October 24, 2007

  • Hurricane Katrina's wave atlas produced by Dr. Chen's integrated wave-surge modeling system for the northeastern Gulf of Mexico. His numerical experiments have revealed that the barrier islands and shallow continental shelf reduced the wave energy by 86%, while the absence of the barrier islands and wetlands east of Mississippi River would have increased the maximum surge height by 10-15% during Katrina.

The Fluid Dynamics and Hydraulics Program of the National Science Foundation (NSF) has recently selected the research accomplishments of Dr. Q. Jim Chen and his coastal engineering research group at LSU as one of the two 2007 Nuggets from the program. NSF recognizes notable achievements with its awards each year. It features Dr. Chen’s research in coastal engineering on the agency’s webpage entitled “Wind Wave and Storm Surge Modeling Predictions to Avert Future Natural Disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina” (http://www.nsf.gov/eng/cbet/nuggets/1443/1443_chen.htm).

“The Chen Group was highly insightful in combining the two modeling techniques to provide an improved model for storm surge and wind waves effects,” said the NSF article. “The Chen Group realized a need to simultaneously model storm surge and wind wave activities and to predict their impact. Combining the two hydrodynamics processes has led to a new modeling technique that will impact storm prediction, city design, and damage mitigation. The Group has created opportunities for increased coastal engineering research and education along the Gulf Coast, allowing the region to be better prepared for the future disaster.”

Dr. Q. Jim Chen joined the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) at LSU as an associate professor in August 2006. He specializes in near-shore hydrodynamic modeling and coastal engineering. The National Science Foundation has given Dr. Chen one of its most prestigious awards in support of state-of-the-art coastal wave and storm surge research that could help protect the hurricane-prone Gulf Coast, especially the Louisiana coast devastated by recent hurricanes. In addition to the NSF award, Dr. Chen has secured five other federal grants since he joined LSU last summer, totaling $1.4 million. Among them is a three-year grant from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) aimed at developing a new modeling framework for simulations of coastal processes in deltaic environments using high-performance computing technology. Dr. Chen serves as the Principal Investigator of the project and is collaborating with colleagues at LSU Center for Computation and Technology (CCT) to integrate his coastal models with CCT’s computing power.

The long-term goal of the DoD project is to develop and enhance the research and educational capabilities in the area of coastal engineering in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at LSU while simultaneously supporting the U.S. Navy’s research goals in the areas of coastal dynamics. “The three PI and Co-PIs form a very strong team for the proposed study because they have excellent previous experiences in the research topic, and their expertise complements each other nicely,” said one of the anonymous reviewers of another research project led by Dr. Chen and Clint Willson, in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Funded by the NOAA Sea Grant Program, the CEE research team is aimed to improve the capability of modeling surge and wave attenuations over wetlands and erosion potential, provide technical assistance and educational support to the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources (LDNR) Coastal Engineering Division, and develop a predictive model to estimate the volume of cohesive sediments potentially carried onshore by a storm surge. The LDNR contributed an $80,000 match for the NOAA project led by Dr. Chen.

The success of protecting and restoring Louisiana’s coast requires better capabilities for predicting the response of natural coastal processes to engineering solutions under different forcing agents. Implementation of the Comprehensive Coastal Protection Master Plan calls for a strong partnership between the Coastal Engineering Division at LDNR and the Coastal Engineering Program in the Department of Civil Engineering at Louisiana State University. Dr. Chen and the coastal engineering group are developing such a partnership that is in line with one of the Louisiana Sea Grant College Program’s strategic goals, which is “to establish the academic research community as a major provider of applied research support for coastal restoration technology and programs.”

Information excerpted from CEE Department Newsletter, Volume 6, Summer Issue,  July 2007

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