Category Archives: Projects

News: Winners at CCEE 3MT

2026/04/22 – NCSU Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering
Coastal Engineering Student Takes Home 1st Place Prize at 3MT Competition

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“The work of civil, construction, and environmental engineers impacts communities, and part of the education students receive here is to ensure they are prepared to communicate effectively with stakeholders they will encounter in their careers,” Kittle Autry said.

As for advice to next year’s participants, Lott said to simply have fun with it.

“This has nothing to do with pressure,” Lott said. “It’s a way to step out of your normal day to day and get a different kind of experience.”

News: Spotlight on Sarah Grace

2026/03/16 – Southeast Climate Adaptation Science Center
Researcher Spotlight – Sarah Grace Lott

What results are you finding? Coastal communities on the North Carolina Outer Banks are engaged and want to plan for more resilient futures. By modeling adaptations, such as returning sections of the barrier islands to natural processes or raising the elevation of marshes, we have found that some of the preferred adaptations to reduce flooding actually led to more widespread flooding within communities. We have also found that adaptations have local effects on flooding. Looking to the future, communities will need to coordinate across the entire region to lead to widespread resiliency.

Who will benefit from your research? This research directly benefits the community members of the North Carolina Outer Banks. Our work is grounded in community participation. All of our research questions and modeling scenarios are directly informed by the people who live in vulnerable communities. My goal is that by seeing the potential outcomes of different choices modeled out, these communities will have a powerful new tool to help them envision, discuss, and plan for a more resilient future.

Sarah Grace wins Second Place at EWC Symposium

Sarah Grace Lott won Second Place at the Environmental, Water Resources, and Coastal (EWC) Engineering Graduate Research Symposium, hosted by the Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering (CCEE) at NC State University. The award is voted on by judges who are local engineers and scientists (and often former students!). CCHT members Jenero Knowles and Nicole Arrigo were also finalists for awards.

Congratulations to Sarah Grace!

Sarah Grace (center) was presented the award by Drs. Katherine Anarde and Jacelyn Rice-Boayue.

Posters: EWC Symposium 2026

NK Arrigo, JC Dietrich, TC Massey. “Spatial and temporal controls within a coupled spectral wave and circulation model.” Environmental, Water Resources, and Coastal Engineering Graduate Research Symposium, North Carolina State University, 6 Mar 2026.

Spatial and temporal controls within a coupled spectral wave and circulation model.

SG Lott, JC Dietrich, EL Seekamp, AJ Ross. “Community-Informed modeling of storm surge adaptations on barrier islands.” Environmental, Water Resources, and Coastal Engineering Graduate Research Symposium, North Carolina State University, 6 Mar 2026.

Community-Informed modeling of storm surge adaptations on barrier islands.

SS Omogbehin, JC Dietrich. “Baroclinic 3D modeling of circulation patterns in the Pamlico-Albemarle Sound System.”Environmental, Water Resources, and Coastal Engineering Graduate Research Symposium, North Carolina State University, 6 Mar 2026.

Baroclinic 3D modeling of circulation patterns in the Pamlico-Albemarle Sound System

JS Knowles, JC Dietrich, SK Ghosh. “Identifying the Extreme Scenario of Storm Tides from Tropical Cyclones in Coastal Communities.” Environmental, Water Resources, and Coastal Engineering Graduate Research Symposium, North Carolina State University, 6 Mar 2026.

Identifying the Extreme Scenario of Storm Tides from Tropical Cyclones in Coastal Communities.

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News: Key Bridge

2026/02/18 – NCSU Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering
The Baltimore Bridge Collapse: Understanding Water Currents and a Disaster’s Aftermath

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While the simulators don’t explain the whole event, like why the Dali lost power in the first place, the models do explain how the local currents contributed to the ship’s drift toward the bridge. “The currents were stronger on the ship’s port side, and they caused it to turn southward and allide with the bridge pier,” Dietrich said.

The research team investigated a number of factors that could have influenced the Dali allision, such as channel depth, current speed and sea level rise. The researchers discovered that the ship’s drift motion was highly sensitive to uncertainties related to both the ship itself and its environment. In fact, they found that if the Dali had lost power just one minute later, the ship would have been much more likely to drift under the bridge unscathed.

Influence of Local Hydrodynamics on Ship Drift Leading to Ship-Bridge Allisions

An increase in commercial shipping has led to an increase in hazards for ship strikes on bridges, to which we refer as allisions. There is a need for a better understanding of how ships are affected by local flows as they approach an allision. We couple region- and local-scale models to simulate the allision of the container ship Dali with the Key Bridge. Simulations are forced with real tides, river inflows, and atmospheric conditions, and then the ship’s motion is predicted as it drifted and then allided with the bridge’s south pier. The trajectory is a close match to observations, and the allision timing is matched within 70 seconds of the real event. The ship’s southward turn was driven by a cross-channel gradient of 0.22 cm/s in the currents. Perturbations show the trajectory sensitivity to ship and environmental conditions, with many scenarios showing ship motion away from the bridge pier, as much as 500-m down-channel or 200-m to the north side. Simulations with wreckage show the depth-averaged currents may have increased by 10 to 20 cm/s in the temporary alternate channels around the bridge. Our findings can inform models for ship motion and management of navigation channels.

T Nakamura, JC Dietrich, Y Cho, JE San Juan Blanco, G Haikal, T Tomita (2026). “Influence of Local Hydrodynamics on Ship Drift Leading to Ship-Bridge Allisions.” Ocean Engineering, 351(2), 124459, DOI: 10.1016/j.oceaneng.2026.124459.