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Storms are one of the main causes of coastal erosion, causing substantial property and infrastructure losses in coastal communities—particularly in underrepresented communities. The USGS provides a probabilistic assessment of hurricane-induced coastal erosion based on predictions of total water level for sandy coastlines along the eastern United States and the Gulf of Mexico. At the International Conference on Coastal Engineering (ICCE), Legna presented USGS efforts to expand this tool to Puerto Rico, accounting for the complex bathymetries, steep slopes, and large bottom roughness of the rocky and reef-lined coasts of Puerto Rico. This effort provides a tool that could be beneficial to emergency managers in Puerto Rico, where communities are particularly vulnerable to severe and frequent tropical storms.

ICCE is the premier coastal engineering conference held biennially under the auspices of the Coastal Engineering Research Council of COPRI—The Coasts, Oceans, Ports, and Rivers Institute—which is a semi-autonomous institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the country’s oldest national engineering society. The goal of the ICCE is to promote academic and technical exchange on coastal related studies covering a wide range of topics including coastal waves, nearshore currents, coastal structures, sediment transport, coastal morphology, beach nourishment, natural hazards, and coastal management. Participation at this meeting further highlights the leadership role of USGS in developing state-of-the-art products for addressing coastal resilience issues on a global scale.

Learn more about coastal hazards in Puerto Rico.

Read what else is new at the St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center.