CENTER OF EXCELLENCE
CHC Research Spotlight
CHC continues to make significant contributions to the Nation's understanding of natural hazards and disasters to expand understanding and develop tools and methods for assessing coastal resilience. A few key research highlights are listed below, with links to external sites for more information.
The Latest Generation in Coastal Hazard Modeling: This project, carried out in partnership with NOAA’s National Severe Storms Laboratory, seeks to develop the latest generation of coastal hazard models for predicting when flooding will inundate a coastal community. These models couple rain and wind forecasts with hydrologic, storm surge, and wave models to describe coastal flooding more holistically. On display will be a demonstration of the coupled system that was run in real time for Hurricane Earl during the 2010 storm season. This modeling system can be used in other applications, ranging from evacuation planning to land-use studies to post-disaster recovery.
In situ Scour Evaluation Probe (ISEP): New Sensor Allows On-Site, Faster Testing for Scour Assessment: Scour, or erosion of soil around structures due to water flow, is responsible for a wide range of critical infrastructure failures—from unstable bridges to the levees that gave way in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The ISEP is the first technology that allows technicians to measure the scour potential of soils in the field without having to excavate or send samples to the lab to be processed.
New Developments in Large-Scale Evacuation Traffic Models: In partnership with the U.S. Department of Transportation, DIEM is applying state-of-the-art activity-based transportation modeling to simulate regionwide, multimodal, mass evacuations. The system permits both forecasting and hindcasting of specific events. As they test scenarios, analysts can control a wide range of variables, including evacuation rates, hazard threats, advance warning time amounts, network closures, and public transportation utilization. On display will be simulated demonstrations of the Hurricane Katrina evacuation of New Orleans based on the actual conditions the city faced. The new models are used to show how evacuation might have been different under the City’s new Citizen Assisted Evacuation Plan.
Coastal Hazards Modeling: Several projects are developing the next generation of coastal hazard models that can predict when flooding will inundate a coastal community. The models couple rain and wind forecasts with hydrologic, storm surge, and wave models to describe coastal flooding more holistically.
Hurricane Forecasting Methodology: ARCH researchers are developing an innovative hurricane forecasting tool that will enable emergency managers to accurately update storm surge estimates within minutes instead of hours. The Real Time Estimation of Surge from an Approaching Landfall (REAL) model extracts accurate local estimates from pre-computed, high-resolution surge databases.
Analysis of Federal Mitigation Policy in the U.S.: DIEM researchers have developed a tool to evaluate the quality of state and local hazard mitigation plans. Researchers have already used this tool to measure the performance of 30 coastal state hazard mitigation plans. They are currently evaluating 180 local hazard mitigation plans.