tidal analysis (UTide) (Codiga 2011) in the Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands (PR/USVI) coastal regions. The new methodology discussed herein will be further developed into the Rapid Tidal Reconstruction (RTR) tool within the StormSim and CHS frameworks.
  • Rapid Tidal Reconstruction with UTide and the ADCIRC Tidal Database

    Abstract: The quantification of storm surge is vital for flood hazard assessment in communities affected by coastal storms. The astronomical tide is an integral component of the total still water level needed for accurate storm surge estimates. Coastal hazard analysis methods, such as the Coastal Hazards System and the StormSim Coastal Hazards Rapid Prediction System, require thousands of hydrodynamic and wave simulations that are computationally expensive. In some regions, the inclusion of astronomical tides is neglected in the hydrodynamics and tides are instead incorporated within the probabilistic framework. There is a need for a rapid, reliable, and accurate tide prediction methodology to provide spatially dense reconstructed or predicted tidal time series for historical, synthetic, and forecasted hurricane scenarios. A methodology is proposed to combine the tidal harmonic information from the spatially dense Advanced Circulation hydrodynamic model tidal database with a rapid tidal reconstruction and prediction program. In this study, the Unified Tidal Analysis program was paired with results from the tidal database. This methodology will produce reconstructed (i.e., historical) and predicted tidal heights for coastal locations along the United States eastern seaboard and beyond and will contribute to the determination of accurate still water levels in coastal hazard analysis methods.
  • Quantifying Functional Increases Across a Large-Scale Wetland Restoration Chronosequence

    Abstract: Over 300,000 ha of forested wetlands have undergone restoration within the Mississippi Alluvial Valley region. Restored forest successional stage varies, providing opportunities to document wetland functional increases across a large-scale restoration chronosequence using the Hydrogeomorphic (HGM) approach. Results from >600 restored study sites spanning a 25-year chronosequence indicate that: 1) wetland functional assessment variables increased toward reference conditions; 2) restored wetlands generally follow expected recovery trajectories; and 3) wetland functions display significant improvements across the restoration chronosequence. A functional lag between restored areas and mature reference wetlands persists in most instances. However, a subset of restored sites have attained mature reference wetland conditions in areas approaching or exceeding tree diameter and canopy closure thresholds. Study results highlight the importance of site selection and the benefits of evaluating a suite of wetland functions in order to identify appropriate restoration success milestones and design monitoring programs. For example, wetland functions associated with detention of precipitation (a largely physical process) rapidly increased under post restoration conditions, while improvements in wetland habitat functions (associated with forest establishment and maturation) required additional time. As the wetland science community transitions towards larger scale restoration efforts, effectively quantifying restoration functional improvements will become increasingly important.
  • Army Cadets gain experience, ‘real world’ engineering skills at USACE Chicago District

    Army Cadets Jacob Krause and Zackery Denning have been conducting design calculations, surveying, and job shadowing thanks to an internship program they heard about through ROTC Cadet Command, sponsored and funded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE).
  • ERDC researchers engage citizen scientists in data collection

    Researchers from the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC), along with the U.S. Geological Service, Marda Science and James Madison University, are engaging citizen scientists in a national SandSnap initiative to amass a spatial and temporally varying nationwide beach grain-size database.
  • Army Corps, State to host public meeting on Ocean City Inlet projects

    The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Baltimore District (USACE), in coordination with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and Worcester County, is hosting a hybrid public meeting Aug. 17, 2021, at the Worcester County Library – Berlin Branch at 13 Harrison Ave., from 7 – 8:30 p.m. This public meeting provides an opportunity to discuss two concurrent efforts: a navigation improvement project to address sediment accumulation in the Ocean City Inlet and a study on the scour hole near Homer Gudelsky Park.