INFRASTRUCTURE FLOOD RISK MANAGEMENT

Our desire to live and work near coasts and riverbanks puts our lives and livelihoods at risk from coastal storm surge and rainfall runoff flooding. Given that populations cluster within flood-prone areas, Taylor Engineering strives to understand and quantify an area’s flood risk, communicate that risk to stakeholders, and mitigate those risks. We also help communities and others identify sources to help fund mitigation measures.

Because hurricanes or tropical storms derive their power from other forces besides wind, we adopt a statistical approach to classifying their destructive power. We apply well-tested tools and engineering judgment to quantify risk. In managing that risk, we have successfully employed numerous methods including elevating critical infrastructure, constructing flood control structures, and relocating infrastructure. Even with the best science and engineering solutions in place, unambiguous communication to stakeholders proves most critical to project success.

Please visit our project gallery to view a variety of our infrastructure and flood risk management projects. A few project examples include

FPL St. Lucie Nuclear Plant Shoreline Engineering & Permitting Services

Severe ongoing erosion threatens to undermine and breach the plant’s discharge canal northern headwall adjacent to the Atlantic Ocean. To avoid severe environmental and economic damage, FPL must protect the open coast shoreline fronting its headwall. Taylor Engineering proposed a shoreline stabilization project consisting of a steel sheet pile wall and a series of offshore breakwaters to provide an immediate protective barrier to the encroaching shoreline and improve the site’s capability to withstand coastal storms.

Leading-edge Solutions

Devised a braced excavation structure to work around an existing subaqueous 12-foot diameter discharge pipe and, in so doing, allow seawall construction without anchor interferences or vibratory damages to critical existing structures
Phased seawall and breakwater projects to ensure timely permitting and construction of seawall
Applied wave, current, and sediment transport coupled numerical modeling to refine preliminary breakwater design

FEMA Coastal & Riverine Flood Hazard Studies

Taylor Engineering has applied its water resources and coastal engineering expertise to multiple FEMA flood hazard studies throughout the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coastal watersheds, and inland counties throughout the southeastern U.S. These studies have encompassed urban and rural hydrology, riverine hydraulics, coastal storm surge, and related flood impacts. For these studies, staff members have modeled hundreds of watersheds, over 1,000 stream miles, over 1,000 hydraulic structures, and over 1,000 miles of coastline.

Leading-edge Solutions

Applied analysis of mesh size and resolution of recent Flood Insurance Studies ADCIRC models to evaluate potential mesh size and resolution of future coastal area models
Tested different mesh resolutions of coastal features on ADCIRC model performance
Developed robust numerical tools to generate model meshes that conform to surveyed topography
Developed a suite of customized ESRI ArcMAP toolbars designed to facilitate GIS-based pre- and post-database processing of coastal wave modeling and mapping
Developed a set of fully automated GIS tools that streamline the creation of digital flood insurance rate maps for greater overall efficiency and product quality without compromising engineering judgment

Department of Transportation Bridge Hydraulic Studies

As a prime subcontractor to firms with contracts to the Florida and South Carolina Departments of Transportation, Taylor Engineering has conducted over 60 bridge hydraulic and scour studies throughout Florida and South Carolina. These studies consisted of detailed analyses of channel stability and bottom scour under extreme design storm conditions for bridges subject to both stormwater runoff and hurricane surge flooding. Engineering analyses included the determination of the 100- and 500-year flow and velocity distributions at each bridge simulated in one- and two-dimensional hydraulic modeling; calculation of abutment, contraction, and pier scour from state and FHWA guidelines; and recommendations for scour protection and bridge design related to hydraulics and scour.

Leading-edge Solutions

Developed detailed bridge models proficiently due to in-house availability of large inventory of existing hydrodynamic models
Designed innovative “launching” revetment to protect areas adjacent to bridge abutment with limited construction footprints