Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID TWRI-Lundeen-FY25

Assessing river-floodplain connectivity and material movement in coastal zones through paired hydrodynamic and particle transport modeling

Institute: Texas
Year Established: 2024 Start Date: 2024-09-01 End Date: 2025-08-31
Total Federal Funds: $7,500 Total Non-Federal Funds: $7,500

Principal Investigators: Andrew Moodie

Project Summary: Coastal regions provide a variety of important ecosystem services that improve water quality and support wildlife. Human modification within coastal areas disrupts natural processes of material movement between river channels and floodplains, impairing overall ecosystem function. This project uses multiple models to evaluate how a road embankment across the Mission River impacts flow and material movement in the channel and floodplain. Multiple modeling runs are used to simulate a variety of small to large flood events, for conditions with and without the road embankment. Findings on how floodplain obstructions impact material movement could be used to inform future restoration efforts in coastal zones that have been impaired by built structures.