This is a past event.

Environmental Engineering Graduate Seminar

Longhuan Zhu, Research Scientist III, School of Marine Science and Ocean Engineering, University of New Hampshire

Abstract: Coastal communities are vulnerable to natural coastal hazards including storms, flooding, and coastal erosion, which are expected to be more frequent and intense due to climate change. I will take Lake Michigan as an example to demonstrate the accelerated coastal erosion in the past decade associated with wave climate change and water level rise. To protect the shoreline and improve coastal resilience, nature-based solutions are becoming the preferred choice for ecological and environmental benefits. Considering economics, we proposed using aquaculture farms as nature-based solutions for coastal protection. I will show the potential of aquaculture structures with kelp and mussels for wave attenuation as well as their advantages.

Bio: Dr. Longhuan Zhu is currently a research scientist in the School of Marine Science and Ocean Engineering at the University of New Hampshire. Before joining UNH, he was a postdoc in the Great Lakes Research Center at Michigan Tech. His research interests primarily involve coastal, ocean, and aquaculture engineering, with expertise in modeling the coastal wave-current-sediment processes, nature-based coastal protection, fluid-structure interaction, and dynamics of offshore and aquaculture structures. He received his B.S. (2012) and M.S. (2015) in Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering from Tianjin University and his Ph.D. (2020) in Civil Engineering from the University of Maine.