Hassan Davani
San Diego State University, CA·Engineering·Early-career
As sea levels rise, seawater pushes inland underground. The denser salt water slides beneath shallow freshwater aquifers and lifts them upward, a process called groundwater shoaling.
- Fields
Engineering
Earth & Environmental Science
- Topics
sea-level rise
groundwater shoaling
coastal groundwater
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2028
What they work on
- Determine how far sea-level rise-driven groundwater shoaling and more intense rainfall may increase groundwater flow into coastal combined and separate sewer systems along the U.S. West Coast.
- Assess the eco-toxicity impacts of sewer overflows on marginalized coastal communities that may be disproportionately affected by groundwater infiltration.
- Develop a two-part machine learning approach for big-data analysis of sewer inspection footage to systematically evaluate groundwater infiltration risk.
- Quantify the long-term sustainability of adaptation strategies through a framework in which underserved stakeholders help choose which challenges and mitigations are assessed.
More about the research
Together with heavier rainfall, this can disrupt buried city infrastructure kilometers from the coast. Water can seep into sewer pipes and cause more sewage overflows, especially in communities whose aging infrastructure is least able to keep groundwater out.
Why it matters
Rising seas and heavier rain may push more groundwater into coastal sewers, raising the risk of sewage overflows. Clearer estimates of this risk, faster machine learning screening of sewer inspection footage, and adaptation options shaped with residents could help public works departments and coastal cities protect vulnerable communities from overflow-related pollution.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Yu-Ping Chin
University of Delaware, DE·Earth & Environmental Science
Measure how stemflow, the rainfall channeled down tree trunks to the soil, changes across a transect running from healthy coastal forest to saltwater-killed ghost forest.
Mona Behl
William & Mary, VA·Social Science
Foster analysis and synthesis research on human mobility caused by coastal change, including displacement, migration and planned relocation, using existing datasets and legal and policy frameworks.
Katharine Mach
University of Miami, FL·Earth & Environmental Science
Identify flood simulation technologies that most speed up modeling of flood risk under multiple flood drivers and response options while keeping accuracy, and benchmark the maximum achievable speeds.
The school
San Diego State University: 13 labs on PI Pages, $182M a year on research, 142 research doctorates a year.
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