Engineering With Nature® (EWN) Toolkit for ERDC’s CSTORM

A toolkit to create and permutate EWN features within the Coastal STORM (CSTORM) modeling framework.

About

USACE Districts require a method for predicting the impact that Engineering With Nature (EWN) features may have on the coastal resiliency of communities, quantifying changes to predicted values of storm surge, inundation, and wave attenuation for various storm events (i.e. 1/100, or 1/1000) if these features were implemented.

Presently, numerical modeling of EWN features requires manual integration into the bathymetry/mesh, entailing a high level of skill and a significant time commitment. Each time the feature is altered, mesh must be rebuilt. Consequently, a limited set of NNBF measures will be implemented numerically for a subset of storm conditions and those effects will be extrapolated to other study regions, increasing the uncertainty of the study conclusions.

The purpose of this project is to include a toolkit to create and permutate EWN features within the Coastal STORM – Modeling System (CSTORM-MS) of numerical models (ADCIRC/STWAVE), allowing Districts to look at variations of design parameters for varying NNBFs without having to modify model bathymetry every time, leading to significant time and cost savings.

Objective

The objective of this research task is to develop a EWN CSTORM-MS toolkit that can be implemented to streamline the inclusion of NNBF designs into the USACE numerical modeling process. Accompanying the toolkit will be a Graphical User Interface (GUI) and suggested methods that will allow the user to include EWN feature-based designs with the CSTORM suite of numerical models.

Approach

The approach to developing the toolkit consists of four elements:

1.

Development of a GUI that allows for rapid representation of EWN features within a coastal numerical model background

2.

Implementation of proper numerical representation of the EWN features within the CSTORM mesh through automated mesh editing

3.

Automating the assignment of model properties associated with EWN features upon generation such as friction coefficients and elevations

4.

Sub-domain modeling of EWN features within the large-scale CSTORM-MS system, which will keep the computational time and resource demand low

Capabilities

Example Scenario

Location: Rockaway Peninsula, Long Island, NY

Objective: Reduce flooding during storm events, prevent beach erosion, and create natural habitat to increase biodiversity in the area

Strategy: Implement the following EWN features

  • Dune
  • Navigation gate
  • Wetland consisting of 2 distinct marsh areas

Application: The EWN toolkit is used to add these features to the existing mesh which is then implemented in the CSTORM model to study the effects on hydrodynamics caused by including these features (pictured is the mesh for the marsh)

Slide right to see the mesh without the marsh

Slide left to see the mesh with the marsh

Results: Water surface elevation results before and after adding the marsh.

Slide right to see the water surface elevations without the marsh

Slide left to see the water surface elevations with the marsh

Demonstrations

Resources

The Story

| Problem | Solution | Impact |

| Application | Status | Benefits |

Contacts

Amanda Tritinger - Amanda.S.Tritinger@erdc.dren.mil

Chris Massey - Chris.Massey@usace.army.mil

Published January 20, 2022

by Taylor S. Cagle

| Problem | Solution | Impact |

| Application | Status | Benefits |