Department of Civil, Environmental and Ocean Engineering

More than 120 registrants, including more than 25 Stevens alumni, attended the New Jersey Coastal Resilience Collaborative’s Coastal Flooding Technical Workshop on March 19 at Stevens Institute of Technology.

The full day event brought together more than 30 experts from across New Jersey to discuss mitigation strategies and emerging technologies regarding the increasing challenge of flooding in coastal communities.

Jon Miller, research associate professor in Stevens’ Department of Civil, Environmental and Ocean Engineering, was a co-chair of the workshop and a panel speaker who appreciated the diverse perspectives shared.

"Clearly, flooding is a problem that we have," he said. "It’s a problem that’s not going away, and we’re going to need all of the tools, techniques and brain power of the people in this room to deal with it."

The New Jersey Coastal Resilience Collaborative (NJCRC) is a network of more than 100 diverse partners established to foster sustainable and resilient coastal communities and ecosystems. The NJCRC brings stakeholders and interested parties from all sectors to the table to optimize expertise, and to integrate all elements related to coastal resilience such as, but not limited to: land use and future development, transportation, housing, economic development, public facilities and infrastructure, natural resource protection, and historic properties and cultural resources. Laura Kerr, a senior research engineer in Stevens’ Coastal Engineering Research Group, is one of three managing directors for the NJCRC.

Read more about this event at https://www.njcoastalresilience.org/njcrc-hosts-coastal-flooding-technical-workshop/.

Research associate professor Philip Orton and senior research engineer Laura Kerr, both of Stevens’ Department of Civil, Environmental and Ocean Engineering, are the principal investigator and co-principal investigator, respectively, on a project aimed at observing and warning coastal communities of impending flooding.

Orton and Kerr are working with the University of Delaware on a $474,863 grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to demonstrate an approach for improving resilience to flooding in back-barrier estuaries (BBEs). Hundreds of billions of dollars in property are situated on BBEs, which includes the majority of coastal South Florida, Texas, Alabama, North Carolina, New Jersey and south Long Island.

Due to their small inlets, existing flood models and forecasts struggle to capture accurate water level and flooding in these regions. They also often lack measurements of wind waves and flooding. This project, titled “Forecasting and Observing Water levels, Waves and Flooding for a Back-Barrier Estuary – Barnegat Bay, NJ” has two primary goals: provide critical observations and coastal hazards forecasts to communities on the New Jersey coast and apply an innovative combination of modeling, wave and water-level observations, street-flood sensors and community engagement.

The project will improve a widely used coastal total water level forecast system, the Stevens Flood Advisory System (SFAS) by creating a nested modeling/forecast area that serves Barnegat Bay and other area communities with more accurate information than is available from other sources.

Building off Phase 1 of a previous study into soil lead exposure, Stevens professor, Dibs Sarkar and research scholar Hadeer Saleh, of the Department of Civil, Environmental and Ocean Engineering, have received an $800,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to advance to Phase 2.

The project, titled “Lowering Lead Bioavailability in Residential Soils of Variable Physico-Chemical Properties Using Sustainable In-Situ Treatment Methods” studies yard soil from homes built before 1978 that previously contained lead paint. Phase 1 studied yards from homes in Baltimore, Md.; Detroit, Mich.; and San Antonio, Texas; and established a direct relationship between soil contamination and blood-lead level in children from such homes.

Soil properties control lead solubility and bioavailability and optimal chemical amendments for soils that are also sustainable need to be selected and tested. Several studies have shown the effectiveness of chemical amendments, but comprehensive field-scale studies are essential to assess the long-term stability and effectiveness of the amendments to reduce lead bioavailability and mobility.

Phase 2, “Validating Under Scaled-Up Conditions,” will further examine sustainable chemical treatments that showed promise in reducing lead exposure in affected yards in Phase 1. Specifically, Sarkar and Saleh will look to validate the effectiveness of lab-proven chemical amendments; correlate in-vitro lead bioaccessibility data; calculate human health risks for chronic lead exposure; predict potential blood-lead levels with and without chemical amendments; and develop operational guidelines to help homeowners manage the problem.

Yi Bao, associate professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Ocean Engineering, is the principal investigator of a $500,000 grant from the Department of Energy to develop smart fiber optic sensors for applications in harsh environments involving high temperature. Associate Professor Cheng Chen is the co-PI on the project.

The project, titled “Development of wireless artificial intelligence-powered multi-functional fiber optic sensors for hydrogen production in gasification-based systems,” aims to advance fiber optic sensors technology for sensing high temperature, pressure, strain, hydrogen concentration, carbon monoxide concentration, carbon dioxide concentration, and fouling severity, simultaneously. Sensor data are processed and analyzed using deep learning techniques automatically and efficiently.

Gasification-based systems are operated to convert various biomass and solid wastes into clean synthetic gases. These synthetic gases in turn facilitate low-cost production of electricity, fuel and other products, including hydrogen. The development of advanced sensor technology will facilitate the transformation into intelligent energy systems with improved operational safety and efficiency and reduced costs and carbon emissions.