PROPOSAL NO.: CTS-0547056 PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS: QIN CHEN INSTITUTION: UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH ALABAMA
CAREER: SIMULATIONS OF NONLINEAR WATER WAVES AND AIR-TO-SEA MOMENTUM FLUXES IN THE COASTAL OCEAN
The goal of this project is to develop an integrated research and educational program in coastal engineering and science that will advance the capability of modeling storm surge and wave dynamics, and at the same time educate students and the general public about coastal issues in the Gulf area. According to census data, more than 50% of the U.S. population lives within 50 miles of the shoreline, and the coastal population continues to grow. The nation's near shore regions are severely stressed because of increased human activity and climate change. The continuing popularity of coastal areas and increased development along the coastlines puts more people and property at risk from coastal hazards, such as hurricanes and tsunamis. Winds, surges and waves are the major forcing of coastal flooding and erosion. Mitigating the impacts of such coastal disasters requires an accurate prediction of water surges and ocean waves generated by storms and hurricanes in order to inform the public and decision-makers, facilitate the management of coastal resources and emergency response, and improve engineering design of coastal infrastructure. The research component of this program will employ an innovative, interdisciplinary (civil engineering, physical oceanography and computational science) approach utilizing the PI's advanced coastal wave modeling expertise in computational hydrodynamics. The five-year research plan consists of theoretical formulation and analysis, development and verification of a third-generation Boussinesq-type wave-current model that includes vorticity and wind forcing based on state-of-the-art formulations and spectral-element methods, and the utilization of the new model as a research tool to improve understanding of wind effects on wave-wave interactions as well as air-to-sea momentum fluxes for storm surge modeling. The education component of the program will be coupled with the research component to enhance undergraduate education and research as well as enrich a graduate curriculum with new graduate-level courses. Furthermore, a novel community outreach program will be integrated with the well-established Alabama Dauphin Island Sea Lab's K-12 education programs. The integrated educational program with an emphasis on high-school students and science teachers will enhance ocean-related education and attract U.S. students to the field of ocean science in general and to the profession of coastal engineering in particular. The proposed research and education activities will broaden the participation of the underrepresented Northern Gulf Coast residents and minorities in the discipline of coastal engineering. The multilevel community outreach program will improve the general public's understanding of the destructive forces of storm waves and water surges and their threat to coastal inhabitants and infrastructure. This will raise the public's awareness of the potential risk associated with many residential developments along the coastlines and therefore facilitate coastal zone management.
