ABSTRACT

Extreme storms have significant impacts on the nearshore water-land system, where ocean and estuarine waves and surge interact with land processes, that pose high risk to society. Coastal storm-related economic losses have increased substantially, largely owing to increases in population and development in hazardous coastal areas (NRC 2014). Degraded water quality impacts ecosystem and human health; thus, it is critical to improve our ability to predict the impacts of major storms to the coast. In particular, by enabling convergence of research spanning oceanography, geomorphology, hydrogeology, geo-engineering technology, coastal engineering, and ecology, this project will result in a better understanding of the feedbacks among nearshore water-land system processes during extreme storms. The researchers will collaborate closely with biogeochemists, ecologists and social scientists, such that significant and rapid progress transcending these disciplines can be made with investment and expertise spanning multiple NSF programs. The proposed convergent, integrative systems approach will enable rapid advances in understanding and predicting impacts of extreme storms and coastal resilience, leading to improved coastal management strategies. The nearshore water-land interface is vital to the national economy, security, commerce, and recreation, and major storms increasingly threaten communities, infrastructure, and ecosystems.

A transdisciplinary approach is needed to investigate interactions and feedbacks among oceanography (tides, surge, waves), geomorphology (sediment transport, morphological evolution), ecology (vegetation), meteorology (wind, rain), hydrogeology (groundwater and solute transport), geo-engineering technology (soil behavior, soil-structure interaction), and the built environment (engineering, infrastructure) during storms. Alongshore variability within this "nearshore-system" will be measured on scales of 10 m to 10 km, through all of these processes. The researchers will be co-located in a regional during-storm study to address system-wide science questions regarding the interactions and couplings between processes at the water-land interface. Daily interactions between scientists in multiple disciplines will facilitate co-development of predictive models and integration of knowledge by focusing on several coupled processes. Experience and techniques gained during this study will be used to develop a transdisciplinary storm-chasing Nearshore Extreme Event Reconnaissance association (NEER), with emphasis on rapid pre-event site characterization and instrument deployment to obtain observations during major storms. They will also facilitate an exchange program to enable students to gain the range of skills needed to be leaders in transdisciplinary research endeavors by working with scientists outside their primary discipline. Biannual conferences focused on cross-disciplinary research advances and challenges, techniques and methods for understanding the nearshore system, and the development of NEER will be used to keep the broad community with task-diverse expertise focused on the big challenges and guiding questions.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

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