Activities

The paper, From Hydraulic Heads to Dollars and Decision: It’s Time to Integrate Groundwater in Coastal Risk Assessment, a recently published commentary in Water Resources Research highlights a growing challenge facing coastal communities worldwide – understanding and managing the hidden impacts of sea level rise below ground. The publication argues that rising groundwater tables, saltwater intrusion, and subsurface flooding pose significant risks to critical infrastructure and should become a central component of coastal resilience planning.

These recommendations closely align with the objectives of the FIU Coastal Subsurface Monitoring Project, which is establishing one of the first regional coastal subsurface monitoring networks in Southeast Florida. Our project is designed to provide the long-term groundwater and subsurface data needed to better understand how sea level rise influences groundwater levels, saltwater movement, and the performance of coastal infrastructure.

Among the paper’s key recommendations are:

• Development of shared coastal groundwater monitoring networks that provide continuous, accessible observations.
• Collection of high-quality local datasets to improve groundwater hazard and risk assessments.
• Integration of groundwater information into coastal adaptation and resilience planning.
• Long-term advancement toward digital twins and predictive tools that combine monitoring, modeling, and real-time observations.

These priorities closely mirror the vision of our NOAA-supported project. As coastal resilience efforts increasingly recognize that many climate impacts begin below the surface, long-term groundwater monitoring becomes an essential foundation for informed decision-making.

We are encouraged to see the broader scientific community emphasizing the need that motivates our work.

Reference

Gonzalez-Duque, D., Sawyer, A. H., Whittle, A. J., Martello, M. V., Cervenec, J., Knott, J., et al. (2026). From hydraulic heads to dollars and decision: It’s time to integrate groundwater in coastal risk assessment. Water Resources Research, 62, e2025WR041035. https://doi.org/10.1029/2025WR041035

Who is the Deep Foundations Institute (DFI)? Founded in 1976, DFI is a multidisciplinary association with members from across the deep foundations industry with a mission is to create a consensus voice and a common vision for continuous improvement in the planning, design and construction of deep foundations.

Each year, DFI hosts an annual conference which brings together between 1,000-1,300 participants The annual conference is a major international gathering for professionals involved in the design, construction and research of deep foundations and excavation support. It serves as a forum for sharing knowledge, exploring new technologies, and networking with global experts. 

The recently completed 50th Annual Conference in 2025 focused on the industry’s evolution over the past 50 years and looked ahead to future innovations, and our team is excited that the 51st Annual Conference to be held in Orlando, Florida in 2026 will focus on the Impact of Sea Level.

Abstracts are due December 1st and can be submitted here: dfi-events.org/dfi51

From DFI’s call for abstracts:

Rising sea level is a reality that contains multifaceted challenges and profound global implications. Addressing these challenges demands a proactive, collaborative approach that spans diverse sectors of engineering, construction, ecosystem management, public policy, insurance and finance.

DFI invites you to submit abstracts for original papers and panel sessions for this international event, DFI’s 51st Annual Conference on Deep Foundations (#DFI51) to be held
November 2-6, 2026, in Orlando, Florida. We invite practitioners, researchers, industry leaders, policymakers and organizations to contribute to the technical program for this international conference.

Showcase your expertise, share innovative ideas and collaborate on actionable solutions for one of the most pressing challenges of our time. All accepted papers will be published in the Conference Proceedings and select papers, based on draft submissions, will be presented orally by the author during technical sessions. Proposals for panel sessions are welcomed and encouraged. Please describe the panel topic and list the proposed speakers in the abstract. Paper format guidelines are available at www.dfi-events.org/dfi51.

Abstracts are being accepted on the following topics:

Sea level analysis and projections: modeling, event frequency analyses, inundation studies, storm surge predictions, tidal flooding estimates, near-coast river impacts, groundwater
impacts, subsidence, erosion, seawater intrusion, corrosion

Planning and Policy: planning initiatives and programs from around the world, regulations and requirements, coastal resiliency plans, service life and lifecycle analyses, codes and
standards

Engineering solutions: design guidance, risk assessments, cost-benefit analyses, instrumentation and monitoring, data management, complex loading conditions, sustainability and environmental assessments

Case histories: armoring, flood protection, elevating structures, shoreline moving/retreat, reclaiming land, stormwater and wastewater management structures, port facilities, ferry terminals, piers/unloading areas, tunnels, basements, sea walls, bulkheads, levees, pipelines, surge barriers, tide gates, hospitals, data centers, offshore structures, wind farms, roads,
bridges, others

Alternative and nature-based solutions: floating foundations, marshes, mangroves/tidal plantings, coral reef restoration, filters, collaborating with physical adaptations, others

Implementation: equipment, materials and technique advancements, panel discussions on collaborative approaches, vetting solutions, pros/cons, prioritizing projects, staged
implementation, definition of success

Insurance, financing and contracts: role of insurance companies, innovative programs, alternative contracting methods and technical specifications

If you have any questions, reach out to our Project Manager, Ashley Loyola (aloyola@fiu.edu) who is on the DFI51 planning committee.

Professor Sukop has been named the Geological Society of America’s Hydrogeology Division 2026 Birdsall-Dreiss/LaMoreaux lecturer for 2026.

The Birdsall-Dreiss award supports domestic lecturers while the LaMoreaux fund is for international lectures. Sukop joins an impressive list of prior lecturers beginning with Jacob Bear in 1978, followed by Sukop’s first hydrogeology teacher at Penn State, Professor Richard Parizek in 1983, and his post-doc advisor Professor Dani Or in 2013.

The full list is available here and the 2026 lecture can be requested via the Google form at the bottom of this page: https://community.geosociety.org/hydrodivision/awards/birdsall-dreiss-lamoreaux/about-2026-lecture

https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2025/09/champlain-towers-south-investigation-nears-completion-technical-work

Kurylyk, B. L., Russoniello, C. J., Guimond, J. A., Habel, S., Michael, H. A., Sukop, M. C., & Wilson, A. M. (2025). Invisible groundwater threats to coastal urban infrastructure. Nature Cities. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44284-025-00298-8

Sanders, B. F., Schubert, J. E., Martin, E.-M. H., Wang, S., Sukop, M. C., & Mach, K. J. (2025). A fast flood inundation model with groundwater interactions and hydraulic structures. Advances in Water Resources, 105057. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.advwatres.2025.105057

https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2025/06/nist-releases-extensive-video-update-champlain-towers-south-investigation

Although we are waiting for the final report on the collapse of the Champlain Tower South from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the number of hypotheses being pursued is getting smaller according to a June 2025 article in the Miami Herald (https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article309240830.html).

Some key quotes are “Steel reinforcement was missing or misplaced and eaten away by corrosion” and “Prolonged exposure to water in the parking garage, where residents had complained about flooding and ponding, corroded steel bars and degraded concrete in the basement columns that were not built to proper strength. Those brittle columns or the failure of a slab-beam-column joint in the southeast part of the tower, close to the pool deck, could have been the cause of the collapse.”

The latter hypothesis is one potential connection to groundwater and saltwater intrusion via upconing from pumping in the basement. It seems highly counter-intuitive, but the Ghijben-Herzberg Principle — which predicts the position of the saltwater interface — indicates that if the water table around the basement was dropped 1 foot by pumping, the freshwater-saltwater interface below would rise would by 40 feet.

This year’s FIU Environment Forum, held April 9-11 2025 at FIU-DC, was an invitation only roundtable discussion with participants chosen from diverse fields, to discuss the critical environmental issues facing our country. Project PI, Dr. Michael Sukop, and Project Manager Ashley Loyola, P.E. attended the event.

Pictured above, Dr. Todd Crowl presented in the session titled: Challenges in Coastal Environments: Sea Level Rise, Salt Water Intrusion, Coastal Erosion.

Our CSM colleagues enjoyed learning about other related issues at the forum and interacting with leaders focused on the integration of AI to environmental regulations, policies and engineering.

This year’s forum held in Washington DC, was cleverly timed with Cherry Blossom Season!

Holly will primarily be responsible for evaluating suitable sensor technologies, telemetry systems, installation methods and data collection protocols on the project.  

Also, Holly’s bilingual skills with Spanish as a second language (and dual major) will be instrumental in effectively communicating with our local governments, contractors and end users in South Florida and other locations internationally.

You can reach Holly at heschenb@fiu.edu.

# water quality sampling #environmental monitoring #instrumentation #data management, # technical training #coastal infrastructure

Our team recently participated in FIU’s STEAM Weather Day, an event designed to introduce elementary school students to activities and research in science, technology, engineering, art, and math. About 2,000 students from Miami-Dade County Public Schools attended the event and participated in different activities.

At our booth, we emphasized to the young audience the importance of understanding the subsurface, especially in a coastal region facing sea-level rise like South Florida. To help explain our Coastal Subsurface Monitoring project, we displayed Florida fossils, minerals, and rock samples. These examples illustrate the region’s diverse rock types and hydrogeological setting, and allowed us to highlight the importance of groundwater and the potential risks of sea-level rise to coastal communities and infrastructure.

The STEAM Weather Day event provided a valuable opportunity for the CSM team to share their work and foster an interest in STEM fields among the next generation.

The following papers will be presented in the Corrosion of Reinforced Concrete Structures: Coatings & Concrete session at the AMPP Annual Conference+Expo 2025 held in Nashville, TN.

Music City Center Convention Center 201 Rep. John Lewis Way S, 37203, Nashville, TN, United States

• 11-11:30 am, April 7, 2025. Room 101A&B. “The Impact of Sea-Level Rise on Corrosion of Buried Steel.” Paper C2025-00624

• 11:30 am – 12:00 pm. April 7, 2025. Room 101A&B. “Monitoring the Effects of Salt-Water Intrusion on Corrosion of Buried Infrastructure.” Paper C2025-00623

Our team joined the United States Geological Survey (USGS) for a collaborative data collection field event using electromagnetic induction (EMI) techniques.  The activity was led by Dr. Tara Root and her team, and we observed the process and gained firsthand experience with the methodology, equipment calibration, and data collection. This provided valuable insights into the application of EMI for monitoring saltwater intrusion in Miami-Dade County (MDC).

The USGS data collection methodology for EMI consists of measuring bulk electrical conductivity in a well screened at the bottom. Conductivity is influenced by both the geological properties and the water conductivity. Because the properties of the geological formation are relatively constant over time, and because water conductivity changes with increasing salinity, the USGS uses this technique as an indicator of saltwater intrusion, allowing the mapping and monitoring of the extent and movement of saltwater into freshwater aquifers.

The USGS measures bulk conductivity and creates time series plots of annual or semi-annual logs. The MDC dataset includes approximately 70 wells and 1,500 induction logs from 1995 to the present, and is an important dataset for studying saltwater intrusion in the region.

This experience provided valuable insights into methodologies applicable to our Coastal Subsurface Monitoring project, one of the main focuses of which is to understand the effects of saltwater intrusion on subsurface infrastructure and the extent of the saltwater front near the coastline. EMI complements our existing methods and potentially offers a more efficient way to collect data in specific settings.

For more information about EMI and its application in South Florida, see the following report by Prinos and Valderrama (2016): https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/ofr20161194.