Environmental, Coastal, & Flood Hydrology

 

Bob Jacobsen is a professional environmental engineer with over 35 years of experience in addressing complex water resource challenges.  He received a MS in Civil Engineering from Louisiana State University in 1996 and has completed additional coursework towards a PhD.  During the first two decades of his career Bob managed and authored a diverse range of advanced studies for regional water resource planning, industrial wastewater and waste management upgrades and designs, and Superfund Site groundwater and wetland contamination remediation.

 

Bob's experience in flood hydrologic studies dates to 1982, with reviews
of critical floods for central Louisiana rivers, including the Mississippi.  
Since 2002, following Tropical Storm Allison he has served as a hydrologic
consultant to the Amite River Basin Commission.  He has authored/
co-authored numerous studies for the Amite River Basin.  He recently
organized the post-August 2016 Flood High Water Mark Survey for the ARBC,
as well as a Workshop on Improving Amite River Basin Flood
Forecasting and Hazard Analysis.

 

Since 2004 he has worked extensively in the burgeoning application of
High Performance Computing/High-Resolution hydrodynamic modeling to 
coastal hydrologic restoration and hurricane storm surge protection:

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• Worked with authors of the leading HPC/High-Resolution model ADCIRC since 2004.

• Attended every ADCIRC User’s Workshop since 2007 and has been a frequent presenter.

• Led/authored HPC/High-Resolution hydrologic modeling studies for the Maurepas Diversion Hydraulic Feasibility (2006) and
  Lake Pontchartrain Tidal Circulation (2007).

• Led/authored HPC/High-Resolution surge modeling studies for the MRGO (2006) and Conoco Alliance LA Refinery (2007).

• Pioneered examination of Low Turbulence impacts on circulation in sluggish water bodies.

• Supported review of surge-landscape interactions for the USACE’s LaCPR Study (2007).

• Led/authored detailed planning studies for the Northeast Florida/Georgia Coastal FIS (2010).

   

Since 2011 Bob has worked for both the Southeast Louisiana Food Protection Authority—East and the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority on hurricane surge issues.  In this capacity he authored Hurricane Surge Hazard Analysis: The State of the Practice and Recent Applications for Southeast Louisiana (May 2013), Four Priority Issues with the USACE Surge Hazard and HSDRRS Overtopping Analysis (March 2015), and New Orleans East-Bank Hurricane Surge Residual Risk Reduction Report (February 2016).  

 

For the Hurricane Katrina 10th Anniversary he authored several articles and presentations on New Orleans Surge Risk, a Hurricane Surge Hazard Primer, and a technical article on Hurricane Surge Hazard Uncertainty in Coastal Flood Protection Design, for The Journal of Dam Safety Vol 13, Issue 3, 2015.

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Bob also has a professional background in Environmental Policy and recently authored the following on Flood Risk Management:  Real Flood Risk a 3-minute video, Real Flood Risk: The Grassroots Revolution, and The Flood Risk Game.

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Bob has given numerous presentations on HPC/High-Resolution coastal hydrodynamic modeling and hurricane surge at professional meetings and has provided expertise to several news organizations, including the Advocate, the Times-Picayune, the Lens, the Weather Channel, CNBC, and WWL-TV.  Bob recently served as President of the Louisiana Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers.  He enjoys surf-fishing along Louisiana's coast and running marathons.  His mother and sister still live in the Metairie house the family moved into in 1965, two weeks before Hurricane Betsy struck.

 

New Orleans Hurricane Surge Risk Management-Click to see PowerPoints