Project Title:

Inland Hydrology Research for Resilient Communities: State of Engineering and Future Directions

Research Advisor: Dr. Gaurav Savant, Gaurav.Savant@usace.army.mil, is a senior researcher in the Rivers and Estuaries Engineering Branch of CHL who focuses on studying the behavior of rivers and estuaries over varying time and length scales. He is the lead for the USACE Comprehensive Hydro-Terrestrial Risk Management Strategic Focus Area of the ERDC. Recent work includes the creation of a monolithic numerical model for inland and coastal compound flood management.

Proposed Length of Time:
2-year position, with option to extend 6 months.

Location: Vicksburg, MS

Project Background:
Water is one of the nation’s most important natural resources and is essential to economy and security. Therefore, multiple federal agencies have mission elements that address national needs related to water. This has resulted in the creation of unique but not-integrated water modeling capabilities customized to each agency’s mission. While extremely useful, these individual capabilities are of reduced use to the understanding of water behavior over the regional to basin scales.

The ERDC is collaborating with several federal, state, local and non-governmental agencies to create a seamless national hydro-terrestrial modeling capability. The creation of this capability is dependent upon not just the operational tools such as numerical models but also on research to identify knowledge gaps.   

Project Goals:
This Project seeks proposals focused to 1) investigate existing hydro-terrestrial modeling capabilities, 2) build upon the Integrated Hydro-Terrestrial Modeling white paper (Lesmes et al., 2020), and 3) communication coordination across scientific, operational, and resource management communities. At conclusion, this project will have created a review paper on 1) existing hydro-terrestrial modeling capabilities, and 2) a white paper on improved communication and coordination across various communities within hydro-terrestrial modeling.

Anticipated Skillsets:
The successful candidate should have a background in water policy. A Ph.D. in hydrology, hydraulics, or coastal engineering is required. Preference will be given to candidates with experience or training in public policy. Experience or formal educational training in the creation of numerical descriptions of physical processes is also expected.

References:
David Lesmes, Jessica Moerman, Tom Torgeson, Bob Vallario, Timothy D. Scheibe, Efi Foufoula-Georgiou, Harry L. Jenter, Ronald L. Bingner, Laura Condon, Brian Cosgrove, Carlos Del Castillo, Charles W Downer, John Eylander, Michael N. Fienen, Nels Frazier, David Gochis, Dave Goodrich, Judson Harvey, Joseph D. Hughes, David Hyndman, John M. Johnston, Forrest Melton, Glenn E. Moglen, David Moulton, Laura K. Lautz, Rajbir Parmar, Brenda Rashleigh, Patrick Reed, Katherine Skalak, Charuleka Varadharajan, Roland J. Viger, Nathalie Voisin, and Mark Wah, (2020). “Integrated Hydro-Terrestrial Modeling: Development of A National Capability.” United States Geological Survey.

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