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Current Projects

Examining hydrodynamics and connectivity resulting from atmospheric frontal passages in a coastal river delta

National Science Foundation: 2021-2024 (No-cost extension)

$375,640 (Hiatt PI)

Collaborator(s): Chunyan Li

Student(s): Sajjad Feizabadi

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This project aims to understand how cold fronts affect water movement in coastal river deltas. In regions with small tides, such as coastal Louisiana, winds associated with cold fronts are known to be important for circulating water and sediment throughout the region. However, scientists do not understand how water in complex coastal regions, such as coastal river deltas, respond to winds associated with cold fronts. Understanding this interaction is important, because cold fronts may contribute to coastal erosion, a major issue in Louisiana, and restoration efforts must account for the effects of cold fronts to be effective. This project will investigate these issues throughout coastal Louisiana using field measurements and modeling of wind events and water movement. In addition to improving the understanding of water circulation in complex coastal regions, the project will also engage stakeholders and delivers hands-on demonstrations to Baton Rouge (Louisiana) schoolchildren.

Collaborative Research: MRA: Scale, Space, and Time: A Unifying Approach to Aquatic Invasions

National Science Foundation: 2021-2024

$263,511 (Hiatt co-PI)

Collaborator(s): Steve Midway, Traci Birch, and many others

Image by Katherine McAdoo

The goal of this project is to understand how natural and human-created dispersal networks (e.g. rivers and roads) interact with invasion drivers (e.g. habitat and species traits) to determine cross-scale invasion patterns. This work will be conducted in the Mississippi River Basin; rivers provide a unique opportunity for studying scale-dependent invasion processes because watersheds create discrete boundaries of fish species distribution. Accordingly, many of the most prolific invaders arrive not from distant continents, but from nearby watersheds. Native status for riverine fishes is thus scale-dependent, which affects how invasions are conceptualized and modeled. Using rich datasets of historical and contemporary fish distribution, this project takes a three-pronged approach: 1) using Bayesian tools to quantify invasion drivers across spatial scales; 2) linking concepts from metacommunity and invasion ecology to investigate invasion network dynamics across space; and 3) predicting trajectories of species invasions through time. The project will integrate information from these three research objectives to forecast future riverine invasions across the landscape.

CAREER: Dynamic water transport timescales: Quantifying hydrodynamic responses to perturbations across time and space in a river delta

National Science Foundation: 2022-2027

$480,942 (Hiatt PI)

Student(s): Madoche Jean Louis, Muzahidul "Mojo" Islam

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River deltas are highly dynamic ecosystems with complicated hydrology that are of significant societal and environmental importance. This research addresses an urgent need in hydrology to understand how hydrological processes evolve in non-stationary ecosystems using numerical modeling, field observations, and graph theory. The project will develop the concept of Dynamic Water Transport Timescales and establish a framework for quantifying how changes to delta morphology and hydrodynamics impact water transport time. Fundamental questions will be addressed concerning the impacts of multi-decadal morphodynamic change on short-term hydrological transport in river deltas, the surface water responses to internal and external perturbations across time and space, and the links between deltaic channel network structure and water transport times.

Developing Engineering practices for Ecosystem Design Solutions (DEEDS): Calibrating Ecosystem Services to Advance Performance of Natural Infrastructure in Military Operations

US Army Corps of Engineers: 2022-2025

$6,668,680 (Hiatt co-PI)

Collaborator(s): Robert Twilley, Traci Birch, Clint Willson, Carol Friedland

Student(s): Caitlin Turner, Madoche Jean Louis, and Noah Flaherty

Postdocs: Jesbin George and Hemanth Vundavilli

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This project aims to develop design solutions for the myriad coastal ecological issues in the US Gulf Coast using "Coastal Ecosystem Design" strategies. Our work in the H2O group is largely concerned with understanding how various designs of sediment diversions, freshwater diversions, marsh creation, sediment placement, and wave attenuation features influence surface water connectivity, transport, and long-term ecosystem resilience. 

Roseau cane die-back: Multidisciplinary approaches to address plant decline and opportunities for restoration: Field measurements of overbank flooding

LSU Ag Center: 2022-2024

$124,604 (Hiatt PI)

Collaborator(s): Kory Konsoer & Andy Nyman

Student(s): Sarah Brannum

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This project is concerned with understanding the hydrodynamic and eco-geomorphic feedbacks owing to the die-off of Roseau Cane (Phragmites Australis) in the Mississippi Birdsfoot Delta. Specifically, we are working with Dr. Kory Konsoer in LSU Geography & Anthropology to perform hydrographic surveys of river discharge under different vegetation conditions and to use UAVs (Unoccupied Aerial Vehicles) to track dye propagation through and around patches of Roseau Cane 

Roseau cane die-back: Relationships between vegetation and discharge on distributary channels
in the Birds Foot Delta: bifurcations and sediment flux

LSU Ag Center: 2023-2025

$121,747 (Hiatt co-PI)

Collaborator(s): Kory Konsoer & Andy Nyman

Student(s): Sarah Brannum

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This project is concerned with understanding the hydrodynamic and sediment partitioning at deltaic bifurcations subject to the die-off of Roseau Cane (Phragmites Australis) in the Mississippi Birdsfoot Delta. Specifically, we are working with Dr. Kory Konsoer in LSU Geography & Anthropology to perform hydrographic surveys of river discharge under different vegetation conditions.

Monitoring waves, currents, and suspended sediment in Breton Sound and Barataria Bay

Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority 2023-2024

$272,557 (Hiatt PI)

Collaborator(s): Giulio Mariotti

Postdoc(s): Jesbin George

Student(s): Lily Vowels

Ocean

For this cooperative agreement with Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, we are analyzing the wave and current responses to tides, anthropogenic activity, and meteorological events (e.g., hurricanes, thunderstorms, and cold fronts) at two monitoring stations in lower Barataria Bay, LA and in Breton Sound, LA, two basins that will receive large-scale sediment diversions. In addition, we will use acoustic backscatter, sediment sampling, and remote sensing to calculate suspended sediment concentrations throughout the network of sites. 

Mississippi River Delta Transition Initiative

National Academies of Sciences Gulf Research Program 2023-2028

$22,000,000 (Hiatt co-PI - $373,973)

Collaborator(s): 30+ collaborators

Student(s): Sarah Brannum

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Project description incoming

Collaborative Research: RAPID: Determining the
Impacts of a Combined Historical Watershed and Regional Drought on Coastal Louisiana Wetland
Ecohydrology

National Science Foundation 2023-2024

$23,000 (Hiatt co-PI )

Collaborator(s): John White, Elliott White Jr. (Stanford)

Student(s): Frank Bussott

Wetland Creation

Project description incoming

Completed Projects

Controls of physical drivers on phytoplankton community adaptations in a river diversion influenced estuary

Louisiana Sea Grant: 2020-2024

$142,696 (Hiatt PI)

Collaborator(s): Sibel Bargu and John White

Student(s): Caitlin Turner

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Here we're studying the influences of both natural (think tides, river discharge, and meteorological events) and anthropogenic (freshwater releases) on the proclivity of coastal systems for developing algal blooms. It's fairly well-understood that water movement and timescales has some control on the ability of a system to form an algal bloom, but here we are trying to understand which physical conditions give rise to different types of blooms and levels of toxicity. We are using both numerical modeling and field observations in Lake Pontchartrain, LA for this research.

Monitoring of waves and currents in Barataria Bay

Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority: 2020-2022

$226,769 (Hiatt PI)

Student(s): Jay Merrill MS 2022 & Jacob Reinhardt BS 2022

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For this project, we are analyzing the wave and current responses to tides, anthropogenic activity, and meteorological events (e.g., hurricanes, thunderstorms, and cold fronts) at two monitoring stations in lower Barataria Bay, LA. The location is downstream of a proposed large-scale sediment diversion that will divert Mississippi River water and sediments into Barataria Bay with the intention of creating coastal wetlands using natural deltaic processes. A goal of our project is to characterize the wave and current climates before the Bay is heavily influenced by the diversion structure. Unfortunately, Hurricane Ida destroyed the monitoring sites in September 2021, but we got back up and running in 2022.

Mississippi River Delta Survey and Sampling

Louisiana Coastal Protection & Restoration Authority: 2022

$88,830 (Hiatt PI)

Collaborator(s): Sam Bentley & Kevin Xu

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This project collected data on the major passes of the Mississippi Birdsfoot delta.

Mississippi River 2020-2021 Data Collection in Support of the Mid-Breton Diversion

Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority: 2020-2021

$188,461 (Hiatt co -PI)

Collaborator(s): Sam Bentley & Kevin Xu

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This project involved collecting ADCP surveys, sediment samples, and water level data in a Mississippi River Batture in support of CPRA's restoration efforts in the region.

2019 Survey of Mississippi River near Middle Breton Diversion

Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority: 2019-2020

$441,327 (Hiatt co -PI)

Collaborator(s): Sam Bentley & Kevin Xu

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This project involved collecting ADCP surveys, sediment samples, geophysical data, and water level data in the Mississippi River and batture area in support of CPRA's restoration efforts in the region.

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