Date: March 12, 2025
Lecture Title: Quantifying the Coastal Defense Value of Coastal Ecosystems

Speaker: Heidi Nepf

Affiliation: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Speaker: Ernie I. H. Lee
Affiliation: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Speaker Profiles:
Heidi Nepf is the Donald and Martha Harleman Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She received her PhD from Stanford University in 1992 and completed her postdoctoral research at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. She has been on the faculty at MIT since 1993. Her research focuses on fluid–vegetation interactions, sediment transport, and wave attenuation, and has had broad impact in the field of estuarine and coastal hydrodynamics. Her honors include the Schoemaker Best Paper Award (2012), the ASCE Hunter Rouse Award (2019), the IAHR M. Selim Yalin Lifetime Achievement Award (2023), and election as a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in 2018.

Ernie I. H. Lee is a PhD candidate in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research focuses on physics-based wave modeling and the application of benefit–cost ratio (BCR) analysis to evaluate nature-based coastal defense solutions, with particular emphasis on the economic feasibility of marsh-fronted seawalls. He is currently using machine learning and computer vision techniques to study salt marsh vegetation characteristics, combined with unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) remote sensing for data acquisition.

Lecture Overview:
This lecture will provide an in-depth exploration of the role of coastal ecosystems in coastal defense. Seagrass meadows and salt marshes play a critical role in reducing storm surge impacts, and their protective value must be quantitatively assessed through hydrodynamic modeling and economic analysis. Professor Heidi Nepf will introduce scaling laws for vegetation drag and wave energy attenuation, and extend these concepts to predict wave attenuation by seagrass meadows and salt marshes, thereby optimizing nature-based solutions (NBS) for coastal protection.
In addition, through case studies, the lecture will examine how marsh-fronted seawalls can function as hybrid nature-based solutions and how their performance can be evaluated using economic benefit–cost ratio (BCR) analysis. This lecture will help participants gain deeper insight into ecosystem-based coastal protection strategies and provide data-driven support for future flood risk reduction and coastal management policies.

Lecture Time:

Beijing Time: March 12, 21:00

UK Time: March 12, 13:00

Lecture Link:(Please register for the lecture via the link below)https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/6b57e100-0d93-47d8-95dd-76940fdd40f0@cf264fc0-aeb8-449f-9054-82ce4454084b

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