Modeling and Evaluation of Hurricane Storm Surge Mitigation

Recent hurricane events in the Gulf of Mexico have demonstrated the vulnerability of coastal populations and infrastructure to hurricane storm surges. These devastating natural disasters result in loss of life, property damage, and long-term damage to coastal ecosystems and landscapes. Improvements in our ability to model coastal circulation are critical to the design of effective, economical and environmentally responsible storm protection systems, and to emergency planning as storms approach the coast.

We have been at the forefront in the development of the coupled ADCIRC-SWAN storm surge and wave simulator. This finite element computational model has been used in design/planning mode prior to hurricane season, in predictive mode as storms approach land and in hindcasting mode after the event. Through years of investigation, incorporating more realistic physics and boundary conditions, improving numerics and grid resolution, and coupling wind, wave and circulation into a portable, scalable parallel computing framework, reasonably accurate agreement between model hindcasts and field measurements have been obtained for many recent storm events. As a result, this state-of-the-art model has been adopted operationally by numerous local, state and federal entities.

We present results of Hurricane Ike as well as synthetic hurricanes and proposed structural gates and levees constructed to mitigate the effect of storm surge on significant areas such as Galveston Bay and the Houston Shipping Channel. Results of this work were recently featured in an online media article/presentation that resulted in a 2017 Peabody award.

Recent hurricane events in the Gulf of Mexico have demonstrated the vulnerability of coastal populations and infrastructure to hurricane storm surges. These devastating natural disasters result in loss of life, property damage, and long-term damage to coastal ecosystems and landscapes. Improvements in our ability to model coastal circulation are critical to the design of effective, economical and environmentally responsible storm protection systems, and to emergency planning as storms approach the coast.

We have been at the forefront in the development of the coupled ADCIRC-SWAN storm surge and wave simulator. This finite element computational model has been used in design/planning mode prior to hurricane season, in predictive mode as storms approach land and in hindcasting mode after the event. Through years of investigation, incorporating more realistic physics and boundary conditions, improving numerics and grid resolution, and coupling wind, wave and circulation into a portable, scalable parallel computing framework, reasonably accurate agreement between model hindcasts and field measurements have been obtained for many recent storm events. As a result, this state-of-the-art model has been adopted operationally by numerous local, state and federal entities.

We present results of Hurricane Ike as well as synthetic hurricanes and proposed structural gates and levees constructed to mitigate the effect of storm surge on significant areas such as Galveston Bay and the Houston Shipping Channel. Results of this work were recently featured in an online media article/presentation that resulted in a 2017 Peabody award.