Mary Armstead
Marshall University, WV·Earth & Environmental Science
Over the last two decades, flash floods have killed more people than any other type of flood. Rural communities in central Appalachia are especially vulnerable.
- Fields
Earth & Environmental Science
Engineering
Social Science
- Topics
flash flooding
floods
hydrology
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2028
What they work on
- Identify what controls flash floods in disturbed and forested headwater streams in Kentucky and West Virginia, using sensors, field data and catchment-scale hydrologic models.
- Predict flash flooding with process-based and machine learning models, working with residents to find locations such as flooding knickpoints where models perform poorly.
- Build community resilience and increase use of flood technology through participatory action research, co-developing a community-led science model with Appalachian partners.
More about the research
This is partly because the region has little monitoring equipment or forecasting infrastructure to understand, predict and prepare for floods in its small headwater streams. This collaborative project spans Kentucky and West Virginia. It brings together civil engineers, environmental scientists, social scientists and community research partners to study flash flooding under different weather events and to reduce its harm.
Why it matters
Better models, sensors and community knowledge could give residents of Appalachian stream-side towns more warning time before flash floods. The work could help communities plan solutions that fit their own goals. Lessons from these heavily disturbed, rarely monitored landscapes may guide flood resilience planning in other vulnerable rural communities across the U.S.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Catalina Segura
Oregon State University, OR·Earth & Environmental Science·Early-career
Determine how burning of vegetation alone versus vegetation and soil changes snow accumulation, snowmelt, streamflow and underground water storage in burned Willamette National Forest watersheds, using snow surveys, geophysics and soil infiltration tests.
Avantika Gori
Rice University, TX·Engineering
Develop a flood-risk framework based on performance-based design, which judges solutions by how well they meet stated goals, and apply it in two rural Texas communities.
Samuel Munoz
Northeastern University, MA·Earth & Environmental Science·Early-career
Establish a long-term floodplain observatory, using environmental sensors and sediment cores, to monitor how floods deposit sediment along a lowland river.
The school
Marshall University: 3 labs on PI Pages, $39M a year on research, 28 research doctorates a year.
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