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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

Aerial Data and Processed Models of Port Arthur Coastal Neighborhood and Pleasure Island Golf Course, June 2024

Our Co-design team is from the University of Texas, working on a Department of Energy-funded project focused on the Beaumont-Port Arthur area. As part of this project, we will be developing climate-resilient design solutions for areas of the region. More on www.caee.utexas.edu.We captured aerial photos in the Port Arthur Coastal Neighborhood Community and the Golf Course on Pleasure Island, Texas, in June 2024.Aerial photos taken were through DroneDeploy autonomous flight, and models were processed through the DroneDeploy engine as well. All aerial photos are in .JPG format and contained in zipped files for each area.The processed data package includes 3D models, geospatial data, mappings, and point clouds. Please be aware that DTM, Elevation toolbox, Point cloud, and Orthomosaic use EPSG: 6588. And 3D Model uses EPSG: 3857.For using these data:- The Adobe Suite gives you great software to open .Tif files.- You can use LASUtility (Windows), ESRI ArcGIS Pro (Windows), or Blaze3D (Windows, Linux) to open a LAS file and view the data it contains.- Open an .OBJ file with a large number of free and commercial applications. Some examples include Microsoft 3D Builder, Apple Preview, Blender, and Autodesk.- You may use ArcGIS, Merkaartor, Blender (with the Google Earth Importer plug-in), Global Mapper, and Marble to open .KML files.- The .tfw world file is a text file used to georeference the GeoTIFF raster images, like the orthomosaic and the DSM. You need suitable software like ArcView to open a .TFW file.This dataset provides researchers with sufficient geometric data and the status quo of the land surface at the locations mentioned above. This dataset could streamline researchers' decision-making processes and enhance the design as well.

2D mapping↗
DOE OSTI2024

Real-time kinematic (RTK) Drone-collected Data and Processed Models of Port Arthur Coastal Neighborhood and Pleasure Island Golf Course, June 2024

The Southeast Texas Urban Integrated field lab’s Co-design team captured aerial photos in the Port Arthur Coastal Neighborhood Community and the Golf Course on Pleasure Island, Texas, in June 2024. Aerial photos taken were through autonomous flight, and models were processed through the DroneDeploy engine. All aerial photos are in .JPG format and contained in zipped files for each area. The processed data package includes 3D models, geospatial data, mappings, and point clouds. Please be aware that DTM, Elevation toolbox, Point Cloud, and Orthomosaic use EPSG: 6588. And 3D Model uses EPSG: 3857.For using these data:- The Adobe Suite gives you great software to open .Tif files.- You can use LASUtility (Windows), ESRI ArcGIS Pro (Windows), or Blaze3D (Windows, Linux) to open a LAS file and view the data it contains.- Open an .OBJ file with a large number of free and commercial applications. Some examples include Microsoft 3D Builder, Apple Preview, Blender, and Autodesk.- You may use ArcGIS, Merkaartor, Blender (with the Google Earth Importer plug-in), Global Mapper, and Marble to open .KML files.- The .tfw world file is a text file used to georeference the GeoTIFF raster images, like the orthomosaic and the DSM. You need suitable software like ArcView to open a .TFW file.This dataset provides researchers with sufficient geometric data and the status quo of the land surface at the locations mentioned above. This dataset will support researchers' decision-making processes under uncertainties.

2D mapping↗
DOE OSTI2025

Modeling the mechanisms of coastal vegetation dynamics and ecosystem responses to changing water levels

Coastal forests are increasingly experiencing mortality due to inundation by fresh- and seawater, leading to their replacement by marshes. These shifts alter vegetation composition, biogeochemical cycling, carbon storage, and hydrology. Using a hydraulically enabled ecosystem demography model (FATES-Hydro), we conducted numerical experiments to investigate the mechanisms behind inundation-driven forest loss and the ecosystem-scale consequences of forest-to-marsh transitions. We compared mortality processes and their effects across broadleaf and conifer trees at two coastal sites – Lake Erie (freshwater) and Chesapeake Bay (saline). Our simulations show that hydraulic failure, driven by root loss under prolonged flooding, is the primary mortality mechanism across both tree types and sites. Forest replacement by marsh reduced ecosystem-scale leaf area index (LAI), gross primary production (GPP), transpiration, and deep soil water uptake in conifer forests, while broadleaf forests experienced smaller changes due to lower initial LAI and greater marsh compensation. Marsh invasion occurred following canopy thinning driven by tree mortality. These findings suggest that, under similar root loss, hydraulic failure dominates coastal tree mortality regardless of species or water type, with denser forests experiencing stronger ecosystem impacts. Our study identifies key mortality mechanisms and offers testable hypotheses for future empirical studies on coastal vegetation change.

Ding, Junyan [Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA ↗
DOE OSTI2025

Data-model files associated with the manuscript "Modeling the Effects of Wetland Restoration on Coastal Hydrology: A Case Study of Elkhorn Slough Watershed, California"

This package contains the data, simulation setups, notebooks and figures used in “Modeling the Effects of Wetland Restoration on Coastal Hydrology: A Case Study of Elkhorn Slough Watershed, California” (Xu et al., 2025). In this study, we selected Elkhorn Slough, a tidal estuary, in California, to investigate the impact of wetland restoration and sea level rise on coastal hydrology using the process-based coastal hydrologic model, Advanced Terrestrial Simulator (ATS), informed by site-specific data. We designed a novel modeling workflow for incorporating wetland restoration features into land cover and soil properties for the model parameterization. The validation results demonstrate a strong agreement between modeled and observed data. We studied the characteristics of coastal watershed hydrology, then focused on the surface water dynamics at two wetland sites within Elkhorn Slough, a reference site and a restored site. Our simulation results indicate that the restored site successfully maintains surface elevation, resulting in reduced surface inundation. We also examined the impact of wetland restoration under expected sea level rise over the next few decades. The low-lying Yampah Marsh, the reference site, is likely to be inundated due to future sea level rise when highest tides arrive; while a higher percentage of Hester Marsh, the restored site, would retain marsh vegetation in coming decades, regardless of tidal conditions. Our study provides important information for examining the outcome of restoration practices that include surface elevation in tidal wetlands under climate changes.Several files can be found from this data package.1. README.md: This file describes the title, journal, co-authors, abstract, repository structure and model version.2. Simulation_Setups.zip: The file contains the model configuration files (XML format) for ATS. 3. Notebooks.zip: The file contains the Jupyter notebooks for generating the pre- and post-restoration meshes and the meshes of future scenarios. 4. Figures.zip: The file contains the figures used in the manuscript.5. Data.zip: The file contains the data used to drive the model simulations, including watershed and wetlands boundaries, mesh files and references to additional datasets (e.g., meteorological forcing, tidal dataset, DEMs, land cover, soil properties). Also, it contains water level observations at the restored wetland.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Investigating coastal backwater effects and flooding in the coastal zone using a global river transport model on an unstructured mesh

Abstract. Coastal backwater effects are caused by the downstream water level increase as a result of elevated sea level, high river discharge and their compounding influence. Such effects have crucial impacts on floods in densely populated regions but have not been well represented in large-scale river models used in Earth system models (ESMs), partly due to model mesh deficiency and oversimplifications of river hydrodynamics. Using two mid-Atlantic river basins as a testbed, we perform the first attempt to simulate the backwater effects comprehensively over a coastal region using the MOSART river transport model under an ESM framework, i.e., Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) configured on a regionally refined unstructured mesh, with a focus on understanding the backwater drivers and their long-term variations. By including sea level variations at the river downstream boundary, the model performance in capturing backwaters is greatly improved. We also propose a new flood event selection scheme to facilitate the decomposition of backwater drivers into different components. Our results show that while storm surge is a key driver, the influence of extreme discharge cannot be neglected, particularly when the river drains to a narrow river-like estuary. Compound flooding, while not necessarily increasing the flood peaks, exacerbates the flood risk by extending the duration of multiple coastal and fluvial processes. Furthermore, our simulations and analysis highlight the increasing strength of backwater effects due to sea level rise and more frequent storm surge during 1990–2019. Thus, backwaters need to be properly represented in ESMs to improve the predictive understanding of coastal flooding.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Estuarine hurricane wind can intensify surge-dominated extreme water level in shallow and converging coastal systems

Based on the projected increase in hurricane landfall frequency on the middle to lower US east coast, we examined the crucial role of the estuarine wind field in exacerbating coastal flooding. A regionally refined atmospheric and two high-resolution hydrology and ocean models are integrated to provide plausible and physically consistent ensembles of hurricane events and the associated flooding inside the Delaware Bay and River, a US mid-Atlantic estuary. Model results show that the hurricane propagation direction, estuarine geometry, remote surge from the open ocean, and direct nearshore upwind stress could magnify the flood magnitude. More specifically, inland-bound tracks that make landfall before reaching the mid-Atlantic coast produce a more significant surge within Delaware Bay than the shore-parallel tracks, where the estuarine wind direction plays the primary role in surge amplification. Ultimately, this study emphasized the need for integrated models to capture the nonlinear dynamics and interactions in flood hazard modeling.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Assessing Effects of Climate Change on Legacy Waste at the Enewetak Atoll

The Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) is in the central Pacific Ocean ~4,500 km west of Hawaii. The Enewetak Atoll, located in the northwest part of the RMI, was the site for 43 nuclear weapon tests between 1948 and 1958. Fallout and deposition from the tests contaminated the island surfaces, lagoon waters and sediment, and nearby ocean waters at the atoll. In the 1970s, a cleanup effort collected radioactive waste and placed it in the Cactus Crater on Runit Island (also called the Runit Dome). In December 2021, Congress directed the U.S. Department of Energy to study the impacts of climate change on the Runit Dome nuclear waste disposal site. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) assembled a multidisciplinary team of climate scientists, ocean modelers, environmental scientists, and health physicists to assess the likely effects of remaining radionuclides at the Enewetak Atoll. PNNL’s approach focused on effects of tropical cyclones that were postulated to mobilize and transport contaminated lagoon sediments and result in human and biota exposure. PNNL’s study estimated (1) the radionuclide source term, (2) the effects of climate change on severe storms, (3) mobilization and transport of radionuclides, and (4) radiation dose to humans and biota. Radionuclides in the lagoon and/or ocean waters of the Enewetak Atoll were characterized by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) in 1972, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in 2015, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 2018. The RMI Nationwide Radiological Study was conducted in the early 1990s for radionuclides remaining in island soils. The 1972 AEC survey remains the most comprehensive source of radionuclide data on lagoon sediments. Climate change modeling at a regional scale in the central Pacific Ocean is limited. PNNL climate scientists simulated severe historical storms postulated to occur both in a recent climate (2015) and in the future (2090) using the Advanced Research Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF-ARW) model, employing a pseudo-global-warming technique. A postulated complete, future failure of the Runit Dome was also considered. PNNL developed a high-resolution regional ocean hydrodynamics model covering the entire RMI extended economic zone using the Finite Volume Coastal Ocean Model (FVCOM). The FVCOM model was run using global reanalysis data for current climate and WRF-ARW simulation for the future climate. PNNL also developed a radionuclide fate and transport model using the FVCOM Integrated Compartment Model (FVCOM-ICM) to simulate the current and future mobilization and transport of radionuclides sorbed to lagoon sediments and the exchange of radionuclides between the water and sediment. FVCOM-ICM-predicted radionuclide concentrations were then used to estimate radiation dose to humans and biota at all islands of the Enewetak Atoll. Under current climate conditions, annual radiation exposures for the southern islands including Enewetak (Fred) and Medren (Elmer) were below the current U.S. standards. Radiation doses were somewhat elevated starting at Runit Island northward and westward to Enjebi Island (Janet). The islands in the northwest quadrant, particularly Bokoluo (Alice) and Bokombako (Belle), remain relatively contaminated. The islands in the southwestern quadrant have low contamination. The highest contribution to radiation doses comes from consumption of locally grown foods. Two radionuclides, 90Sr and 137Cs, contributed the greatest fraction for most terrestrial foods. In current climate conditions, the storms temporarily increased radionuclide concentrations in the lagoon waters, increasing the radiation dose slightly. In future conditions, doses are expected to be smaller, primarily because of the radioactive decay of the shorter-lived radioisotopes of 90Sr and 137Cs. This could make all islands in the far northwest of the atoll – except Bokombako (Belle) and perhaps Bokoluo (Alice) – suitable for residency. For the f

Prasad, Rajiv↗
DOE OSTI2025

Life Cycle Cost Analysis of Prestressed Concrete Poles Subjected to Wind, Surges, and Waves

Prestressed concrete (PC) poles are becoming popular choices to support coastal power transmission systems. However, the existing literature does not offer a detailed analysis of the effectiveness of PC poles in terms of long-term vulnerabilities and the direct and indirect costs. This is due to (1) lack of fragility models for PC poles and (2) lack of probabilistic wind, storm surge, and wave models in coastal settings. In this study, we address these gaps through a series of Monte Carlo simulations to estimate fragility of PC poles as a function of age and hazard (wind, surges, and waves) intensity, and the development of a probabilistic hazard model based on 10,000 years of synthetic tropical cyclone data. The probabilistic hazard model is used in conjunction with high-resolution hydrodynamic models to generate realizations of coastal wind, storm surges, and waves for the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts. A comprehensive life cycle cost analysis for a service life of 70 years considering direct and indirect losses is conducted to compare the performance of a transmission line located in Pascagoula, Mississippi, when wood poles are replaced by PC poles. Results showed that aging has a minor effect on the reliability of PC poles, highlighting the advantages of replacing wood poles with PC poles, especially in coastal areas. In addition, PC poles are significantly more cost-effective compared with wood poles over their life cycle, leading to an estimated saving of $11.55 million (68.17% reduction). The results of this study provide key insight to inform decision-making processes to keep the coastal power grids resilient and cost-effective against future storm hazards.

natural disasters↗
DOE OSTI2026

Hurricane wind field representation shapes storm surge and building-scale flood hazard estimates

Coastal flood hazard estimates rely on precise hurricane wind forecasts to assess damage and risk. Here, we demonstrate that errors in hurricane wind field representation can lead to significant biases in storm surge and property-level damage estimates. Using Hurricane Ian (2022) as a case study, we compare widely used parametric, reanalysis, and hybrid wind datasets. Improved wind field accuracy reduces storm surge and damage estimate bias by up to 70\%. Our results underscore the importance of accurately predicting hurricane wind structure in hazard assessments.

Coastal Flooding↗
DOE OSTI2023

Upland forest retreat lags behind sea‐level rise in the mid‐Atlantic coast

Abstract Ghost forests consisting of dead trees adjacent to marshes are striking indicators of climate change, and marsh migration into retreating coastal forests is a primary mechanism for marsh survival in the face of global sea‐level rise. Models of coastal transgression typically assume inundation of a static topography and instantaneous conversion of forest to marsh with rising seas. In contrast, here we use four decades of satellite observations to show that many low‐elevation forests along the US mid‐Atlantic coast have survived despite undergoing relative sea‐level rise rates (RSLRR) that are among the fastest on Earth. Lateral forest retreat rates were strongly mediated by topography and seawater salinity, but not directly explained by spatial variability in RSLRR, climate, or disturbance. The elevation of coastal tree lines shifted upslope at rates correlated with, but far less than, contemporary RSLRR. Together, these findings suggest a multi‐decadal lag between RSLRR and land conversion that implies coastal ecosystem resistance. Predictions based on instantaneous conversion of uplands to wetlands may therefore overestimate future land conversion in ways that challenge the timing of greenhouse gas fluxes and marsh creation, but also imply that the full effects of historical sea‐level rise have yet to be realized.

Biodiversity & Conservation↗
DOE OSTI2022

Detecting Coastal Wetland Degradation by Combining Remote Sensing and Hydrologic Modeling

Sea-level rise and climate change stresses pose increasing threats to coastal wetlands that are vital to wildlife habitats, carbon sequestration, water supply, and other ecosystem services with global significance. However, existing studies are limited in individual sites, and large-scale mapping of coastal wetland degradation patterns over a long period is rare. Our study developed a new framework to detect spatial and temporal patterns of coastal wetland degradation by analyzing fine-scale, long-term remotely sensed Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data. Then, this framework was tested to track the degradation of coastal wetlands at the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge (ARNWR) in North Carolina, United States, during the period from 1995 to 2019. We identified six types of coastal wetland degradation in the study area. Most of the detected degradation was located within 2 km from the shoreline and occurred in the past five years. Further, we used a state-of-the-art coastal hydrologic model, PIHM-Wetland, to investigate key hydrologic processes/variables that control the coastal wetland degradation. The temporal and spatial distributions of simulated coastal flooding and saltwater intrusion confirmed the location and timing of wetland degradation detected by remote sensing. The combined method also quantified the possible critical thresholds of water tables for wetland degradation. The remote sensing–hydrologic model integrated scheme proposed in this study provides a new tool for detecting and understanding coastal wetland degradation mechanisms. Our study approach can also be extended to other coastal wetland regions to understand how climate change and sea-level rise impact wetland transformations.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

FVCOM-ICM4.0

FVCOM-ICM is a water quality model that simulates the influence of nutrients and carbon pollution on biogeochemical oceanographic processes such as phytoplankton primary productivity, nutrient consumption, mineralization, decay and settling of particulate organic matter and computes resulting dissolved oxygen (DO) concentrations and pH levels. An “offline” approach of coupling Finite Volume Coastal Ocean Model (FVCOM) hydrodynamic solutions to CE-QUAL-ICM biogeochemical model was used. FVCOM and CE-QUAL-ICM are public domain Fortran Codes that were developed independently by US Army Corps of Engineers and University of Massachusetts. PNNL developed FVCOM-ICM that has the ability to conduct water quality calculations using a previously computed hydrodynamic solution. The biogeochemical calculations using CE-QUAL-ICM kinetics are conducted over the same finite-volume mesh and in the FVCOM framework.

Khangaonkar, Tarang↗
DOE OSTI2026

Significant Rural Contributions to Severe Coastal Urban Flooding Through Flow Connectivity

Coastal cities are increasingly threatened by hurricane-induced compound flooding. However, the relative contributions of rainfall-surge interactions and other flood drivers, such as runoff from surrounding rural and local impervious areas, in shaping urban flooding remain unclear. Here, we use a multi-scale Earth system modeling framework to disentangle the contributions of diverse flooding drivers. The results show that urban flooding is primarily affected by topographic factors (low elevation, flat slopes, and localized flow constrictions), rather than increased runoff from their impervious surfaces. Importantly, runoff from rural areas contributes more to severely flooded urban areas with inundation depth exceeding 1.7 m than local runoff. Although rainfall–surge interactions and sea-level rise exacerbate inundation along the coastline, over 90% of the compounding effects are absorbed by wetlands. By resolving flooding processes across scales and components, this study emphasizes the role of runoff from surrounding rural areas in shaping zones of severe urban flooding.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Processes and mechanisms of coastal woody-plant mortality

Observations of woody plant mortality in coastal ecosystems are globally widespread, but the overarching processes and underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. This knowledge deficiency, combined with rapidly changing water levels, storm surges, atmospheric CO 2 , and vapor pressure deficit, creates large predictive uncertainty regarding how coastal ecosystems will respond to global change. Here we synthesize the literature on the mechanisms that underlie coastal woody-plant mortality, with the goal of producing a testable hypothesis framework. The key emergent mechanisms underlying mortality include hypoxic, osmotic, and ionic-driven reductions in whole-plant hydraulic conductance and photosynthesis that ultimately drive the coupled processes of hydraulic failure and carbon starvation. The relative importance of these processes in driving mortality, their order of progression, and their degree of coupling depends on the characteristics of the anomalous water exposure, on topographic effects, and on taxa-specific variation in traits and trait acclimation. Greater inundation exposure could accelerate mortality globally; however, the interaction of changing inundation exposure with elevated CO 2 , drought, and rising vapor pressure deficit could influence mortality likelihood. Models of coastal forests that incorporate the frequency and duration of inundation, the role of climatic drivers, and the processes of hydraulic failure and carbon starvation can yield improved estimates of inundation-induced woody-plant mortality.

salinity↗
DOE OSTI2020

Data for Post-Access Report: Tidal Energy Resource Characterization and Model Validation via the Assessment of Cost-effective Spatially Distributed Current Measurements from microFloat Swarms

This project evaluated how high-resolution, spatially distributed field data can be used to refine and validate site-scale hydrodynamic simulations of tidal channels. Use of such spatially-distributed field observations or site-scale hydrodynamic simulations will be needed for producing accurate predictions of tidal energy production over larger arrays of tidal turbines. The data contained in this archive includes field observations of water velocity from a series of short surveys in Agate Pass taken on August 20th, 2020 using station-keeping ADCP (acoustic doppler current profiler) measurements, drifting downward-looking ADCPs, and microFloats, gathered by researchers at APL-UW under a previous project. It also includes high-resolution hydrodynamic model runs for the site during that time generated under TEAMER support. An explanatory file (.pdf format) describes the survey and field data structure. Processed data is stored in .mat format. Survey summary: start time, number of floats, water level. microFloat data: - Cleaned data for each float in survey, - Time series of position (lat., lon.), depth (relative to surface), and horizontal velocity (u, v) Drifting ADCP data: - Cleaned data for each drifting ADCP in survey - Time series of position (lat., lon.), sample depth (relative to surface), and observed water velocity (u,v,w) Stationary ADCP data: - Cleaned data for each station-keeping data set in survey - Time series of position (lat., lon.), sample depth (relative to surface), and observed water velocity (u,v,w) FVCOM (Finite Volume Coastal Ocean Model) model outputs: Water level and velocity, as well as derived variables (e.g., power density) from the final refined model simulations for the Agate Pass subdomain. Contained in NetCDF and ASCII files for the duration of August 18th and 20th 2020 field surveys. Additional scripts for processing the data and generating the figures in the report are included.

16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER↗