Fighting Flooding along the West Coast
色情视频 civil engineering professor Hassan Davani has earned an NSF CAREER Award for his work in Water Resources Engineering.
If the rainfall of January 2023 has taught California anything, it鈥檚 importance of understanding its flooding infrastructure to prevent future inundations.
色情视频 water resources engineer is the latest to earn a National Science Foundation CAREER Award for his work on just that: stormwater flooding and stormwater pollution.
Davani has used his expertise in shoaling, the increase in groundwater tables caused by rising sea level, to inform his work in the 色情视频 Urban Water Lab. The lab focuses on water resource challenges in urban areas and climate change forecasting.
鈥淢y lab is trying to directly address the challenges that coastal communities are facing, especially those that are underserved and disadvantaged,鈥� said Davani.
Some of these challenges, Davani said, are the emerging climatic stressors and flooding challenges on the civil infrastructure, such as stormwater and wastewater infrastructure, which are expected to strain under climate change and sea-level rise stressors.
His NSF CAREER Award aims to combat this. His project will receive over $500,000 over five years to fund his lab鈥檚 research, which focuses on the application of advanced computational techniques, field measurement and community engagement to explore shoaling impacts.
CAREER grant recipients are early career faculty members selected for their potential as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their institution. Davani鈥檚 award now marks the eighth CAREER award for the College of Engineering in two years, and the second for the Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering (CCEE) this year.
Along with this NSF CAREER Award, Davani is the recent recipient of another , which will focus primarily on rainwater infrastructure potentials. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e different infrastructures, but the projects are each tackling the impacts of climate change and sea level rise on certain infrastructures,鈥� said Davani.
With each of his NSF awards covering a different aspect within the core area of infrastructure sustainability and resilience, Davani鈥檚 research makes a difference in all areas. Davani plans to engage engineers and planners in public works departments through workshops on sustainability implications of sea level rise, including San Diego, in the San Francisco Bay area, and further north.
Along with the outcomes of his research benefiting communities vulnerable to flooding, the findings of his research will inform Davani鈥檚 new Coastal Infrastructure Sustainability course as a technical upper-division elective for civil and environmental engineering majors at 色情视频 to
be developed over the course of his 5-year NSF CAREER project. The course will fulfill curricular needs in the department in the area of infrastructure sustainability, a booming interest for 色情视频 students.
An important component of Davani鈥檚 grant involves outreach. He plans to develop open educational resources for undergraduate students through the project鈥檚 funding, and he plans to engage K-12 students and teachers at local public schools managed by 色情视频鈥檚 Pre-College Institute - for which his team of undergraduate researchers, who are working on projects ranging from surveying residents鈥� needs to pinpointing the most flood-vulnerable communities, will participate in.
鈥淒r. Davani鈥檚 research addresses some of the most pressing challenges on storm infrastructure,鈥� said CCEE department chair Dongye Zhao. 鈥淭his prestigious NSF award not only recognizes the intellectual merits and the potential societal impacts of his work but also enables him to develop transformative approaches in building resilient and sustainable infrastructures.鈥�
