Lead Researcher
Dr. Matt Bilskie
Funding Agency
Project Summary
There has been considerable advancement in developing and using coastal inundation models to assess flood hazards under future climatic conditions. This project aims to develop further and refine integrative modeling approaches to simulate and predict storm surge and storm-surge-driven morphology along sandy beaches and estuarine shorelines. This effort will first focus on updating an existing ADCIRC+SWAN model of the northern Gulf of Mexico with the latest topography/bathymetric information provided by USGS and local model refinements (e.g. finer mesh resolution) for select locations of sandy shorelines. One area of particular interest is Mexico Beach / Tyndall Air Force Base. Enhanced coupling methods between ADCIRC+SWAN and XBeach will be examined to re-create storm-driven morphology for Hurricane Michael. We will employ an integrative model coupling procedure between ADCIRC and XBeach to enhance simulated hydrodynamics and the related barrier island response. The sensitivity of ADCIRC and XBeach mesh resolutions under various hydrodynamic conditions will be assessed, specifically tropical cyclones and nuisance type flood events such as cold front passages. We will also apply the ADCIRC+SWAN / XBEACH models to update the probability of collision, overwash, and inundation (pCOI) assessments for historic storms for the NGOM. The updated pCOI will be set up to be used in real-time.