CUERE Fall 2024 Seminar Series

UMBC, Center for Urban Environmental Research and Education (CUERE) Fall 2024 Seminar Series is free and open to the public. It is held Fridays at 2pm. All events are virtual.

Abstract
The United States Naval Academy (USNA) has overcome unique challenges to achieve its mission of developing future officers of the United States Navy and Marine Corps in the face of local sea level rise and climate change stressors. As sea level rise impacts manifest in the form of roadway flooding, closures, and other infrastructure effects around the installation, understanding and mitigating these flood hazards is critical for operational readiness. This presentation will describe observations of historic flood events at USNA, including Hurricane Isabel in September 2003, which was the highest water level recorded at the Annapolis NOAA tidal station 8575512, as well as the recent record-setting high tide events occurring in October 2021 and January 2024. To address the increasing impacts of chronic flooding, the Superintendent created a Sea Level Rise Advisory Council (SLRAC) in 2015. This diverse group of experts and stakeholders, including the Executive Director for Strategy, USNA Architect, faculty from the departments of Oceanography, Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering, NAVFAC, and the City of Annapolis, has informed observational and monitoring networks around USNA and also provided forecasting and decision-making support for future resilience and mitigation actions around the installation. Student and faculty research supporting sea level rise resilience informing the SLRAC, including long term monitoring and forecasting efforts, will be discussed. Finally, the presentation will describe the Installation's Resilience Plan, which includes multiple solutions around the Yard including exterior defenses, perimeter protections, and interior adaptations. These adaptations are planned to be implemented by 2065 in order to provide operational capacity and mission readiness to 2100.

Bio 

Dr. Tori Tomiczek is an Associate Professor in the Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering Department at the U.S. Naval Academy. She earned her B.S. at the University of Florida and PhD at the University of Notre Dame. She completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Oregon State University before joining the Ocean Engineering faculty at USNA in 2017. Dr. Tomiczek’s research focuses on coastal engineering and coastal resilience. She has participated in field reconnaissance surveys evaluating damage and recovery and has also enjoyed working on physical model experiments at USNA OSU and Kyoto University. She is interested in better understanding wave-induced forces on coastal structures to inform design guidance and finding sustainable resilient solutions that mitigate damage due to chronic and acute coastal flood hazards such as sea level rise erosion and extreme events.