The College of Engineering is preparing to move into our brand new 155,000 sq.ft. state-of-the-art  building named Shelby Hall. We will officially begin moving on Monday, May 14. There may be a period of a few days at the beginning of next week when communication by phone or mail will not be reliable, so please send me an email instead. Please note the new mailing address below, and also in the “Contact” field at left.

My new mailing address:

Bret M. Webb, Ph.D.

University of South Alabama

150 Jaguar Drive, SH3142

Mobile, AL 36688-0002 USA

Our fourth and final drifter deployment took place yesterday in the Gulf of Mexico south of Dauphin Island, Alabama. Drifter deployments started in July 2011 as part of a year-long group of coordinated research projects focused on identifying the physical transport mechanisms of buoyant suspended matter in Alabama’s coastal waters. More information about the drifter deployments can be found {here}.

As it so happens, Alabama’s inner shelf is dominated by two seasons… kind of like Mobile, which has two seasons: hot and hotter. Drifter deployments in July and August 2011, both west of Mobile Bay and in depths of 20 meters or less, described an eastward surface current thought to be associated with predominant southerly winds and downwelling favorable conditions. All drifters deployed in late October, however, moved to the west and south. A likely cause of this dramatic change of inner shelf conditions is the dominance of northerly winds in late fall, the resulting Ekman divergence, and the facilitation of upwelling favorable conditions on the shelf. The batch of drifters deployed yesterday are again moving eastward similar to those deployed in July and August 2011.

We started yesterday’s deployment (Figure 1) by placing nine drifters near the ship channel at Main Pass, the primary connection between the gulf and Mobile Bay (Figure 2). Six of the drifters were deployed on the east side of the channel while the remaining three were set adrift to the west of the channel. From there, we made our way offshore and released nine drifters at the 30-meter isobath. We then deployed our final seven drifters near the DISL FOCAL station in a little less than 20 meters of water. Winds were strong and out of the SSW for much of the day, which made for a lumpy day on the water.

Figure 1. A general location overview of the April 26, 2012 drifter deployment. Each circle represents a cluster of 7 – 9 drifters that were set adrift.

Figure 2. A more detailed view of the drifter deployment at Main Pass shows the location of each drifter “triad” that was released near the ship channel. Each triad contains three drifters and the triads form the vertices of a larger triangle having sides of approximately 1000 meters.

More information regarding yesterday’s deployment will be made available in the coming weeks as a dedicated page under the “Drifters” tab above. There, you will be able to see details about the drifter deployment patterns and links to tracking pages. For now, you’ll have to settle for the following tracking interfaces…

• Click here to track the bay drifters (update 5/1/12: bay drifters have been retrieved)
• Click here to track the gulf drifters

A heartfelt thank you goes out to Captain Hayden Abel of Texas, formerly of the University of Texas Marine Science Institute, who was kind enough to let us know that he had found one of our drifters washed ashore near Port Aransas, Texas. Capt. Abel, as it turns out, had to do quite a bit of investigative work to track us down by email. I guess numbers stenciled with spray paint are no match for the sea, sun, and sand that this drifter encountered during its journey. Although I cannot be sure which drifter was found, I do know that it was part of the October 2011 release (it is likely to be DISL 019).

I can only assume this drifter was trying to make it to South Padre Island in time for Spring Break… so close little buddy… so close.

The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is funding Dr. Webb to study Mobile Bay’s wave characteristics to facilitate preparation, planning, site selection, and design of their coastal projects in Alabama. Products of the study will include high-resolution estimates of seasonal and probabilistic wave characteristics along Alabama’s coastline; and tools for evaluating the performance of wave attenuating structures during storm events. The expected outcomes of the study include improved site selection, appropriate project design based on wave climate, and the ability to quantify wave height reduction as a function of the local wave climate, project design, and storm-induced water levels.

A number of CE graduate students and faculty are presenting their research at the annual USA Spring Research Forum the week of March 26 – 30, 2012. Research posters are displayed in the lower and upper lobby of the Mitchell College of Business (MCOB). A formal research symposium will be held on Friday, 3/30. The CE posters are on the lower lobby level on boards 17 – 20. Students are encouraged to view the posters to gain an appreciation for the research that USA students, both undergraduate and graduate, and faculty are performing. Some reduced-scale versions of the posters can be found below the corresponding citations that follow. Please contact me if you’d like more information about these or other projects.

• Allen, R.J., B.M. Webb 2012. Wave Attenuation Devices: a Comprehensive Evaluation of Wave Transmission through Physical Modeling. University of South Alabama Spring Research Forum, Poster 20. March 26 – 30, 2012. Mobile, AL.

• Marr, C.D., B.M. Webb 2012. Spatial Variability of Residence Time in Mobile Bay, Alabama. University of South Alabama Spring Research Forum, Poster 19. March 26 – 30, 2012. Mobile, AL.

• Miyuki, M.T., B.M. Webb 2012. Characterizing Wave-Induced Scour Processes in a Transition Zone: a Continuum Model for Equilibrium Scour Depth at Cylindrical Piles. University of South Alabama Spring Research Forum, Poster 18. March 26 – 30, 2012. Mobile, AL.

• Webb, B.M., S.H. Russ, D.B. Martin. 2012. Development of an Enhanced Ocean Drifter. University of South Alabama Spring Research Forum, Poster 17. March 26 – 30, 2012. Mobile, AL.

Dr. Andy Whelton and I recently had a paper accepted for presentation at the 2012 ASCE-EWRI Hydraulic Measurement and Experimental Methods (HMEM) Conference. The conference will be held August 12 – 15, 2012  in Snowbird, Utah. The HMEM conference is the leading international conference on the development of new techniques for collecting, processing, and interpreting hydraulics-related data. Drs. Webb and Whelton will be describing the results of a four-week field data collection campaign at Big Creek Lake in October 2011 using the South Alabama Jag Ski. The HMEM conference will provide a wonderful venue for describing and discussing the Jag Ski’s unique capabilities with respect to spatial mapping of surface water quality.

The conference is governed by the Environmental & Water Resources Institute (EWRI) of the American Society of Engineers (ASCE). Papers accepted for presentation at HMEM 2012 will be published in the conference proceedings. A tentative citation for the paper and presentation is provided below. A PDF of the proceedings paper and conference presentation will be made available on this site following the meeting in late August 2012.

• Webb, B.M., Whelton, A.J. 2012. Near-synoptic measurements of surface water characteristics in a reservoir using a personal watercraft-based mapping system. In: Proceedings of the Hydraulic Measurement and Experimental Methods Conference, ASCE, Reston, VA.

Last month I was invited to give a presentation in the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Impacts session of the 55th Annual Transportation Conference. The conference was held in Montgomery, Alabama on February 23rd and 24th, 2012 at the Renaissance Montgomery Hotel & Spa (a very nice place, by the way).

Imagine my surprise when I was asked to speak at a transportation conference! In fact, my opening remarks to the standing-room only audience was that they were more than welcome to leave if they somehow thought I was there to talk about highways and byways. The title of the presentation was, “Application of Coastal Engineering Principles in Response to the Deepwater Horizon Disaster: Lessons Learned in Coastal Alabama.” A PDF of the presentation can be downloaded by clicking on the image above at right, or {here}. Please feel free to contact me for more information, or if you’d like to use any of these materials/info.

The good folks at {SonTek} (now a {Xylem} brand) have developed an application note focused on the South Alabama Jag Ski, highlighting its equipment and capabilities. The application note will be published in the August issue of {Sea Technology}, but you can read an advance copy by clicking on the image at right {or here}. A special thanks to Christina Iarossi at {SonTek} for making the app note happen, and to Steve Werblow over at {Steve Werblow Communications} for pulling everything together, including the excellent writing.

Also, a technical manuscript about the South Alabama Jag Ski is currently under review at the Journal of Ocean Technology. Additional details on that manuscript are forthcoming.

I have been performing some maintenance on this site in recent days in order to recover from some malware that infected our hosting domain. So, if you have been redirected to other sites, or if you check this site only to find a blank white page, I apologize for the inconvenience. I don’t think we have the problem 100% resolved yet so in the meantime do not click on Google search results in order to find this page… just bookmark it while you are here.

I also wanted to take this opportunity to share some web site traffic data from the 2011 calendar year. Last year we had 1,909 page loads, 937 unique visits, 803 first time visits, and 134 returning visits (click on the graph to expand). That’s not too bad, but I’m hoping to reach 1,000 unique visits in the 2012 calendar year. We have seen 68 unique visits in the first month of 2012, so the pace will need to pick up somewhat to reach that goal. Hopefully more routine posting on my part will help increase our traffic. By the way, have you subscribed to my RSS feed? If not, that is a great way of receiving updates when new posts are added.

In a few weeks I will be posting a “year in review” message that documents our activities and accomplishments in 2011. It was a very busy year! I will also soon be posting a “looking ahead” message to introduce new research projects and outline our goals for the 2012 calendar year.

Best wishes for a productive and fulfilling new year!

Check out the new issue of Shore & Beach (the Journal of the American Shore & Beach Preservation Association) for a very interesting article by Scott Douglass, myself, Caren Dixon, and Beau Buhring focused on proactive coastal engineering strategies for combatting oil spills on sandy beaches. Click on the image at right for a link to the abstract hosted by the ASBPA web site, or just click {here}. This volume of Shore & Beach has some other very good articles centered around the theme of “learning from disasters.” Here is an (almost) complete citation for our latest article:

• Douglass, S. L.,Webb, B. M., Dixon, C. R., Buhring, T. 2011. Beach profile and island cross-section manipulations in response to an offshore oil spill. Journal of the American Shore & Beach Preservation Association, 79(4).