ALASKA DISTRICT WORKSHOP
Dr. Todd Swannack, co-lead of the Integrated Ecological Modeling Team, facilitated a two-day multi-stakeholder ecological modeling workshop for the Alaska district’s Homer Navigation Improvements Study for Homer Harbor located within Kachemak Bay.
SANTA BARBARA, CA SUMMIT
Iris Foxfoot represented team EcoMod at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis’s (NCEAS) annual Environmental Data Science Summit in Santa Barbara! The theme for the summit was Communicating and Translating Environmental Data. The event provided a valuable opportunity to form connections with students and environmental data science professionals, to spread awareness about ERDC, and to learn new science communication techniques and strategies. Iris joined a team of participants to delve into the question ‘How do we bridge the gap between researchers and practitioners in a way that is place-based and builds capacity?’.
ECOMOD AT ASCE
Candice Piercy and Emily Russ attended the American Society for Civil Engineers’ INSPIRE Conference in Arlington, VA. There was a heavy focus on nature-based solutions, so our partner at the Network for Engineering With Nature (N-EWN) gathered details on the event, including a panel hosted by Candice and a presentation from Emily. Visit their website for all the information, then look around at all the resources N-EWN has to offer!
ECOMOD IN WILMINGTON DISTRICT
Drs. Todd Swannack and Emily Russ from the Integrated Ecological Modeling team, along with Dr. Matt Balazik from the Coastal Ecology team, facilitated a multi-stakeholder ecological modeling workshop for the Wilmington District for their harbor deepening project. Over 10 different agencies and non-governmental organizations participated. The goal of the workshop was to develop both conceptual and quantitative ecological models that could be used to determine the potential effects of the harbor deepening on the ecological communities within the estuary and river system that connect to the project area.
EWN IN NORFOLK DISTRICT
Last week Dr. Piercy along with researchers and program managers from the Engineering With Nature program traveled to Norfolk, VA. They met with the USACE Norfolk District and the City of Norfolk Office of Resilience to discuss opportunities to further incorporate nature-based solutions into the City of Norfolk Coastal Storm Risk Management project as it enters its construction phase. The City of Norfolk is heavily developed, requiring creative solutions that can tuck into the existing urban landscape.
ECOMOD GOES TO AUSTRALIA
On Sept. 30th, Dr. Brook Herman led a session titled From species to communities to ecosystems: scaling ecological models to support restoration decision making at the 2023 World Conference on Ecosystem Restoration in Darwin, Australia. The overall theme of the session focused on how successful restoration must consider how spatial and temporal scales impact USACE ecosystem restoration. Speakers in the session included Drs. Safra Altman, Nathan Beane, Todd Swannack, and Ms. Darixa Hernández-Abrams.
TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY COASTAL ENGINEERING & NATURE-BASED SOLUTIONS SHORT COURSE
Dr. Thomas Huff joined EWN program director Dr. Jeff King to discuss Nature-Based Solutions’ benefits and costs at a short course presented by Texas A&M University. They were also able to visit the USACE Galveston Coastal Project Site to observe the grey and nature-based features used to protect Galveston Harbor.
ECOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA
On August 8th Dr. Brook Herman, Iris Foxfoot, and Robbie Sliwinski co-hosted a workshop on the recent advances in Floristic Quality Assessment (FQA) at the Ecological Society of America’s Annual meeting in Portland, Oregon. The first half of the workshop included 5 flash talks from professors and students at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and University of California, Davis. The second portion of the workshop included an introductory presentation where Dr. Herman discussed ERDC’s recent efforts to certify regional FQA models in coordination with ECO-PCX, followed by a 30-minute interactive demonstration on the new FQA calculator lead by Ms. Foxfoot. As a result of this effort, USACE districts will be able to rapidly deploy FQA assessments and analyses throughout the Nation.
EARTH SURFACE PROCESSES INSTITUTE AND COMMUNITY SURFACE DYNAMICS MODELING SYSTEM
Iris Foxfoot attended the Earth Surface Processes Institute (ESPIn) in Boulder, Colorado. The objective was to create an educational lab for future learning opportunities.
She was then joined by Candice Piercy and Emily Russ for the Community Surface Dynamics Modeling System (CSDMS) annual meeting, where they presented posters on our GenVeg and Oyster Reef projects.
Todd Swannack and Candice Piercy are co-chairs for CSDMS’s Ecosystem Dynamics Focus Research Group.
INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY OF ECOLOGICAL MODELLING (ISEM) GLOBAL CONFERENCE 2023
Drs. Todd Swannack, Emily Russ, and Ms. Carra Carrillo of the ERDC Environmental Laboratory represented the Integrated Ecological Modeling Team (EcoMod) at the International Society of Ecological Modelling Global Conference 2023 in Toronto, Canada on May 2-5. Nearly 300 Ecological Modelers, representing countries across six continents, convened for this conference for the first time since 2019 after the conference planned for 2021 was postponed due to COVID. Each team member presented novel research being developed by EcoMod, including the 1) development of a Generalized Vegetation Model for applications across a variety of habitats, 2) a coupling framework and demonstration that integrates hydrodynamic, geomorphic, and ecological models for a comprehensive marsh model, and 3) considerations for data collecting and parameterizing processes-based integrated engineering and ecological models from long term field studies.
