University Calendar
Coastal Dune Morphodynamics: Insights Across Time and Space Scales
Nick Cohn, US Army Engineer Research and Development Center, presents this week's seminar. Join us for the presentation on Zoom.
About Dr. Cohn
Nick Cohn completed a B.S. in Earth Sciences from Boston University in 2010 and a PhD in Geology from Oregon State University in 2018. Nick is currently a Research Oceanographer at the US Army Engineer Research and Development Centers’ (ERDC) Field Research Facility on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. He runs a research program involving field data collection and numerical model development focused on nearshore-beach-dune morphodynamics.
About the Seminar
Wind-blown (aeolian) sediment transport is an important modifier of landscape change in coastal environments. Gradients in the transport field contributes to the building of coastal foredunes, which are topographically high features that are increasingly relied on to protect low-lying infrastructure from storm-induced flooding hazards along sandy coastlines. While skill in predicting wave-induced dune erosion during storms is generally improving, there are currently limited reliable quantitative tools for predicting the recovery and subsequent growth of dunes by aeolian processes in coastal systems. As part of improving fundamental understanding of the mechanisms and time/space scales of coastal foredune growth, in this talk a number of field data collection efforts utilizing new remote sensing techniques using high resolution lidars will be presented that provide novel insights on (1) micro-scale wind-blown transport processes and (2) meso-scale morphodynamic feedbacks on dunes.