A Multi-model Approach to Evaluate Hybrid Coastal Features: A Resilience-based Assessment.

Abstract Submission: Climate change leads to stronger and more destructive hurricanes as rising ocean temperatures and sea levels caused by melting glaciers allow intense tropical storms and costlier impacts, especially for coastal communities. Therefore, it is crucial to continuously explore advanced technologies, improvements, and innovative risk-reduction features that could be resilient to climate change impacts. This study aims to integrate mangroves and seawalls, resulting in a hybrid infrastructure system that will enhance resilience, attenuate waves, and deliver ecosystem benefits like improved water quality, enhanced recreational opportunities, carbon sequestration, and aesthetics. Thus, a multi-model approach that determines the combination, arrangement, and configuration is developed to maximize the resilience of the hybrid system. This framework includes a finite element analysis (SAP 2000), a computational fluid dynamics (Hydro UQ), and a sensitivity analysis model (Dakota) to examine the correlation of numerous design variables and forcing parameters considered in the hybrid infrastructure. This research expects to provide guidelines and recommendations for a new comprehensive design method focused on deriving the optimal configuration of mangroves. This effectively reduces the loads on the seawall through wave attenuation and minimizes the seawall building and maintenance cost. Furthermore, the method will strengthen the resilience and prolong the overall lifespan of the hybrid infrastructure by including the natural flexibility of the green infrastructure. The findings of this study could be used as the foundation for recommendations in guideline and code updates, such as ASCE 7 and ASCE 24. With improved design guidelines, engineers and practitioners can re-evaluate and optimize the design of our coastal protection infrastructure to effectively address the growing risk posed by increasing hazards to our communities.

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