Attendees of the March 8-9, 2017, coastal conference at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez. Photo by Dr. Ismael Pagan-Trinidad.

Attendees of the March 8-9, 2017, coastal conference at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez. Photo by Prof. Ismael Pagán-Trinidad.

On March 8-9, 2017, The University of Puerto Rico-Mayagüez (UPRM) hosted a conference, “Lessons Learned – Resilience of Coastal Infrastructure.” The meeting was held at the headquarters of the Association of Professional Engineers and Surveyors in Puerto Rico (CIAPR) in San Juan. It was hosted by Coastal Resilience Center of Excellence (CRC) Principal Investigator Prof. Ismael Pagán-Trinidad and co-PI Dr. Ricardo López, who lead the CRC project “Education for Improving Resiliency of Coastal Infrastructure.”

The list of 26 presenters included researchers from the Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Engineer Research & Development Center (including Lab Director José Sánchez); administrators from the Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources (DNER); researchers from UPRM Civil Engineering, Marine Sciences, CARICOOS, PR Sea Grant Program, Material Science and Engineering departments; and from CIAPR. More than 100 attendees from government agencies, private organizations, researchers and students participated over the two-day event.

Co-organizers included the Puerto Rico Sea Grant Program, the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center Coastal Hydraulic Laboratory, CIAPR, DNER, the Caribbean Coastal Ocean Observing System (CariCOOS) and UPRM.

Highlights included:

  • Dr. Dan Cox of Oregon State University (a CRC Principal Investigator) presents on his CRC project at the conference. Photo by Dr. Ismael Pagan-Trinidad.

    Dr. Dan Cox of Oregon State University (a CRC Principal Investigator) presents on his CRC project at the conference. Photo by Prof. Ismael Pagán-Trinidad.

    Prior to the conference, Dr. Dan Cox, a principal investigator whose CRC project seeks to improve the estimation of damage based on overland surge and wave forces, presented to students and faculty at UPRM on March 7 as part of the CRC’s RETALK program. Dr. Cox’s talk was titled “Tsunami Inundation Modeling for Risk-Based Decision Making to Increase Community Resilience.” His visit also included a tour of UPRM laboratories and meetings with students and faculty.

  Dr. Cox’s lecture during the conference, on his CRC project, was titled “Experimental and Numerical Study to Improve    Damage and Loss Estimation due to Overland Wave and Surge Hazards on Near-Coast Structures.”

  • Pagán-Trinidad and Dr. López-Rodriguez presented on their CRC project, while graduate students Kevin Cueto and Diego Delgado presented on “Behavior of Tsunami Waves on Elevated Structures on the Coast.” Cueto and Delgado were both part of the CRC’s Summer Research Experience program in the summer of 2016, where they worked with Dr. Cox at Oregon State University.
  • José Sánchez, Director of the Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory at the USACE Engineer Research & Development Center, gave a keynote lecture on “The Coastal and Hydraulic Laboratory Mission – The National Agenda.
  • Tania Vazquez Rivera of the Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources speaks at the conference. Photo by Dr. Ismael Pagan-Trinidad.

    Hon. Tania Vázquez Rivera, Secretary of the Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources, speaks at the conference. Photo by Prof. Ismael Pagán-Trinidad.

    Ernesto Díaz, Director of the Coastal Management Program at the Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources, gave a keynote lecture on “Coastal Resilience Building: Mainstreaming Adaptation.”

  • Roselle Henn Stern, Deputy Director of the USACE’s National Planning Center for Coastal Storm Risk Management, along with Joseph R. Vietri, Chief of the USACE Planning Division and Director of the National Planning Center for Coastal & Storm Risk Management, North Atlantic Division, gave an overview of USACE’s response and recovery program after Hurricane Sandy.
  • The CIAPR Natural Disasters Commission presented on “Integrating Climate Change Threat in the Evaluation of Risk Exposure to Puerto Rico’s Critical Infrastructure.”

To see all of the presentations, visit http://engineering.uprm.edu/inci/?page_id=3522.