EES Seminar: Reducing Coastal Risks on the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts

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The Atlantic and Gulf coasts are home to major population and economic centers, port facilities, and military complexes. Current population growth in southeastern Atlantic and Gulf coastal counties is nearly twice that of the national average. However, these same coasts are subject to impact by some of the most powerful storms on earth and the destructive potential of these events is increasing due climate change and relative sea level rise. High consequence, low frequency hazards pose a significant challenge for preemptive decision making due to a lack of personal experience that many have with these events and the probability that an event may not occur during a meaningful time horizon, which may range from a political election cycle to an individual’s lifetime. It remains difficult for coastal residents to comprehend the risk of living in these areas. Thus, it is challenging for governmental institutions to devote scarce resources to provide protection or forego revenue generating potential by limiting development in valuable coastal areas. This behavior is exacerbated when, as a compassionate nation, we rally each time a disaster strikes and provide resources for post-disaster recovery that far exceed those we are willing to provide to manage risk.

Dr. Baecher, PhD NAE Dist.M.ASCE, is Glenn L Martin Institute Professor of Engineering at the University of Maryland. He works principally in risk management of civil infrastructure, particularly in water resources, flood, and coastal hazard reduction. He has been involved in several enterprise risk management efforts including those of the (US) Interagency Performance Evaluation Taskforce on Hurricane Katrina, the Natural and Chronic Risk assessment for the Panama Canal Authority (ACP), and the Joint (hydropower) Industry Project on Spillway Safety. He has co-authored 16 National Academy studies on risk management in federal practice including those on Mt St Helens and Spirit Lake, the National Bio-Ag Defense Laboratory at Manhattan KS, the Department of Homeland Security’s approach to risk analysis, and a review of the Risk Assessment Bulletin of the Office of Management and Budget. He has served on many consultant panels for major dam safety reviews including the Federal Tri-Agency review and authored six books and 250+ publications on those topics.