Coastal Resilience School Fourth Webinar: "Enabling Technologies" by Michiel Knaapen and Jacopo Alessandri

The Coastal Resilience webinar series, developed by the DCC-CR in collaboration with CMCC, and Deltares, is ongoing.

This Zoom session will take place on March 18, from 14:00 to 16:00 CET, as part of Module 4, "Enabling Technologies," of the Sustainable Coastal Growth and Resilience course.

Michiel Knaapen, Principal Scientist at HR Wallingford, and Jacopo Alessandri, Researcher at the University of Bologna, will lead the upcoming webinar, sharing their expertise in coastal morphodynamics and numerical modeling for coastal resilience.

Programme

Building the knowledge base for the 2019 Texas Coastal Resiliency Master Plan: Sediment Budget Analysis of the Texas Coast

By Michiel Knaapen, HR Wallingford 

Abstract

The Texas General Land Office (TGLO) developed the 2019 Texas Coastal Resiliency Master Plan (TGLO, 2019) to provide a strategic pathway to restore, enhance and protect the Texas coast. The masterplan aims to minimise hard structures and maintain the natural state of the beaches, without increasing the risk for coastal flooding. For this goal, it is anticipated that large amounts of sediment will be needed. To identify suitable sediment sources a better understanding of the sediment system is needed. 

Our research project builds upon the body of existing knowledge and develops a comprehensive sediment budget for the Gulf-facing beaches and inlets of the Texas coast. The results of this analysis are intended to assist in the planning of future coastal restoration projects, being considered under the GLO’s Coastal Erosion Planning and Response Act (CEPRA) program and other grant-related programs.  This study will provide a better understanding of where, when and how beach nourishment projects should take place and refine the understanding of sand transport pathways along the Texas coast. The findings will be collated in an online GIS database.

Assessing Nature Based Solutions with a Digital Twin of the Ocean 

By Jacopo Alessandri, University of Bologna

Abstract

The climate change we are currently experiencing poses the human society under great pressure due to the high vulnerability of the global coastal ocean. The expected changes due to climate change require a profound “rethinking” of the methods and priorities of the coastal management, with the aim of finding alternative solutions for coastal protection. In the last decade, the concept of Nature based Solution (NbS) has emerged in the literature. The purpose of this approach is to find solutions for coastal protection that integrate smoothly with the local environment, minimize the impact on the coast, and substantially reduce costal hazard. Many studies support the contribution of seagrass meadows as NbS for coastal protection through the variety of ecosystem services they can provide. However, the feasibility and the assessment of the effectiveness of this solution remains an open issue. Technological developments and understanding of ocean processes have advanced to the point where ocean models can be used to realize a Digital Twin of the Ocean (DTO), i.e. a virtual representation of a real environment. The DTO is used to assess the role of seagrass (Zostera marina, Posidonia oceanica) in reducing coastal hazard and the effectiveness of seagrass as an NBS is demonstrated and quantified.