INSTRUCTORS: 
Dan Walker, Ph.D., A.M. ASCE
Deborah H. Lee, P.E., Ph.D., D.WRE, F. ASCE

Purpose and Background

It is broadly recognized that nonstationarity in the weather and climate system especially on timescales greater than 20 to 30 years presents significant challenges for civil engineering design and system operations. This challenge underlies the motivation behind the emerging partnership between ASCE and NOAA. This webinar will attempt to relay the lessons learned and planned next steps developed during a workshop organized by the ASCE NOAA Task Force on Climate Resilience in Engineering Practice (Task Force), and is intended to be the second of a series of three exploring in detail how NOAA data collection, modeling efforts, and research could be leveraged to develop actionable information needed by civil engineering practitioners to address various climate related hazards during the design phase of projects. Specifically, the webinar will provide an overview of the efforts of the Task Force to shape the new ASCE NOAA Partnership (as described in the recently signed memorandum of understanding between ASCE and NOAA), discuss the impacts and current scientific understanding of changes in coastal flood hazards and straight-line wind extremes, and provide insights into current or emerging tools and data products of use in civil engineering design. The webinar will also provide insights into how ASCE members can help inform the development of actions that could be taken by NOAA to improve the development and delivery of actionable information needed to characterize loads due to coastal flood hazards or straight-line wind extremes in a manner consistent with standard engineering practice as manifest in ASCE Codes and Standards or relevant manuals of practice.

This webinar (which is the second in a series of 3 webinars) will itself be divided into four parts:

• Part 1 (20 minutes), presented by Dan Walker, will provide an overview of the entire effort, including involvement by authoring committees of various ASCE standards and manuals of practice and the structure and key take away message from the ASCE NOAA;
• Part 2 (20 minutes), presented by Deborah Lee, will present an overview of recently signed ASCE NOAA memorandum of understanding, its planned implementation by NOAA, and explore its implications for ASCE;
• Part 3 (15 minutes) will be made up of Q and A with the live participants.

Session Benefits and Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:

• Describe the implications of nonstationarity with respect to temperature and rainfall extremes for project design,
• Apply and explain to why the use of climate projections is an important element of designing and constructing climate resilient infrastructure,
• Define ways to make fuller and more effective use of NOAA or other federal tools and data products (such as ATLAS 14 and 15) to characterize future design conditions, and
• Identify efforts by ASCE to help prioritize and shape climate services under development by NOAA and other federal agencies to best address the needs of civil engineers.

Assessment of Learning Outcomes

Learning outcomes are assessed and achieved through participation in the live Q/A with our speakers, and by responding to the post- session survey. If the course is taken OnDemand, there will also be a 10 multiple choice question post-test.

Who Should Attend?

• Geotechnical, structural, coastal and water resource engineers
• Project managers
• Design engineers
• Research engineers

View Important Policies and System Requirements for this course