Storm damaged after Hurricanes Marco and Laura in 2020. A multidisciplinary ERDC team is working to modernize widely used flood models such as StormSim and Hydrologic Engineering Center software by developing a vegetation index that more comprehensively quantifies vegetation stability on coastal levees. The index will incorporate an array of ecological measurements, such as root/shoot ratios, evapotranspiration rates, soil moisture, vegetation shear, root strength, and vegetation age, size and type. Photo courtesy of Dr. Navid Jafari and Dr. Jasmine Bekkaye, Natural Hazards Engineering Research Institute.