The University of Central Florida is part of a new $22 million project to help understand the future of the Mississippi River delta and ways to combat land and ecological losses.<\/p>\n
The work is through a five-year grant awarded to the Gulf Research Program of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in order to fund their project, titled the Mississippi River Delta Transition Initiative (MissDelta).<\/p>\n
The project is focused on the lowermost part of the Mississippi River Delta, also known as the Birdsfoot, where the bed of the river is so far under sea level that it is changing the directions of water flow and is struggling to push back against the seawater coming in from the Gulf.<\/p>\n
The work was started by Louisiana State University and Tulane University, which recently expanded their team to experts around other Gulf states, one of which is Thomas Wahl, an associate professor in UCF\u2019s Department of Civil, Environmental and Construction Engineering<\/a>, and member of UCF Costal: National Center for Integrated Coastal Research<\/a>.<\/p>\n