(classical music)

- [Michelle] Hello,

and thank you for tuning in to

"Connections and Directions,"

our University of Michigan

Civil and Environmental
Engineering podcast.

My name is Michelle Santillan,

and I am the CEE marketing
communications specialist,

and host of this series.

During our podcast,

we are featuring members
of our CEE community,

and how their work reflects our mission

of engineers in service to society.

We will be highlighting
our strategic directions,

and our commitment

to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

CEE's five strategic directions

are human habitat experience,

shaping resource flows,

adaptation, automation,

and smart infrastructure finance.

Our guest for this podcast

is associate professor Jeremy Bricker.

Professor Bricker has a
bachelor of science degree

in mechanical and aerospace engineering,

and a BA in physics
from Rutgers University,

and a master's degree and a PhD

in civil and environmental engineering

from Stanford University.

Professor Bricker and his students

use hydraulic laboratory experiments,

numerical simulations,

and post-disaster field surveys

to investigate the
resilience of structures,

and infrastructure exposed
to both increasing hazards

due to climate change,

and increasing consequences
due to expansion of development

in coastal and flood-prone areas.

His research focuses on four main themes,

damage, flood phenomena,

countermeasures, and hydropower.

Professor Bricker,

thank you for joining us today.

- [Jeremy] Thank you for
the introduction, Michelle.

- [Michelle] Please
share with our listeners

some details about your
research area and goals,

and how they align with
CEE strategic directions,

and our mission of engineers
in service to society.

- [Jeremy] Well, among
the strategic directions,

the human habitat
experience and adaptation

naturally fit the work that I do.

Much of my work focuses on

how structures respond to flood loading,

and wave loading,

due to hurricanes, tsunamis,

or floods, river floods,

and that means

as the climate changes,
as sea levels rise,

as storms and storm intensities
and frequencies change,

structures will need to change as well,

in order to be more resistant

to the forcing they're exposed to.

That's adaptation.

That's one method of adaptation.

Other methods of adaptation are

changes in land use,

redefining where the
built environment exists,

versus what to restore
to a natural environment.

That crosses over with at with
the human habitat experience,

where the spatial planning
of a city, for example,

is one method that can be used

to reduce exposure to coastal hazards.

This is a common method used in Japan,

for example, after the tsunami in 2011,

the the use of coastal areas for

agricultural and recreational purposes,

instead of residential
and commercial purposes,

is one of the measures put in place

to try to reduce vulnerability of people

to that tsunami hazard.

As we in the US adapt to

changing flood and hurricane hazards,

those are lessons that we can learn

from what's being done done elsewhere,

and, and that

land use affects where people live,

and therefore the human
habitat experience.

- [Michelle] Given what
you just said about

you know, the flooding,

and and things like that,

and land use and and lessons we can learn,

for example, the recent
floods in Kentucky,

is there anything specific

that might be able to be put into place

to avoid such devastation in the future?

- [Jeremy] Well, I think
the floods in Kentucky

are are one example of

how the classical way of determining

what flood return periods are,

is needs to be updated in
light of climate change.

We we determine 100-year floods,

500-year floods based on
long historical data series.

As the climate changes,

those data are no longer stationary.

And what was 100-year flood in some cases,

can now be a 50-year, or a 25-year flood.

It, it changes.

And so,

one way to adapt to the changing climate,

is to redefine where
these flood plains are,

if we're gonna continue as we currently do

with the FEMA National
Flood Insurance Program

definitions of the 100-year
and 500-year flood plains,

we need to update those
for what the current,

and protected climates are going to mean

those flood planes are going to be.

The other thing we can do

is to consider countermeasures,

such as,

how close we live to the rivers,

such as, what elevations we live at,

or if we need to live in close proximity,

and at low elevations,

the use of protective
structures like dykes,

flood walls though,

that those themselves

introduce a whole other range of hazards,

such as a false sense of security,

'cause structures themselves can fail,

they're always designed
to a certain liability.

And that's one of the items

of research and debate within the

the natural hazards community is,

should we build more and
better protective structures

to protect people living
in vulnerable areas,

or do these structures
just encourage people

to live in the vulnerable areas?

And should we rather

rely more on

land use planning and education,

rather than engineering measures
to reduce vulnerability?

Of course the answer

is gonna be some combination of the two.

- [Michelle] Yeah, because when
you go to a coastal region,

for example, you see
houses built on stilts,

and, you know,

you see people building
right along the beaches,

and you can only imagine
how erosion can affect that.

Especially if a a terrible
hurricane comes in,

a, you know, strong enough hurricane,

of course, can can devastate that area.

Is there any recommendation
for that type of a scenario,

on a beach, for example,

or or would those

would those parameters
pretty much be the same,

but just, you know,

using the types of regulation
or education as you mentioned,

it, you know, advise people
not to build so closely,

that sort of thing?

- [Jeremy] Well, what we
can advise people to do

is not always gonna be
what they do, right?

Because there's a a trade off between

building a resilient or a safe community,

versus one that people
actually like living in.

And people like to live close to the sea,

'cause it's beautiful,

convenient, refreshing.

I think people will always
want to live near the sea.

And so what..

this is another of the
debates within the hazard,

and the natural hazards community,

is, do we want to build,

or to encourage people to build safely?

Which means in areas that are

not so exposed to the
hazards for their inland,

for their appeal?

Or do we want them to build

where they want to live,

but in a very robust way.

So back during I think it was
Hurricane Irma or Michael,

I can't remember,

in Mexico Beach, Florida,

there was an example of a

reinforced concrete home,

among on stilts on the beach,

amongst all the homes made of timber,

also stilts on the beach,

where the really solidly-built
reinforced concrete home

was not destroyed,

whereas the ones around it were,

that's an example of

if we're gonna build in the hazard zone,

an expensive, but reliable way to

reduce the vulnerability
of structures there.

But even those structures
will have their limits.

There's always going to be on an event

that's going to be above the
design event for any structure.

So, for most of the events,

most of the hurricanes,

that we foresee a structure like that,

might be

great to have,

but for the largest events,

it also will fail.

So, even with structures like that,

if we're gonna live in a hazard area,

a hazardous area,

education is still

the most effective countermeasure

to make sure people know
when and where to evacuate.

I think that's one of
the measures at the US.

The United States is is
really well-renowned for

is the encouragement of

evacuation from hurricanes,

and the great response
to that encouragement.

In in Japan and the Netherlands,

which are other countries
with strong hazards,

storm surge hazards, tsunami hazard,

people have tended to feel

a false sense of security protection

by the structures in
place to protect them,

the dykes, the sea walls,

but in events that were
larger than design,

there they were designed for,

they have failed.

In the case of the US,

where we don't have a lot of
protective infrastructure,

people know they have to evacuate,

and they do it every year.

So, it's a,

a strong point of the US system

that people do not have the
false sense of security,

and and know

they have to take
responsibility for themselves.

- [Michelle] How did you become interested

in your area of study?

Was there a course that
you took at some point,

or a personal experience that you had,

that led you to explore
this topic in depth?

- [Jeremy] There are three
items that brought me to it.

One when I was when I was in college,

and I was studying mechanical engineering,

I really enjoyed fluid mechanics,

as well as mechanics of structures,

this is a natural intersection of the two,

the resilience of
structures against floods.

When I was also in college,

I was on the crew or the rowing team.

We'd row past many structures in

or conf-

we were confined by
structures in the river,

such as dams,

and I saw many locks and gates

regulating what were old shipping canals,

barge canals that I thought
were very interesting,

so that brought me to study hydraulics.

And then after graduate school,

when the Hurricane
Katrina happened in 2005,

and in 2004 the Indonesian tsunami,

the Indian Ocean tsunami happened,

the effects of these large
disastrous events on structures

really came to my attention

as something that I was
excited by understanding.

Then when the tsunami
happened in Japan in 2011,

I had the opportunity to

investigate damage to,

or destruction of coastal bridges,

and breakwaters, and dykes,

that set me off in my
current course of research.

- [Michelle] When you
said you examined that,

were you able to actually visit Japan,

and see the see that first hand?

Or were you studying it from afar?

- [Jeremy] I, I went there.
- [Michelle] Okay.

- [Jeremy] To, to survey the

bridges and breakwaters
that were destroyed,

take measurements of scour holes,

measurements of structures
that were displaced,

to be able to use to validate
hydraulic model results

that I simulated afterward.

- [Michelle] So you were really
able to learn from the past,

and move forward with that.

- [Jeremy] Correct.

Think in in this field of

civil engineering related
to natural hazards,

that's one of the best tools that we have,

'cause we're not able to

recreate these natural
hazards in the laboratory,

at least at scale.

So, when there's a lot
of data in the field

that can be recorded,

that can be used to validate hindcasts,

which is the past version of a forecast,

which is the future,

hindcasts of the disastrous events,

the hurricanes, the tsunamis,

to make sure we're simulating them right.

And that allows us the

the best guess at what really happened.

- [Michelle] So, using that information,

what classes are you
teaching this semester?

And do you have ideas for future courses

you would like to one day incorporate

into the CEE curriculum?

- [Jeremy] The this past semester,

I taught Design of Hydraulic Systems,

which is about

piped drinking water systems,

as well as hydropower systems,

drink water supply systems,

and hydropower systems are the same thing,

they just work in the opposite direction.

Drink piped water supply systems

use electricity to drive a
pump to pressurize the system,

hydropower systems use
pressure to drive a turbine,

to generate electricity,

so they're the same things in reverse.

This semester,

I'll be teaching a course

on tsunamis, floods, and hurricanes,

which is related to my research,

to

help students experience what it's like

to work as a practicing
coastal hydraulic engineer,

and design the types of structures

they'll have to design
in that career field.

And the other course that
I'll be teaching in the winter

is Undergraduate Fluid Mechanics,

which is the basis of all of this.

- [Michelle] Okay, so it gives people

a good foundation then, really.

- [Jeremy] Right.

Well that that together
with mechanics of solids,

or mechanics of materials,

I guess are the real
foundations to this field.

- [Michelle] And how do you incorporate

diversity, equity, and inclusion

into your research and courses?

- [Jeremy] One thing that
makes that easy in my field

is that my simulation results are spatial.

That means if I simulate a hurricane,

or a tsunami, or a flood,

it'll simulate how the inundation affects

all the neighborhoods
of a city, for example.

So I have a current project that'll

or an upcoming project,

where together with a

social scientist,

and an economist at Texas A&M,

we'll be hindcasting Hurricane Ike,

which hit Texas back in 2000,

Houston back in 2008,

and simulating a bunch of
hurricanes in the future,

to assess how the storm surge barrier

that is going to be built there,

will differently affect
different communities,

of different socioeconomic status.

And using a model like this,

we can tweak the barrier designs,

to have to differently
affect different communities.

And a goal,

one goal, of course,

is always to minimize damage.

Another goal is to

to max maximize the equity of protection.

So we're not only protecting

the neighborhoods that
already have all the money

to pay for the repairs that they need,

but to also protect those
who are more vulnerable.

So it's

a natural way,

since the since the work itself,

the research itself,

the simulation results are spatial,

it's straightforward to

assess how proposed countermeasures,

be it barriers like this,

or be it retention basins, dams,

beach nourishments, coastal wetlands,

permeable pavements, rain gardens,

how all of those

will affect the spatial
distribution of flood damage,

which allows us to understand
the equity implemencation

implications of any
proposed countermeasures

before we actually build them.

- [Michelle] And what is
the most exciting part

of your research?

When you're,

is it when you are doing
these field assessments?

Is it when you're teaching with students,

or a combination of both?

- [Jeremy] The field
assessments themselves

are very interesting,

but you gotta remember,

they're they're always after
really devastating events,

so, I can't say they're exciting.

They're a combination of fascinating,

and horribly depressing.

Because,

you'll see areas,

and you see people at their lowest,

but that being said,

those people who have experienced

things that they owned destroyed,

often want to talk about it.

They want people to
understand what they've lost,

and they want to help make things better.

So they're

even though they're
grieving in many cases,

they want to share their

many of them want to share their stories,

and help improve things,

which is our job.

But that being said,

when you are in a field like this,

you I've been to many places

that people tell me have been
just excellent vacation spots,

but I've never been on there for vacation,

I'm always there after a disaster,

like the Gulf Coast of Mississippi,

New Orleans,

I've only seen when the
bridges have fallen down,

and there are no buildings left,

just foundations.

Whereas people I've talked with,

tell me how beautiful they were,

and they can be again.

I would love to go back
and see them again,

when they are rebuilt,

and people are have recovered.

So the the field studies are fascinating,

not exciting though,

because of the situation that
you're in after a disaster.

The most exciting part of the work as a

as an educator is to see students get it.

They they struggle to
understand the concept,

and then suddenly,

they're applying it correctly.

That's satisfying,

and exciting to me as a teacher.

What's exciting as an engineer,

is to understand

what could have been done,

what could be done to a structure,

so that destruction doesn't happen again.

Like, for example,

I was studying a bridge in Japan,

that was destroyed by
the tsunami 11 years ago.

It turned out that if
that bridge had been built

a little bit differently,

meaning, if the sea wall
hadn't been built under it,

or if it hadn't been banked
for the traffic on it,

it wouldn't have been destroyed.

Understanding the physics
that caused the destruction,

and being able to understand

well, how can

how could it have been designed,

so it wouldn't have been destroyed,

or how could the next one be designed,

so it wouldn't be destroyed?

That's what's exciting to me is,

understanding what destroyed something,

and being able to say what should be done,

so that something that's gonna replace it

won't be destroyed in the next event.

- [Michelle] And where
that really gets back

to our mission of engineers
in service to society,

because you are preventing, hopefully,

that future devastation.

You are building stronger for the future,

and in the process,

probably saving countless lives,

or at least minimizing the
the harm brought to people,

in that in that future
weather or climate disaster.

- [Jeremy] I hope so,

I like the way you state that.

(both laughing)

But I think that's

I think that might be what sets civil

civil engineers apart from
other engineering disciplines,

is that civil engineering

is engineering in service to society.

That's usually the reason people
go into civil engineering,

they want to do something

that helps civilization or helps people,

as opposed to making a better widget.

They want to make people's lives better.

And I think that's what
defines civil engineering.

(lively music)

- [Michelle] Thank you for listening

to our podcast conversation.

For more information
about CEE at Michigan,

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