Project Grant 2139663

This $259,328 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Geosciences program (CFDA 47.050) supports research at Tulane University to develop novel methods for real-time streamflow estimation and forecasting. The University will integrate direct measurements with numerical models to more accurately capture short-term flood wave propagation effects and seasonal impacts of riparian vegetation changes. Researchers will combine experimental, data-driven, and physics-based modeling to enable adoption of a reach-scale monitoring approach and real-time tracking of unsteady flow and vegetation growth impacts. A heterogeneous routing method complemented by extensive data analysis will extract interdependencies among flow variables due to cyclical processes. Generalizing the inferences for diverse conditions will cost-effectively improve predictive streamflow modeling protocols using only in-situ data, without additional modeling. The award period is from February 15, 2022 through January 31, 2025.