4 Jun 2025

Comprehensive Marsh Model Demonstration—Seven Mile Island Innovation Laboratory: Integrating Hydrodynamic, Morphodynamic, and Vegetation Modeling Components Using the Landlab Toolkit

Abstract: Marshes are highly dynamic landscapes that are shaped through feedbacks between hydrodynamic, morphodynamic, and ecological processes. Future marsh resilience is therefore dependent on the interaction between these different drivers rather than any individual piece. Marshes face a variety of threats, both natural and anthropogenic, resulting in a need for restoration actions that increase survivability. Because many of these threats are unprecedented or acting at unprecedented rates, statistical models do not adequately represent future conditions and require process-based models to better capture the complex interactions between both physical and ecological processes. This report demonstrates how to develop a comprehensive marsh model that integrates tidal flow, morphodynamics, and vegetation growth using the Python based Landlab toolkit. The model was applied to a site within the Seven Mile Island Innovation Laboratory complex in coastal New Jersey.

4 Jun 2025

Developing an Ecosystem Goods and Services Assessment Framework: Products and Resources

Purpose: The Environmental Research Area Review Group has long recognized a need to understand the role of Ecosystem Goods and Services (EGS) in US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) civil works planning. An EGS Work Unit, funded by the Ecosystem Management and Restoration Research Program (EMRRP), has collaborated for more than a decade to develop many products and resources useful to USACE planners and policy makers. This technical note reviews the body of work produced by this large, diverse, and dedicated team.

20 May 2025

Guidance for Managers of USACE Waterbodies: Deploying the ERDC CyanoSTUN™ for Suppression of Cyanobacterial Harmful Algal Blooms

Purpose: The purpose of this document is to guide US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) district personnel in using the US Army Engineer Research and Development Center’s (ERDC) CyanoSTUN™ (Cyanobacterial Suppression Through Ultraviolet-Light-C Neutralization) vessel for suppression of cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms (cyanoHABs). This document describes CyanoSTUN’s capabilities and components, intended operating conditions, and instructions for safe and effective operation of the vessel.

9 May 2025

An All-Hazards Return on Investment (ROI) Model to Evaluate U.S. Army Installation Resilient Strategies

Abstract: The paper describes our project to develop, verify, and deploy an All-Hazards Return of Investment model for the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center to provide army installations with a decision support tool for evaluating strategies to make existing installation facilities more resilient. The need for increased resilience to extreme weather was required by U.S. code and DoD guidance, as well as an army strategic plan stipulating an ROI model to evaluate relevant resilient strategies. The ERDC integrated the University of Arkansas designed model into a new army installation planning tool and expanded the scope to evaluate resilient options from climate to all hazards. Our methodology included research on policy, data sources, resilient options, and analytical techniques, along with stakeholder interviews and weekly meetings with installation planning tool developers. The ROI model uses standard risk analysis and engineering economics terms and analyzes potential installation hazards and resilient strategies using data in the installation planning tool. The model calculates the expected net present cost without the resilient strategy, with the resilient strategy, and ROI for each. The minimum viable product ROI model was formulated mathematically, coded in Python, verified using hazard scenarios, and provided to the ERDC for implementation.

6 May 2025

Technical Recommendations for the Identification and Management of Potential Acid Sulfate Soils in an Ecological Restoration Context

Abstract: Restoration projects are being implemented to address natural and anthropogenic threats to coastal wetlands, including increased inundation and historic land use alterations. The US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and other organizations introduce dredged sediments into coastal environments to increase elevation and stabilize marsh platforms. However, some dredged sediments either contain iron sulfide compounds (i.e., iron monosulfide [FeS] and pyrite [FeS₂]) or form them after application. Under aerobic conditions, FeS and FeS₂ can rapidly oxidize, which generates acidity that can dramatically lower the soil pH, impacts plant establishment, and threatens the success of wetland restoration projects. Recommendations are needed to properly manage iron sulfide containing materials through project design, screening, monitoring, and adaptive management. Tools and techniques exist to evaluate dredged sediments for the presence of FeS and FeS₂ prior to and following marsh sediment applications, and project design and construction approaches can minimize associated acidification risks. This report provides a framework for properly identifying and managing sediments containing iron sulfide minerals during wetland restoration projects. These technical recommendations provide dredged sediment beneficial use practitioners a decision support tool for the successful management of iron sulfide containing dredged sediments to increase the ecological function and sustainability of coastal wetlands.

1 May 2025

Resilience: Directions for an Uncertain Future Following the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract: The concept of resilience is multi-faceted. This commentary builds upon the analytical distinctions of resilience provided by Urquiza et al. (2021, https://doi.org/10.1029/2020EF001508). In response to this article, we emphasize several distinctions between resilience and other systems concepts. These include distinctions between resilience, risk, and vulnerability, the tradeoff between resilience and efficiency, resilience contrasted with robustness, the relationship between resilience and sustainability, and finally methods for building resilience-by-design or resilience-by-intervention. Improving understanding of these concepts will enable planners to select resilience strategies that best support their system goals. We use examples from the 2020–2021 coronavirus pandemic to illustrate the concepts and the juxtapositions between them.

1 May 2025

Review of Stream Assessments for Evaluating Ecological Impacts and Benefits

Purpose: This technical note synthesizes common stream assessment methods and highlights their scope, data requirements, and ecological functions to assist practitioners and researchers in selecting appropriate tools for evaluating and managing stream ecosystem impacts and benefits.

21 Apr 2025

Potential Benefits of Subaqueous Soil Data on Department of Defense Installations

Purpose: Many domestic and international US Department of Defense (DoD) installations are located in coastal areas. Recent advances in the classification and mapping of subaqueous soils, which occur in shallow freshwater and marine environments, has the potential to benefit US military operations in several different ways. This technical note communicates the importance of subaqueous soil classification and describes how subaqueous soil information can inform the management of natural resources, infrastructure and transportation, mitigation of coastal storm risk, protection of the coast from natural threats, and the understanding of nearshore environments in the US and abroad.

16 Apr 2025

Sensor Fusion for Aerial Robotic Systems

Abstract: As uncrewed aerial vehicle (drone) use expands across industries so also does the complexity of sensor payloads. At present, there are no commercially available products for the management and fusion of multisensor data. Sensor Fusion for Aerial Robotic Systems (SFARS) is a sensor agnostic, modular platform for intelligent multisensor data fusion and processing. At the time of writing, SFARS exists as a root codebase, a PC application for processing of previously collected drone data and as a prototype hardware platform for real-time drone deployment. This report serves as a technical users guide to the design, development, and implementation of the suite of SFARS software.

15 Apr 2025

Resilience and Efficiency for the Nanotechnology Supply Chains Underpinning COVID-19 Vaccine Development

Abstract: Nanotechnology facilitated the development and scalable commercialization of many SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. However, the supply chains underpinning vaccine manufacturing have demonstrated brittleness at various stages of development and distribution. Whereas such brittleness leaves the broader pharmacological supply chain vulnerable to significant and unacceptable disruption, strategies for supply chain resilience are being considered across government, academia, and industry. How such resilience is understood and parameterized, however, is contentious. Our review of the nanotechnology supply chain resilience literature, synthesized with the larger supply chain resilience literature, analyzes current trends in implementing and modeling resilience and recommendations for bridging the gap in the lack of quantitative models, consistent definitions, and trade-off analyses for nano supply chains.