With facilities like this large-wave flume - the largest in North America - OSU's Hinsdale Wave Research Lab is equipped to model what happens where the ocean meets the shore in ways scientists have never been able to do before.

Research:

Coastal Hazards

Current projects (2008-2010)

Impacts of Climate Change on Coastal Flood Risk Assessments
Localized Extreme Tsunami Run-up

Impacts of Climate Change on Coastal Flood Risk Assessments (R/CNH-16)

Peter Ruggiero
Department of Geosciences
Oregon State University
104 Wilkinson Hall
Corvallis, OR 97331
Phone: 541-737-1239
Fax: 541-737-1200
E-mail: ruggierp@science.oregonstate.edu

Recent natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and the Indian Ocean Tsunami have focused public attention on the catastrophic consequences of major coastal flooding events. The magnitude of these events, and the scale of human suffering associated with them, suggest an urgent need to reevaluate current risk-assessment procedures to ensure the safety of both coastal populations and infrastructure. Unfortunately, current risk-assessment practices are unsatisfactory in that they do not adequately account for the impacts associated with climate change and variability, leaving coastal communities overly vulnerable.

Ruggiero will use coastal models to determine wave run-up and coastal change in order to predict the frequency with which coastal properties are affected under various climate-change scenarios. The primary goal of the proposed work is to develop testing methods for directly assessing the effects of climate change on the probability of coastal change and flood hazards and the associated potential for damage to infrastructure. Applying these testing methods to coastal communities in the Pacific Northwest will provide a scientific basis for sound decision-making.

Localized Extreme Tsunami Run-up (R/CNH-17)

Harry Yeh
School of Civil and Construction Engineering
Oregon State University
220 Owen Hall
Corvallis, OR 97331-3212
Phone: 541-737-8057
Fax: 541-737-3052
E-mail: harry.yeh@oregonstate.edu

Tsunami field surveys often report significant variability in tsunami effects along a relatively short coastal span. Local bathymetry (submerged landforms) transforms incident tsunamis into complex wave patterns and induces variability in coastal effects. Accurate prediction methods for extreme wave activity are needed so as to provide coastal officials and citizens with the prediction tools to determine the extreme effects of tsunamis on critical buildings and infrastructures such as tsunami shelters, coastal nuclear power plants, liquefied natural gas terminals, and ports.

Dr. Yeh will strive to address these issues through a combination of laboratory and numerical experiments and theoretical analyses. Laboratory experiments will be performed in a precisely controlled wave basin designed to measure both wave and velocity fields. The wave basin is equipped with a directional wavemaker capable of generating arbitrary-shaped, multi-directional waves. These experiments will be complemented by extensive numerical simulations using "TsunamiClaw," an extension of CLAWPACK, a software package for solving general systems of conservation laws. This numerical code is based on fully nonlinear non-dispersive shallow-water theory. Since this theory is used in the most widely used numerical codes for tsunami prediction, results from the proposed research will make it possible to directly evaluate and improve the models in practice, which in turn will aid in the development of practical engineering tools for the quantitative prediction of tsunami effects, both near and on shore.

Continuing projects from 2006-2008:

Investigating the Causes of "Hot Spot" Beach Erosion (R/CNH-07) - Merrick Haller, OSU.

Publications: Long waves propagating over a circular bowl pit. In "Wave Motion," 42:143-154, 2005. ORESU-R-05-016.

Physical and numerical modeling of intensity-based tsunami inundation (R/CNH-11) - Daniel Cox,Civil/Construction Engineering, OSU

Flow and transport above and within a rippled sandy bed (R/CNH-13) - Tuba Ozkan-Haller, College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences, OSU

Former Sea Grant researchers: What they're doing now

Merrick and Tuba Ozkan-Haller (rip currents): OSU Researchers study deadly rip currents that are "more common than rare" (July 6, 2007)
View a related Flash video
Curt Peterson (coastal dunes)