Sharing Our Coastal Science Work

Recently some of our CRC members as well as URI faculty and students attended the 10th Coastal Sediments conference, an international coastal science and engineering conference held this year in New Orleans. This year’s theme was “Inclusive coastal science and engineering for resilient communities” and researchers from CRC, URI and Penn State presented results from an ongoing NOAA-funded project titled “Modeling, Visualizing, and Communicating Nor’easter and Hurricane Threats With Sea Level Rise to Support Coastal Management in New England’.

URI-GSO M.S. student Isabel Whaling presents her poster on the morphology of RI’s coastal barrier systems.

CRC’s own Isabel Whaling, a Master’s student working with J. P. Walsh, presented on her research into the morphology of coastal barrier systems in in Rhode Island. URI-GSO Ph.D. candidate Deb Crowley, who works with Dr. Isaac Ginis, also gave a talk on the shoreline change impacts on coastal vulnerability to nor’easters. Other presentations related to this project included a poster by Chelsea Russ, who works with Penn State Co-PI Peter Stempel, on 3D landscape visualization of coastal hazards for public engagement, as well as a talk by URI Ocean Engineering professor Dr. Annette Grilli entitled “Can we mitigate future breachings in the Rhode Island beach barrier system?”

This project is part of NCCOS’s Effects of Sea Level Rise (ESLR) Program, and works to inform and improve coastal resource management and resilience to extreme weather events (e.g., Nor’easters and hurricanes) whose impacts are magnified with sea level rise. The project uses models to quantify the impacts of future storm and sea level rise scenarios on ecosystem and infrastructure vulnerability in five national parks and two national wildlife refuges in New England. The project is led by Dr. Isaac Ginis (URI) with co-partners J. P. Walsh (URI/CRC), Stephan Grilli (URI), Pam Rubinoff, (CRC), Annette Grilli (URI), and Peter Stempel (Penn State University).

Great work to everyone who presented and to all project team members who have contributed to this important work!

Penn State University student Chelsea Russ with her poster on 3D landscape visualization of coastal hazards

You can learn more about the project here:

Modeling, Visualizing, and Communicating Nor’easter and Hurricane Threats With Sea Level Rise to Support Coastal Management in New England