Littoral mud flats and shorelines project

Littoral mud flats and shorelines: soil-sea-ice-air and benthic life interactions

Overview

The overarching goal of this project is to develop a fundamental and comprehensive understanding of the geomechanics of littoral mud flats and shorelines towards reliable prediction of geomorphodynamics, trafficability, and navigation from satellite images and geoacoustic surveying. This 5-year study aims to:

  1. Determine what environmental processes and feedbacks control the geomechanics of littoral mud flats and shorelines.
  2. Measure these processes and feedbacks conjointly with geotechnical site characterization and satellite-based remote sensing.
  3. Assess if climatic regimes affect and possibly change which processes and feedbacks are dominant.
  4. Develop and validate a global mud flat classification framework.
  5. Determine which satellite products would be most efficient for deriving the tidal flat geomechanical properties. This will be achieved through literature and data review, field and laboratory testing, cross-disciplinary fusion and data analysis.

Research will include detailed multi-disciplinary field investigations of five sites located in distinct geographic regions and environments, laboratory analysis of samples, data analyses, cross-disciplinary data fusion, and validation at new field sites.

Sponsor: Office of Naval Research (ONR, www.onr.navy.mil), N00014-25-1-2180 and N00014-24-1-2538.

 

Team members

  • Nina Stark (Lead PI) and Noah Evans (undergrad student) (University of Florida)
  • Kelly Dorgan (PI), Joleen Aulgur (Research Technician), Sunjida Alam (PhD student) (University of Texas)
  • Emily Eidam (PI, Oregon State University)
  • Sungyoon Jung (PI, University of Florida)
  • Julie Paprocki (PI), Akshita Mavurapu (Graduate student) (University of New Hampshire)
  • Zhaohui Joey Yang (PI), Yue Zhao (Postdoc) (University of Alaska)

Tidal Flats Seminar Series

The objective of this seminar series is to learn more about the research of project team members and collaborators, as well as research ideas related to our tidal flat work. As the project progresses, this series will also serve as a conduit for sharing research produced by this team. The schedule and more details about the seminar can be found here.