hydrology Archives

Chase Ferrell, left, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mobile District hydrologic technician, and Brett Hegler, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Field Engineering technician, calibrate a Real-Time Currents and Meteorological buoy (CURBY) in the Biloxi Bay near Ocean Springs, Mississippi, Oct. 25, 2023. The CURBY buoy was being launched to gather data for the USACE Mississippi Coastal Improvement Program and its coast-wide beach and dune ecosystem restoration project in Jackson County, Mississippi. (U.S. Army photo by Chuck Walker) — Chase Ferrell, left, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mobile District hydrologic technician, and Brett Hegler, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Field Engineering technician, calibrate a Real-Time Currents and Meteorological buoy (CURBY) in the Biloxi Bay near Ocean Springs, Mississippi, Oct. 25, 2023. (U.S. Army photo by Chuck Walker)

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mobile District Mississippi Coastal Improvement Program (MsCIP), and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) had a problem.

NOAA deploys two Real-Time Currents and Meteorological Buoys (CURBY) at least once a year to ensure everything works while maintaining their skills in case of an emergency.

In Mobile, the MsCIP team needed field data for coastal modeling for its Coast-wide Beach and Dune Restoration Project in Jackson County, Mississippi.

Enter Richard Allen, USACE Mobile District Hydrologic Data Collection Unit team lead, to marry the two sides together as the Mobile District and NOAA launched a buoy in Biloxi Bay near Ocean Springs, Mississippi, on Oct. 25, 2023.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration members attach a Real-Time Currents and Meteorological buoy (CURBY) to a USACE boat in the Biloxi Bay near Ocean Springs, Mississippi, Oct. 25, 2023. The CURBY was deployed in the Biloxi Bay to gather data for the USACE Mississippi Coastal Improvement Program’s Coast-wide Beach and Dune Ecosystem Restoration project located in Jackson County, Mississippi. (U.S. Army photo by Chuck Walker) — U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration members attach a Real-Time Currents and Meteorological buoy (CURBY) to a USACE boat in the Biloxi Bay near Ocean Springs, Mississippi, Oct. 25, 2023. (U.S. Army photo by Chuck Walker)

The buoy deployment helped both sides get what they needed.

“The NOAA buoy is being deployed to collect field data that will be utilized in coastal modeling,” said Valerie Morrow, USACE Mobile District Coastal Resiliency technical lead. “Mobile District will benefit from this approach because it is cheaper than other data collection alternatives, the data collected is higher quality than other alternatives, and the ability to mobilize the buoy is quicker than other alternatives.”

For NOAA, deploying the buoy gave them the training and testing needed for optimal operation.

The Mobile District supported the buoy by launching it from its boats, allowing NOAA to practice using a “vessel of opportunity.”

Grace Gray, NOAA Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services, said it was the perfect opportunity for her team to get real-world training and help a partner agency.

The Real-Time Currents and Meteorological Buoy (CURBY) collects data in Biloxi Bay near Ocean Springs, Mississippi, Oct. 25, 2023. The buoy was launched by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mobile District and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to gather data for USACE’s Mississippi Coastal Improvement Program. (U.S. Army photo by Chuck Walker)

“In addition to using this opportunity to hone our deployment skills and test the equipment, we wanted to exercise the scenario in which a partner agency requests the use of a CURBY, to work out some of the administrative aspects with environmental compliance and reimbursement for buoy components before we’re in a time-sensitive situation. This was also an opportunity to deploy the buoy from someone else’s vessel. So the more opportunities to practice on other vessels, the better.”

The project element that the buoy deployment will benefit is beach and dune improvements to approximately four miles of the existing mainland coast within Jackson County, Mississippi. These improvements include constructing a 60-foot-wide vegetated dune field approximately 50 feet from any existing seawalls.

These beach and dune areas are critical to nesting and resting shorebirds such as the State listed least tern and the threatened piping plover. In addition to the ecological benefits, the dunes would provide incidental coastal storm risk management benefits, particularly during more frequent lower-intensity coastal storm events. In accordance with the provisions of the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) 1986, as amended, cost-sharing would be 65 percent Federal and 35 percent non-Federal funding.

Members of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Mobile District and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration pose with the Real-Time Currents and Meteorological Buoy (CURBY) in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, Oct. 25, 2023. The CURBY was launched in Biloxi Bay to gather data for the USACE Mobile District Mississippi Coastal Improvement Program. (U.S. Army photo by Chuck Walker) — Members of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Mobile District and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration pose with the Real-Time Currents and Meteorological Buoy (CURBY) in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, Oct. 25, 2023. (U.S. Army photo by Chuck Walker)

Allen said the buoy deployment was a success.

“Joint operations between NOAA and USACE resulted in a successful deployment of the CURBY,” Allen said. “The buoy began collecting data immediately. This data is being transmitted in real-time to NOAA servers and made available for USACE project team members to support the hydrodynamic modeling and design. The buoy is expected to remain onsite for 90 days, at which time NOAA and USACE will recover the buoy.”

Schematic showing modeling sequences that can be used to support decision making under the effects of climate change. Coarse Global Climate Model (GCM) projections are downscaled and then run through hydrology and impact modeling to produce an ensemble of high-resolution hydro-regulated streamflow conditions. The ensemble composite is used to identify the frequency of negative impacts under current operations and informs adaptive management planning. This can be repeated and compared for multiple operational scenarios to assess how operations could be altered to maintain or decrease the frequency of negative impacts. (Courtesy Jane Harrell/USACE)

Nothing screams Team of Teams or Innovation louder than earning one of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Engineering and Construction Community of Practice’s (ECCoP) highest accolades.

The Northwestern Division Columbia River Climate Change Team received the ECCoP Climate Champion (Team) Award for their work on the Columbia River Treaty Vulnerability Assessment and contributions to district, regional, and national climate product development.

Integrating climate change into long-term planning studies has been a Northwestern Division, Seattle, Portland, and Walla Walla Districts, and their partners’ priority for over 15 years.

The team’s awarding-winning work includes supporting the Columbia River Treaty (CRT), currently in active negotiations with Canada on future basin water management.

The team incorporated modeling results, from the latest River Management Joint Operating Committee (RMJOC) planning studies, into their future climate vulnerability assessment of the Columbia River Reservoir System operations. The team also supported adaptive management planning to build resilience against hydroclimatic and future hydrologic Columbia River Basin change.

“The national recognition is an honor,” said Seattle District civil engineer and team lead Jane Harrell. “I hope exposure of this team’s work promotes and fosters innovation in how we plan and prepare for the effects of climate change.”

Harrell specializes in dataset and data analysis tool development to support climate change-impacted hydrology and resource assessments for the Pacific Northwest.

Fellow team awardees include Hydraulic Engineers Jason Chang and Reyn Aoki (both with Seattle District), Jeff Arnold (MITRE Corporation), and Chris Frans with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR).

Seattle District’s Meteorologist Michael Warner provides atmospheric science and climate science support to studies involving the Columbia River Basin and the treaty. Warner, who holds a doctorate in Atmospheric Sciences from the University of Washington, Seattle, gives real-time weather forecasting for the district’s water management and emergency management hydrologists.

A sustaining team element is its members’ diverse backgrounds – in engineering, atmospheric sciences, climate science, hydrology, and reservoir operations – that have led to unique opportunities to collaborate with federal agencies and various academic and research institutions to evaluate the effects of climate change in the Columbia River Basin.

“It's a privilege to work with this team and I feel honored to be part of it, said Jeremy Giovando, a research civil engineer with the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center-Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (ERDC-CRREL).

Giovando, who has been a CRT/RMJOC climate change team member since 2009, applies his background in environmental and civil engineering into researching various civil works issues including climate change impacts on hydrology, post-wildfire hydrology, snowpack, and river ice mechanics.

“I think the award represents the power of a high-functioning team and has provided a template for how to directly include climate change impacts for USACE project,” said Giovando.

Another instance is collaborating with Bonneville Power Administration and the USBR, leading studies to develop an ensemble of historical and hydrological projections and to examine Columbia River Reservoir System’s climate change resiliency.

Kristian Mickelson, Seattle District’s Columbia River Treaty Hydrology & Hydraulics technical lead, has also been involved since 2009. “I felt really lucky back then being able to use data I helped develop at the University of Washington, and then apply it here at the Corps of Engineers,” said Mickelson.

“Through the years, this team continues to push the science forward to best prepare the region for understanding the impacts that will be caused from climate change.”

Additionally, partnering with the National Center for Atmospheric Research led to the team develop datasets using the latest modeling advancements, and climate knowledge to produce credible meteorological and hydrological conditions and responses of water resource systems.

The datasets enable the team to create a strong uncertainty depiction and risk to managing and planning water PNW region water resources.

“It feels good to be a part of meaningful and interesting work such as this.” said Portland District Water Resources Civil Engineer Keith Duffy, who works on river hydraulic modeling, rainfall runoff computing, reservoir and climate change assessment and data analyses projects. His climate change assessment planning studies date back to 2010.

The combination of diverse expertise, strong connections to the research community and long collaborative effort history makes conditions ideal for essential advancements in how USACE develops datasets and modeling tools toward relevant and reliable applications for decision-making frameworks and uses climate change information to support long-term planning for regional water management.

USACE’s Institute for Water Resources Hydrologic Engineering Center (IWR-HEC) Civil Engineer Evan Heisman, applauded his fellow awardees for continuing to push the boundaries of what can be done with projecting reservoir operations under climate change, and for their proactive approach in understanding how climate change impacts USACE’s mission managing flood risk, hydropower, ecosystems, navigation, and other reservoir system impacts across the Nation.

From developing decision-support tools to anticipate potential hydroclimatic change to planning for increased resilience for water resource infrastructure, the Climate Champion Team's efforts help advance understanding of and preparation for future climate change in the Pacific Northwest.

Every year in June, USACE’s Engineering and Construction Awards Program recognizes employees’ and teams' contributions of excellence in performance, leadership, professional development and community support in its engineering and construction career fields.

The ‘Team of Teams’ mindset is embedded into Seattle District’s strategic vision to deliver strong to the Pacific Northwest. Normalizing what currently seems revolutionary and shaping the USACE future through a culture of continual process improvement, modernization and innovation, are key elements in the district’s operational plan.