‘The Importance of Marsh Heterogeneities for Modeling Flow’
by
Adrian Santiago Tate
Stanford University
When: Wednesday 11/July/18 14:00-14:30
Where: 7/3021 (L/R D)
Online flyer: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Dtu1sXfBYJIWrqDBUMS-i5XH3e1VXnzQ/view?usp=sharing
Abstract
Do we need to conduct an intensive and costly field campaign, or is a marsh just a marsh? In recent years, wetlands have been studied and recognized for their ability to modify environmental flows, potentially leading to reduction of hurricane storm surges. Marshes, however, are complex ecosystems presenting spatial variations in their morphology, such as vegetation stem thickness, height, and density. A collaboration between Southampton University, Stanford University, and George Mason University is underway to quantify the relative benefit of using numerical models that account for said spatial diversity – if resolving marsh heterogeneities provides little benefit, then costly field campaigns can justifiably be avoided. To this end, an intensive field campaign was conducted during one year at a site in the Chesapeake Bay, Virginia, and numerical work is being done at Stanford and Southampton Universities. This project will contribute to the work being done by the Natural Capital Project (and similar initiatives) to quantify the economic value of ecosystems. The early stages of this project will be presented for discussion and feedback.
About the speaker
Adrian Santiago Tate is a first year Ph.D. student in Geophysics and M.S. student in Environmental Fluid Mechanics and Hydrology at Stanford University, and has a background in Civil Engineering (B.Sc. from Virginia Tech). Adrian grew up behind the dunes in the Netherlands.
For any queries, please contact Dr Sergio Maldonado: s.maldonado@soton.ac.uk
