This project will provide conference support to assist U.S.-based young researchers (graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, pre-tenure faculty) attend an international conference on 'Coherent Flow Structures in Geophysical Flows at the Earth's Surface'. The objective of the conference is to bring together research teams who are using numerical simulation, laboratory modeling, and field observation to study coherent flow structures, their interaction with sediment, vegetation, and benthic communities, the manipulation of such flow structures for managing sedimentary environments, and the key role they play in Earth surface dynamics.
Earth's surface is largely sculpted by the interactions between moving fluids and the bed topography (in flows of air, water, and solids). Much work over many decades has sought to link the detail of the turbulent flow structure to the transport of sediment, to the development of bed topography, and to the feedbacks between these three. Investigation of the linkages in this ?trinity? of flow, form and transport have underlain much research over the past 20 years and have revealed the pivotal role of ?coherent flow structures? in controlling and modulating this trinity. The interaction between flow structure, mobile sediment, and surface morphology has thus become of central importance to understanding the dynamics of the Earth?s surface. Additionally, managing such flows is a key component of both sustainable engineering design/construction (such as flows around bridge piers, wing dykes and revetments) as well as in the maintenance of ecological habitats. This interdisciplinary field of study is developing new young researchers who are seamlessly integrating numerical, laboratory, and field research to advance monitoring and modeling. A clear impact of this project is thus to support the development of early career interdisciplinary researchers in this area.
This award provided funding to assist ten graduate students attend an international conference entitled ‘Coherent Flow Structures at the Earth’s Surface’ that was held at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, between August 3-5, 2011. The surface of the Earth is largely sculpted by the interactions between moving fluids, that are often turbulent, and mobile sediment – in either flows of air, water and solids – with these flows usually being highly complex. Much work over many decades has sought to link the details of the turbulent flow structure to the transport of sediment and development of landforms. This research has revealed the pivotal role of coherent flow structures, or ‘eddies’, of differing size, in controlling these interactions, and their central importance to understanding the dynamics of the changing Earth’s surface. Additionally, managing such flows is also a key component of both sustainable engineering design/construction (such as flows around bridge piers, wing dykes and revetments) as well as in the maintenance of thriving and sustainable ecological habitats. All such flows, in environments ranging from deserts to rivers to the deep oceans, are organized across a wide range of scales, from small-scale turbulent eddies formed near the bottom of the flow and responsible for the motion of individual grains, to large-scale circulation patterns that generate geomorphic features visible from space. Substantial advances have taken place in the last decade in theoretical and numerical modeling, laboratory experimentation and field studies, which have greatly expanded our ability to probe and understand the dynamics of these flows across this wide range of scales. Only one previous conference, held in the UK in 1995, has explicitly gathered a forum of researchers to discuss this subject matter, with the second conference on this theme being hosted at Simon Fraser University in 2011. The 2011 conference brought together 104 researchers from across the globe to present, discuss and debate this subject matter, with 48 of these participants being young graduate students. Papers were invited from across the research community, and six keynote talks were presented by leaders in their research field (full details of the meeting can be found at: www.sfu.ca/CoherentFlowStructures/). This NSF funding helped sponsor the attendance of 10 US-based graduate students at the meeting, and assisted with their travel and conference expenses (registration fee and subsistence). External funding from other sources, including the organizers universities and industry, was also gained and helped defray the costs for these young researchers. The ten US-based graduate students who were assisted to attend the meeting were active researchers at nine different institutions: Stanford, Cornell (2), Virginia Tech., and the universities of Buffalo, Idaho, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Virginia, and Washington. All students presented either a talk or poster at the conference, and the venue provided a superb environment for these students to discuss their research and interact with a wide number of researchers from a range of disciplines. The feedback regarding the meeting from the students was excellent, stressing the very positive experience that the conference had provided, with some students being invited elsewhere to present their research results. The conference thus provided a platform to present their work, a workshop to learn of other developments and applications in this research field, and a forum to interact with other researchers. This NSF sponsorship was central to enabling the participation of ten excellent students at critical times in their research career, and provided an experience to help inform and shape their future career paths.
