2017 ADCIRC Week

Mark your calendar for the 2017 ADCIRC Week, including the ADCIRC Boot Camp and ADCIRC Users Group Meeting!

Every year, the ADCIRC Community comes together to share experiences, teach, learn, discuss, plan, and build capacity for coastal ocean modelling with ADCIRC. These activities are organized into mutually supportive events: the ADCIRC Boot Camp and the ADCIRC Users Group Meeting. Both events will be held at the Four Points by Sheraton Norwood in Norwood, Massachusetts, USA (call 781-769-7900 for reservations and mention "2017 ADCIRC Meeting" for special rates; please hurry because although our hotel room reservation block was released on 30 March, there is still time to obtain the negotiated rate).

The ADCIRC Boot Camp is a three day training event (May 1-3) organized by Jason Fleming of Seahorse Coastal Consulting. The Boot Camp is an intense information and training session for new ADCIRC users. It could be considered a "forced march" of knowledge transfer, hence the name "Boot Camp".

The ADCIRC Users Group Meeting will start on Thursday, May 4 and end on Friday, May 5 and will consist of informal presentations of ADCIRC projects along with highly interactive discussions to advance the state of the art in ADCIRC modelling and to edify the ADCIRC Community as a whole. This year, FM Global is pleased to host and co-organize the ADCIRC Users Group Meeting.

The ADCIRC Users Group Meeting is open to the general public who are interested in evaluating coastal flood risk with advanced numerical models. Pre-registration is required for all attendees.

International participants are required to obtain visas to travel to the United States, and are strongly encouraged to apply for the visas as early as possible. Please go to USA State Department to get details on the visa requirement. A supporting letter for visa application will be provided to the workshop participants. Please send the request to Shangyao Nong.

In addition, the ADCIRC Career Fair will return to the ADCIRC Users Group Meeting in 2017. In addition to the usual professional networking opportunities at the Users Group Meeting, we will highlight and evaluate presenters who are available for employment opportunities or graduate school admission. Career inquiry status will be also be highlighted in the Meeting program and promotional materials. Employers and faculties who are unable to attend the Meeting will be able to evaluate candidates during their presentations via dial-in webinar.

Finally, the ADCIRC Community Awards represent a new element of the 2017 ADCIRC Users Group Meeting. In order to recognize individual contributions to the ADCIRC Community, we're accepting nominations for ADCIRC Community Man of the Year and ADCIRC Community Woman of the Year. Nomination details are provided below.

Get Up to Speed at the ADCIRC Boot Camp (May 1-3)

The ADCIRC Boot Camp will provide the full spectrum of knowledge required to create, run, and analyze a coastal regional model using ADCIRC; this includes the ADCIRC model itself as well as pre- and post-processing tools.

Dr. Jason Fleming (Seahorse Coastal Consulting) will be teaching the ADCIRC Track of the Boot Camp, discussing the details of the ADCIRC input and output files. Dr. Alan Zundel (Aquaveo) will demonstrate and discuss the most commonly used meshing and analysis software in the ADCIRC Community: the Surface-water Modeling Solution (or SMS) from Aquaveo. These presentations will be held in the Main Room and will provide the most effective climb up the ADCIRC learning curve for newcomers to the ADCIRC Community.

Boot Camp Main Room Schedule

• Monday, 1 May 2017
• 9am to 12pm, SMS: Overview and ADCIRC Meshing (Alan Zundel)
• 12pm to 1pm, Lunch
• 1pm to 4pm, SMS: Post Processing ADCIRC Output (Alan Zundel)
• Tuesday, 2 May 2017
• 9am to 12pm, ADCIRC: Nodal Attributes (Jason Fleming)
• 12pm to 1pm, Lunch
• 1pm to 4pm, ADCIRC: Control File (Jason Fleming)
• Wednesday, 3 May 2017
• 9am to 12pm, ADCIRC: Meteorological Data (Jason Fleming)
• 12pm to 1pm, Lunch
• 1pm to 4pm, SMS+ADCIRC: Workflow (Alan Zundel+Jason Fleming)

The SMS software is used to visually create and modify input files for ADCIRC and is widely used in the ADCIRC community for this purpose, as well as visualization of results. For these reasons, knowledge of the SMS software is practically required for new ADCIRC users.

Breakout sessions represent a new element in the 2017 ADCIRC Boot Camp. In order to expand the topics available to participants and to represent the wealth of knowledge and experience in the ADCIRC Community, we've added a series of special topics sessions, detailed below:

Boot Camp Breakout Room Schedule including Special Presenters

• Monday, 1 May 2017
• 9am to 12pm, ASGS Introduction (Jason Fleming)
• 12pm to 1pm, Lunch
• 1pm to 4pm, ASGS Hands On (Jason Fleming)
• Tuesday, 2 May 2017
• 9am to 12pm, Risk Analysis with ADCIRC and the NACCS (Nate Dill)
• 12pm to 1pm, Lunch
• 1pm to 4pm, Risk Communication in the ADCIRC Context (Michelle Terry)
• Wednesday, 3 May 2017
• 9am to 12pm, Leveraging ArcGIS for ADCIRC Modelling (Ashley Kauppila)
• 12pm to 1pm, Lunch
• 1pm to 4pm, ADCIRC Meshing: Experiences (Taylor Asher)

Boot Camp Event Includes

• Buffet-style lunches
• Printed manuals
• Morning and afternoon snacks with coffee and water
• Free WiFi throughout the facility

Boot Camp Breakout Session Details

Risk Analysis with ADCIRC and the NACCS (Tuesday Morning May 2): Nate Dill will present techniques for applying data from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers North Atlantic Coast Comprehensive Study (NACCS) to help coastal communities understand their current and future coastal flood hazards. Topics include: subsetting model outputs, downscaling with a localized ADCIRC model, dealing with sea level rise, and communicating results to the communities.

Risk Communication in the ADCIRC Context (Tuesday Afternoon May 2, led by Michelle Terry): Risk assessments can be resource-intensive, and different stakeholders use the results for event preparation, operational use, response and recovery, short-term and long-term planning, mitigation, and cost-benefit analysis of future projects. Michelle Terry will present effective risk communication strategies that start with a comprehensive risk assessment and produce risk products tailored to each stakeholder's unique goals, thereby maximizing the value of risk assessment in your community.

Leveraging ArcGIS for ADCIRC Modeling (Wednesday Morning May 3, led by Ashley Kauppila): Are you interested in modeling overland flooding with ADCIRC? Do you possess high-resolution topo data? Are you an ArcGIS user? Ashley Kauppila will demonstrate the power of ArcHydro for jumpstarting the development of your conceptual model. Starting with a sample DEM, she will illustrate the generation of feature classes for Feature Arcs and Refine Points in an SMS conceptual model. Recommend: ArcGIS 10.3 with Spatial Analyst extension and ArcHydro.

ADCIRC Meshing Experiences (Wednesday Afternoon May 3, led by Taylor Asher): ADCIRC mesh development and editing strategies differ based on the available resources and coastal physical processes in the region of interest. The availability of topographic and bathymetric data and their datums also require ADCIRC analysts to make judgement calls to achieve project goals. Taylor Asher will describe quantitative problems, solutions, pitfalls, and triumphs in ADCIRC mesh generation, focusing especially on the challenges of meshing for inundation.

Of course, the traditional ADCIRC Boot Camp sessions will still be offered by Alan Zundel and Jason Fleming:

The Surface water Modeling System (SMS) (May 1-3, led by Alan Zundel): The SMS software package from Aquaveo is the industry standard graphical user interface for ADCIRC, including conceptual modeling, mesh development, mesh editing, and post processing of ADCIRC results, among other features and functions. Alan Zundel will give an overview of the SMS and then demonstrate its many ADCIRC-specific features. He also co-teaches the final Boot Camp session with Jason Fleming, showing the ADCIRC modeling process within SMS from raw data to final ADCIRC outputs.

ADCIRC In Depth, and the ADCIRC Surge Guidance System (ASGS) (May 1-3, led by Jason Fleming): The learning curve for ADCIRC modeling can be unnecessarily difficult for new analysts that rely on trial-and-error to navigate the process. Jason Fleming founded the ADCIRC Boot Camp in 2010 to welcome newcomers to the ADCIRC community with a big initial boost up the curve. He covers the function of all input parameters, emphasizing subtleties that may not be apparent from the extensive online documentation. He also teaches an Advanced section on real time modeling with ADCIRC using the ADCIRC Surge Guidance System.

Engaging Boot Camp Format

The presentation style will be a mix of lecture, demonstration, and interactive discussion. The instructors will also specify hands-on work for those trainees that have a laptop with them. Experience has shown that an engaging format with lively interaction is the most effective approach for building skills and retaining them in the long term.

Boot Camp Value

The three days that a new ADCIRC user invests in this training event could save weeks of project time spent in guesswork and trial-and-error. The Boot Camp also provides value for more experienced users, because the discussion includes the underlying rationale behind various features, as well as highlighting time-saving tips and tricks that are not especially prominent in the documentation.

The registration fee includes light lunches and morning and afternoon coffee breaks and snacks for all three days of the Boot Camp. Break times present great opportunities for professional networking as well as knowledge transfer and sharing of ideas among ADCIRC users at all levels of experience.

Some representative feedback from past attendees:

"I liked the format of the adcirc portion of going through each parameter. Thanks again, I think we all got a lot out of it."

"I thought the Boot Camp was awesome. For researchers like me, it was extremely beneficial to get into the guts of the mechanisms behind the scenes of the fort files. ... [the] format was engaging."

Be There: We are looking forward to working with you this year at the 2017 ADCIRC Boot Camp!

ADCIRC Users Group Meeting (May 4 and 5)

The ADCIRC Users’ Group Meeting is an important venue for the ADCIRC community to share experience, to foster new ideas, to discuss and plan new ADCIRC capacity. In recent years, ADCIRC and ADCIRC+SWAN have been widely used to evaluate coastal flood risk worldwide. In order to expand and improve ADCIRC, it is imperative to invite scientists and practitioners, who have not come to the workshops before, to join the community.

Although this meeting is not a conference, some suggested topics for presenters at the 2017 ADCIRC Users Group Meeting are:
1) Case studies of various coastal flood events;
2) Improvement of the computing efficiency;
3) Numerical methods;
4) Collection and processing of observational data;
5) Methodology of building mesh with high-resolution topography/bathymetry data;
6) Coastal risk evaluation systems;
7) Coupled modeling;
8) Tools and visualization;
9) Tide modeling.

FM Global is pleased to host and sponsor the ADCIRC Users Group Meeting, and as a result, the Users Group Meeting registration is waived for all participants this year! Registration includes morning and afternoon coffee breaks and lunches during the meeting. When registering for your ticket for the ADCIRC Users Group Meeting using this site, you'll be asked if you are giving a presentation; if you answer yes, you'll be asked for the title of your presentation. Please provide this information for use in developing the Users Group Meeting agenda.

Users Group Meeting Includes

• Buffet style breakfasts
• Buffet style lunches
• Waived registration fee
  
• Morning and afternoon snacks with coffee and water
• Free WiFi throughout the facility: Four Points by Sheraton Norwood
  

Nominations for the ADCIRC Community Awards will be accepted in writing upon check-in on the first morning of the Users Group Meeting. The nominating party should include the name of the nominee and a short justification (250 words or less) that lists the nominee's contribution to the ADCIRC Community over the last 12 months. Relevant contributions include mentoring newcomers to ADCIRC, making strong contributions to discussions on the ADCIRC mailing lists, and developing ADCIRC-related code, documentation, and data sets for the benefit of the wider ADCIRC Community.

The nominations will be judged by a committee including Rick Luettich, Joannes Westerink, Clint Dawson, Chris Massey and Jason Fleming (committee members are ineligible for nomination). One man and one woman will be named as awardees. Each nomination will be read aloud at the Users Group Dinner so that all nominees are recognized for their contributions before the winners are announced.

Be There: We are looking forward to seeing you this year at the 2017 ADCIRC Users Group Meeting!

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