The project is establishing pilot coastal subsurface monitoring systems to improve understanding of groundwater and subsurface conditions in developed coastal environments. These monitoring systems will establish baseline conditions, document long-term changes in groundwater and subsurface processes, and provide high-quality data to support informed planning and decision-making by municipalities, utilities, engineers, building officials, and resource managers.

The monitoring network will generate information that supports groundwater management, infrastructure planning, and scientific research while fostering collaboration among federal, state, and local agencies, including NOAA, USGS, NIST, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The principal objective of the project is to provide monitoring systems and data to fill the near-shore and barrier island subsurface data gap that became so conspicuous following the collapse of the Champlain tower. The initial geographic emphasis of the proposed project is on Southeast Florida, which is one of the nation’s most densely developed coastal regions, where comprehensive subsurface monitoring data are essential for infrastructure planning, groundwater management, and engineering research.

Conceptual model of the nearshore southeastern Florida coast, including a portion of the mainland and a barrier island. The diagram depicts groundwater, the freshwater-saltwater interface, and the freshwater lens beneath the barrier island, along with various subsurface infrastructure elements.

Scientific objectives are to provide characterization and long-term monitoring of saturated and unsaturated zone hydrology, saltwater intrusion, and corrosivity in these highly-developed near-shore and barrier island environments. Subsurface flooding and saltwater intrusion, as well as the implications of subsurface flooding for groundwater emergence and high-tide or “sunny-day” surface flooding, and surface flooding due to rainfall infiltration rejection following rapid water table rise in response to storms are being considered. Compounding of storms and high tides are being investigated and the impacts of the sea overtopping the land from storm surge might be captured.

A “sunny-day” flooding event at City of Miami Fire Station 13.

In summary, the project objectives are to provide comprehensive, high spatial and temporal resolution, multidecadal-scale monitoring of:

●     Near-shore saltwater interfaces

●     Water table positions

●     Corrosion potential

and to translate these data into actionable science for building officials, and municipal, resilience, coastal, and utility managers. The current conceptual model, which will be refined in collaboration with the Management Transition Advisory Group or MTAG, is to install 8 paired mainland/barrier island transects of 10 monitoring stations each, with 7 depths from the near-surface to up to 100 feet below the water the surface monitored at each station.