Publications:Newsletters/Dec2011

Issue 28, December 2011

In this Newsletter:

2nd Announcement: 13th Annual (38th Sequential) CIRP Workshop, to be held March in Philadelphia, PA on 6-8 March 2012

This workshop is sponsored by NAP, NAB, and NAN Districts. Advances in CIRP products and tools such as the CMS, GenCade, CPT, CSMART, RMAP and others will be featured through teaching and hands-on sessions. Two parallel sessions will be available with one primarily focusing on the CMS and the other on the other CIRP tools. Desktop computers will be available for one session and rented laptops will be provided for the other. Extra time for individual assistance is available before and after the workshop each day and will be by appointment or as available. The preliminary agenda is presented below.

Several hotels are located in the vicinity of the Philadelphia District. A block of 25 government rate rooms has been acquired at the Courtyard Marriot Hotel. Deadline to make your reservation at this rate is February 6, 2012. Space is limited, please contact Mitch Brown to be added to the attendee list. More information on this workshop and a longer list of hotels with hyperlinks can be found at the workshop link below. See http://cirp.usace.army.mil/products/ for a longer listing of CIRP products.

Workshop: http://cirp.usace.army.mil/workshops/nap12/NAP-Workshop.html

Time	Tuesday, March 6th		Wednesday, March 7th		Thursday, March 8th
8 - 9	Pre-workshop assistance by appointment
9 - 11	Intro to CIRP Tools -- an Overview of the Workshop		Intermediate CMS: Hands-on	CIRP Tools: RMAP, SBAS, IRM, WaveNet...	Advanced CMS-Flow	Advanced CMS-Wave and PTM
11 - 12					General Discussion: District needs for advancements
12 - 1	Lunch on your own
1 - 5	Beginning SMS and CMS: Hands-on	CPT and CSMART	Intermediate CMS: Hands-on	GenCade Demo and Hands-on	Advanced CMS-Flow	One-on-one with CMS
5 - 6	Individual Problems

POC: Mitch Brown, mitchell.e.brown@usace.army.mil

Swash Zone Berm being placed downdrift of Pensacola Pass, FL

In December 2011, the USACE Mobile District began dredging Pensacola Pass, FL, and placing the dredged material in a "swash zone berm" west of the Pass. The district's motivation for swash zone berm placement as opposed to subaerial beach placement is to work with nature and rapidly mobilize the sand into the littoral system, create less adverse impact for subaerial beach species, and therefore minimize environmental monitoring requirements that would span multiple fiscal years for the latter alternative. The swash zone berm will rapidly provide a source of sand to downdrift beaches west of the Pass. This nearshore berm is one of several being monitored by ERDC-CHL's Coastal Inlets Research Program (CIRP) and Regional Sediment Management program (RSM) to develop design guidance for nearshore, surf zone, and swash zone berms and improve associated nearshore morphologic evolution calculations within numerical models.

POC: Tanya Beck, tanya.m.beck@usace.army.mil
POC: Linda Lillycrop, linda.s.lillycrop@usace.army.mil
POC: Julie Rosati, julie.d.rosati@usace.army.mil

CMS Application in a SERDP Demonstration Project

The CIRP team has recently completed modeling of morphologic evolution using the Coastal Modeling System (CMS) for the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP). The SERDP was a 3-yr project to examine potential effects of sea-level rise (SLR) triggered by climate change during the twenty-first century, with a focus on the military infrastructure in mid-Atlantic coast of the United States. The study is part of an integrated coastal hazard risk assessment framework conducted at ERDC. The CMS, coupled with the regional hydrodynamic and wave models, calculated sediment transport and morphology change corresponding to global SLR combined with local tides, storm surge and waves in the nearshore and storm water inundated areas. The CMS results were analyzed to characterize the vulnerability of military installations, assess potential threats to structures and the navigation channel, and quantify the risks of mission impairment under the SLR scenarios with design tropical and extra-tropical storms. The project received the 2010 ERDC Research and Development Achievement Award.

POC: Honghai Li, honghai.li@usace.army.mil
POC: Lihwa Lin, lihwa.lin@usace.army.mil

Modeling of waves for Pt Judith Harbor of Refuge, RI

The CIRP team is presently assisting US Army Engineer District, New England, in estimating wave conditions in vicinity of the Point Judith Harbor of Refuge. Because the breakwater protecting this main Harbor of Refuge deteriorated in recent years, wave heights have increased in the harbor. The jetty stone may need to be replaced with larger armor stone. The sizing and viability of concrete armor units as a substitute for stone will also be investigated. CIRP is participating in the study by applying CMS-Wave to transform a 57-yr (1954-2010) wave hindcast GROW data source from an offshore point to the project site. Both BOUSS-2D and CMS-Wave are being used to estimate storm wave fields in the harbor complex with consideration of wave diffraction, reflection, transmission, breaking, runup and overtopping processes.

POC: Zeki Demirbilek, zeki.demirbilek@usace.army.mil
POC: Lihwa Lin, lihwa.lin@usace.army.mil

Pros and Cons of Sediment Tracer Studies (Guest Contributor, Rod Moritz, NWP)

{Editor: Several Districts have asked about the benefits and costs for sediment tracer studies. The NWP has recently conducted several of these studies at the Mouth of the Columbia River, WA/OR. CIRP asked Rod Moritz, NWP to discuss this for us in a guest column for this quarter's eNewsletter. Rod's discussion encompasses many aspects of tracer studies and we've had to abbreviate his comments for inclusion here. However, we've provided a link to his full discussion and recent paper below. Thanks, Rod!}

A sediment tracer study is a method to evaluate the in-situ dispersal patterns affecting a specific sediment type within a targeted area of interest. For a given sediment tracer study, a mass of tracer particles is manufactured to mimic characteristics of the specific sediment targeted for evaluating at a given study area; in terms of the sediment size gradation, density, hardness, shape, and fall speed within the water column. The sediment tracer is deployed at a defined drop zone (DZ) and repeated sediment in-situ sampling is performed at the DZ and surrounding area to "track" the dispersal of the released tracer material. For a tracer study to be successful, it is necessary to be able to detect the tracer at very low levels in each collected sediment sample (1 part per billion). This detection capability enables tracking of the tracer after significant dispersion by waves and/or currents. Analysis of the spatial and temporal distribution of recovered tracer indicates the spatial extent of tracer sediment transport during the data collection time-frame. The total cost for executing a tracer study adjacent to an energetic coastal inlet (high sediment dispersion) can approach $500,000. Executing a similar scope sediment tracer study within a LOW sediment dispersion study area can be less than $200,000. Although these costs represent a sizable investment, results from a successful tracer study can be very effective for describing sediment transport pathways within a complex or contentious area.

Read more here: Primer - http://cirp.usace.army.mil/news/Moritz_tracer_primer.pdf
CS11 paper - http://cirp.usace.army.mil/Downloads/PDF/CS11_Moritz.pdf

POC: Rod Moritz, hans.r.moritz@usace.army.mil

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Julie D. Rosati

Engineer Research & Development Center
3909 Halls Ferry Road, Coastal & Hydraulics Laboratory
Vicksburg, MS 39180

251-635-9519

julie.d.rosati@usace.army.mil

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