Interdisciplinary Seminar: John Ratcliff

The UNC-CH Department of Marine Sciences and UNC’s Institute of Marine Sciences (IMS) presents a research seminar from graduate student, John Ratcliff. This event will be held on Monday, March 2nd, at 12:30 pm. The main location of this event will be in seminar room 222 at IMS in Morehead City, NC. The seminar will be streamed live to room G201 on the ground floor of Murray Hall on UNC-CH campus in Chapel Hill, NC and online via Zoom (Meeting ID: 252-726-6841).

Seminar Title: How Does Channel Deepening Impact Estuarine Processes?

Abstract: Historically, dredging to allow access of larger ships into ports has been a necessary activity for continued strength of U.S. commercial shipping and national defense operations. At the same time, a great diversity of species, including humans, rely on healthy estuarine environments for important ecosystem services, as well as multi-billion-dollar recreation and tourism industries. This seminar will discuss recent research on how channel deepening has impacted two estuaries: the Cape Fear River and the Ems. Specifically, these studies examine how channel dredging may: 1) Increase the risk of amplified tides and storm surge, 2) Influence sediment transport processes with increased risk of turbidity, and 3) Impact estuarine ecosystems with elevated suspended sediment concentrations. Given the similarities in estuarine processes worldwide, researchers predict that the changes observed in the Cape Fear and Ems estuaries may also occur at other channel deepened locations.