By Carol Peters
EOAS faculty member Qizhong (George) Guo, a professor of civil and environmental engineering, discussed with BTN’s LiveBIG a few of the solutions he and his team have proposed to address sea level rise.
Representing Rutgers University in a Big Ten Network LiveBIG interview titled “Rutgers Engineers Infrastructure that Addresses Sea-Level Change,” EOAS faculty member Qizhong (George) Guo said, “New Jersey infrastructure is aging, and sea level is rising. What are we going to do about it?”
He and his team have proposed several possible engineering solutions that are both mobile and green, Guo said. They include a mobile wall which can be raised up when sea levels rise, porous parking lots, rain gardens, and harvesting local energy from wave, wind, and rain water which would “power the pump to turn the storm against itself.”
“Our nation has deteriorating infrastructure,” Guo said. “What we think we could do while we are fixing those infrastructures is make them more adaptable to climate change.”
Guo, a professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering in the Rutgers School of Engineering, studies hydraulics and hydrology, urban stormwater and flood management, inland and coastal water environment protection and restoration, water resources and environmental engineering, and green and sustainable water infrastructure.
Guo has directed over 40 research projects as the principal investigator. His research achievements include urban coastal flood risk reduction strategies in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, flood mitigation and ecosystem restoration in Linden, New Jersey, green and mobile infrastructure adaptation to climate change and sea level rise, verification and certification of stormwater manufactured treatment devices, retrofit and maintenance of stormwater control measures, automatic vacuum flushing techniques for combined sewer sediments, new method for estimating freshwater input and water residence time in estuaries, criteria for drinking-water-pipe cement-lining quality, modeling and analysis of river ice breakup and jamming process in the Mississippi River, analysis and mitigation of hydraulic surges in Chicago deep tunnels.
Guo has also actively served his profession. He has chaired the stormwater technology certification guidelines task committee for the American Society of Civil Engineers, served on a project steering committee for the Water Environment Research Foundation, and served as President of the Chinese American Water Resources Association.
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