Johnathan Woodruff, Zachariah Silver, Casey Dietrich, Autumn Poisson, Andrew Kennedy, Amirhosein Begmohammadi, Thomas Sherman, and Dam Wirasaet.
We are pleased to announce that we have had several faculty promoted during this year in recognition of their excellent contributions to research and teaching.
Dr. Casey Dietrich was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure. Dietrich, who leads the Coastal and Computational Hydraulics Team has developed computational models that predict storm surge and coastal flooding. He teaches courses in fluid mechanics and coastal engineering.
However, we found an error in their solution for wind-driven setup on a polar domain. It appears to be a typographical error — the variables are not updated correctly at the last step, when the solution is generalized for a wind with arbitrary direction. This solution is not used frequently, and we did not find a correction to this error in the literature (although we were unable to access every subsequent manuscript that cited the Lynch and Gray solution). So we are documenting it here.
Dr. Casey Dietrich, an assistant professor in the Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering (CCEE), leads the Coastal and Computational Hydraulics Team and develops computational models that predict storm surge and coastal flooding. Using the model ADCIRC, the team makes predictions about how high sea waters will rise, which areas will be flooded and for how long. These predictions are made for the entire coastline, and then his team visualizes the flooding at the scales of individual buildings and coastal infrastructure. During Florence, Dietrich’s team and collaborators acted as liaisons for state emergency managers to aid their decision making.
“The models are just one data point among many, but they’re helpful in understanding hazards and used to make predictions in real time — partly to make decisions about evacuation, where to deploy resources after, safe places to put emergency vehicles and water supplies,” he said.
The state emergency managers are able to use the flooding predictions to get immediate estimates on damages, which helps communities that are figuring out how much recovery will cost.
After Hurricane Matthew in 2016, Dietrich and his colleagues improved the models’ ability to forecast encroaching water along shorelines. Post-Florence, Dietrich said the research focus is to speed up the model and allow for more permutations to see what might happen if a storm slows down or shifts direction.
Front (left to right): Carter Howe, Autumn Poisson, Alireza Gharagozlou, and Johnathan Woodruff. Back (left to right): Tucker Fulle, Ajimon Thomas, Casey Dietrich, and Carter Rucker. Not shown: Chloe Stokes.
Non-comprehensive overview of coastal engineering research at NC State.
In 2017, Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria caused more than $200 billion dollars of damage in the United States, as well as the incalculable cost of the loss of life and mental trauma associated with these disasters. In a changing climate, sea level rise and the potential for increasing tropical cyclone intensity can result in even more devastating damages. Therefore, engineers, community planners, and coastal residents need accurate, timely, and accessible forecasting of storm processes and their impact on coastal communities to bolster national resilience and reduce risk to life and property during these events. However, along with uncertainties in understanding and modeling of storm processes, there are complex challenges associated with determining and meeting the needs of end users who rely on these forecasts for emergency management decisions.
To determine needed advancements in storm forecasting, the U.S. Coastal Research Program (USCRP) hosted a Storm Processes and Impacts workshop for coastal stakeholders 16-18 April 2018, in St. Petersburg, Florida. The attendees included local coastal managers, emergency managers, state and regional agencies, federal agency scientists and engineers, academics, and private industry scientists and engineers. Workshop objectives were to synthesize present capabilities for modeling storm processes and forecasting impacts and to prioritize advancements. In addition, the workshop provided an opportunity to bridge the apparent gap between the research of coastal scientists and engineers and the information being distributed publicly and to emergency managers before, during, and after storm events.
