Chanh Kieu received a very timely grant from the Office of Naval Research for his project On the Dynamics and Predictability of Tropical Cyclone Rapid Intensification.
Juergen Schieber received one from Exxon Mobil for his project on Experimental Studies on Mud Bed Erosion and Bed Exchange of Flocculated Mud in Turbulent Suspensions.
Travis O'Brien received a grant from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab for his work on Process-based Evaluation of Temperature and Precipitation Projections and Downscaling Methods over the CONUS: Charting a Path for End-Users from the CMIP6 Ensemble to Multivariate Facility-Level Risks.
Kaj Johnson got a grant from the US Geological Survey for Inferring Fault Rheology from Observations and Simulations of Transient Creep on the Central San Andreas Fault.
Brian Yanites and Doug Edmonds received a grant from NSF XC-Crosscutting Activities Program, Geomorphology and Land-use Dynamics: RAPID: Quantifying the fluvial response to cascading dam failures at Edenville and Sanford, Michigan.
Abstract: Our understanding of how floodplains and river channels respond to dam removal mostly comes from coordinated removal where the process is slow and predictable rather than from catastrophic dam breaks. Studies of coordinated removal are limited, and virtually no data exist on river response to dam failure. These are knowledge gaps are of practical significance because many dams in the United States are aging and at risk of failure. The work will advance understanding of the impacts of large floods and an aging infrastructure in the United States, which presents an increasing hazard to communities built downstream of dams. Such understanding is necessary for quantifying risk to best inform stakeholders. The work will also provide valuable research experience for two graduate students, one from an underrepresented group in geosciences. Finally, the team will disseminate the results of the work at conferences, in manuscripts, and openly host the data on Open Topography. The intellectual merit of this project is the ability to gather high resolution topographic data using an UAV lidar to characterize the aftermath of dam failure on the river and floodplain and how the river responds in the next year. The lidar data generated by this project will provide an important baseline dataset for models aimed at predicting river response to dam failure. The work will advance understanding of the impacts of large floods and an aging infrastructure in the United States, which presents an increasing hazard to communities built downstream of dams. The results will be presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science.
The College of Arts