The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Philadelphia District (USACE-NAP) is making strides in coastal resilience by collaborating with The Wetlands Institute (TWI) and New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) to restore a degraded section of back-bay wetland at Scotch Bonnet, NJ. Using sediment dredged from the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway (AICWW), the project seeks to elevate the marsh platform, countering rapid transitions from vegetated marsh to mudflat.
Adding to this effort, the Engineer Research and Development Center’s Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory (ERDC-CHL), in collaboration with the University of Washington’s NSF Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI) Reconnaissance Experimental Facility (RAPID), conducted lidar and multispectral surveys of the nourished areas. Uncrewed aerial systems (UASs) played a pivotal role in capturing high-resolution data from the site, a task otherwise challenging due to limited accessibility during and immediately after material placement.
These UAS surveys provide valuable insights into the microtopography of the marsh, offering a precise understanding of how the sediment consolidates and elevates over time. Such data is essential for verifying and improving geotechnical models used to predict the performance of BUDM projects in back-bay environments.
The integration of field data with geotechnical modeling practices supports the necessary adaptive management of wetland restoration. By verifying predicted outcomes with real-world data, the project aims to refine best practices and ensure the long-term success of wetland nourishment efforts.
