The research in our group involves studying coastal and ocean hydrodynamics at different spatial and temporal scales and their impacts on coastal infrastructure. Current research interests include waves and their interactions with sediments and aquatic vegetation, storm surge flooding, and storm impacts on coastal infrastructure. We also study the mechanisms of generation of internal waves in density-stratified fluids. Recently, we have been studying how improving the representation of mud and aquatic vegetation in numerical wave models can affect surface wave behavior in the nearshore environment. We have also been investigating the functions of nature-based features as defense systems against coastal storms, and storm impacts on coastal infrastructure in the face of sea level rise and climate change. We primarily use numerical models but also use analytical methods and conduct field measurements.
NEWS
11/13/2018: Dr. Navid Tahvildari participated in the National Science Foundation’s Coastal Engineering Research Framework workshop. The goal of the workshop was to help set the agenda for critical coastal engineering research topics for the near and distant future and discuss plans required to achieve them.
09/26/2018: Dr. Navid Tahvildari attended University Cooperation for Atmospheric Research’s (UCAR) scoping session Coastline and People (CoPe). The sessions brought together researchers in natural and social sciences, engineering, and public health to discuss research needs on the interactions between natural processes, social systems, and the built environment, and imagine coastal research hubs that could facilitate such research. More information: https://coastlinesandpeople.org/
04/01/2018: EHG work is published in a paper in Marine Technology Society Journal’s special issue on coastal resiliency. It is focused on sea level rise effects on depth, duration, and extent of flooding in several flood-prone areas in Hampton Roads region of Virginia: Castrucci and Tahvildari (2018)
Dr. Tahvildari is a co-author in another paper in the same issue. The paper discusses the publicly available ocean, earth, and atmospheric observations in Hampton Roads region of Virginia and how they are and can be used in flood resilience planning. Our recent field work that is focused on wave attenuation by nature-based features is briefly discussed: Loftis et al. (2018).