Over 120 participants gathered at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken on March 19 for the NJCRC’s first Coastal Flooding Technical Workshop. The full-day event featured 31 insightful presentations by experts in the field about the latest strategies and technologies to address coastal flooding challenges.
Presentation abstracts and speaker slides are available on the event website. Photos from the event can be viewed on the NJCRC’s LinkedIn page.
Reflecting on the day’s discussions in a final panel, Stevens Professor Jon Miller, co-chair of the workshop, said he was struck by the broad range of expertise and topics highlighted. Among the speakers were engineers, academic researchers, ecologists, marine scientists, regulators, and even a specialist in the performing arts, all of whom he said brought important perspectives to the fore.
“It points to the need to hold meetings like this to understand how everybody is approaching this issue,” Miller said. “Clearly, flooding is a problem that we have, it’s a problem that’s not going away, and we’re going to need all of the tools, techniques, and brain power of the people in this room to deal with it.”
Monmouth University Urban Coast Institute Associate Director Tom Herrington, also a co-chair of the workshop, said the day’s presentations were a reminder of how far digital flood modeling had advanced since the technology was in its infancy a few decades ago. Powered by supercomputers, today’s programs are capable of providing outputs that have unlocked new research possibilities.
“The breadth of those applications is quite impressive – everything from Federal Reserve Bank analysis to looking at optimizing flood control,” Herrington said. “The modeling has weaved its way into our applied work in many, many different ways.”
The workshop was capped by a networking and poster session.
The NJCRC thanks Stevens Institute of Technology, Forerunner Inc., HDR, and the Northeast Shore and Beach Preservation Association for sponsoring the event.
Questions about the workshop and future events may be directed to NJCRC Events Chair Terry Doss at tdoss@njsea.com.