Jon K. MillerStevens Institute of Technology · Davidson Laboratory
Jon K. Miller
Doctor of Philosophy
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75
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Introduction
Publications
Publications (75)
The implementation of nature-based solutions (NbS), including living shorelines, to mitigate estuarine habitat loss is increasing at a pace exceeding the evaluation of their long-term success. Constructed oyster reefs (CORs) made of shell, concrete, stone, and other materials are one living shoreline tactic that is widely utilized, yet few studies...
A systematic review of 20 years of studies was conducted to understand wave dissipation trends of hybrid and natural (soft) coastal features, collectively referred to as nature-based solutions (NbS). Of 13,451 studies identified and 470 studies reviewed; only 50 studies consistently reported the basic parameters required to compare wave height diss...
Graveling Point Beach, a public beach within Little Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey, has been experiencing long-term erosion. To address the issue, a living shoreline project consisting of four low-crested rubble-mound breakwaters and a beach nourishment was constructed beginning in fall 2022 (structures) and finishing in spring 2023 (beach nourish...
This dataset quantifies storm intensity of approximately 130 unique historical storms along the New Jersey coastline from 1980 to 2014 for three separate sea level conditions. Namely, (1) as observed in the historical record; (2) detrended to 1997 mean sea level and (3) adjusted to the 2050 and 2100 sea level rise scenarios presented in the Interna...
Hurricane Sandy was undoubtedly one of the most impactful storms of the past half century, resulting in $74 billion of damage and destroying thousands of homes. Yet not all communities suffered the same. In New Jersey, impacts exhibited mesoscale trends with northern portions of the state generally suffering greater damage than the southern portion...
Hurricane Sandy (2012) resulted in historic losses to the beach and dune system in many parts of New Jersey, leaving inland structures susceptible to wave and surge-induced damages. To defend against future threats, the state, in conjunction with the US Army Corps of Engineers, has pursued a statewide system of engineered beaches comprised of a dun...
Numerous studies have identified the protective benefit provided by dunes in shielding upland assets. However, dunes are susceptible to erosion. Breaches, overwash or significant overtopping of a dune are all associated with greater damages to upland infrastructure. Therefore, reliable tools are needed to efficiently assess the likelihood and magni...
Coastal erosion is an adverse impact of extreme water levels during major hurricanes. A warmer climate is expected to increase storm surge and wave hazards due to hurricane climatology change (HCC) and sea level rise (SLR). We conduct physics-based morphodynamic modeling to quantify the regional impacts of HCC and SLR on erosion hazards to sandy be...
Nearshore sandbars are common features along sandy coasts. However, identifying sandbars within a beach profile traditionally requires a large historical dataset or subjective input from an observer. Several existing methodologies rely on reference profiles, which is problematic for new study sites with limited data sets and for nourished beaches t...
Developed shorelines represent a significant proportion (14%) of the world’s shorelines. Historically these shores have been tamed or hardened using a variety of engineering interventions. Often these interventions have negative impacts on the local ecology. New Jersey (USA) is the most densely populated state in the United States, and not surprisi...
2022 update to the New Jersey Living Shorelines Engineering Guidelines developed by Stevens for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection
Guidance for the use of "living shoreline" or "ecoshoreline" techniques along developed coasts developed for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.
This study reports findings of an analysis of modifications to the incident wave field caused by constructed Oyster Castle® breakwater systems at Gandys Beach Preserve in Downe Township, NJ. The Nature Conservancy’s (TNC) Gandys Beach Preserve is a one-mile stretch of beach located along with intertidal mud flats, sandy beaches, tidal creeks, and s...
Breaching or overtopping of coastal dunes is associated with greater upland damages. Reliable tools are needed to efficiently assess the likelihood of dune erosion during storm events. Existing methods rely on numerical modeling (extensive investment) or insufficiently parameterize the system. To fill this gap, a fragility curve model using a newly...
Coastal erosion is controlled by two sets of factors, one related to storm intensity and the other related to a location’s vulnerability. This study investigated the role of each set in controlling dune erosion based on data compiled for eighteen historical events in New Jersey. Here, storm intensity was characterized by the Storm Erosion Index (SE...
A comprehensive case study of the coastal processes for Fortescue Inlet (New Jersey, USA) is presented with the objective of minimizing maintenance dredging of the navigational channel. This study compares the effectiveness of both traditional sedimentation control structures and modified dredging templates, including construction of a new jetty, m...
Coastal areas of State of New Jersey in the Northeastern United States are exposed to extreme wind waves generated by tropical cyclones in the Atlantic Ocean. Past studies suggest that the frequency and intensity of major hurricanes in the Atlantic basin would increase under high greenhouse gas emission scenarios. Furthermore, sea level observation...
Beaches are dynamic systems characterized by frequent morphological changes due to storm events, gradients in longshore sediment transport, seasonal variations in wave climate and more. The complexity of variations in beach morphology can increase significantly after a beach nourishment, particularly when coastal structures are involved. This study...
A comprehensive case study of Keansburg Inlet (New Jersey, USA) is presented with the objective of evaluating inlet management alternatives and assessing the influence of an operational flood gate on channel shoaling. The goal of the research is determining the most effective strategy for minimizing the frequency of maintenance dredging. This study...
Measuring beach topography accurately and with high spatial resolution is an important aspect of coastal management and is crucial for understanding changes in beach morphology, especially along complex, three-dimensional shorelines. Traditional methods of beach surveying even at high resolution are insufficient to measure the complex, dynamic beha...
Coastal erosion is driven by both a storm’s erosion potential and by an area’s vulnerability. Therefore, the problem of estimating impacts can be approached in two-step. The first includes an assessment of erosion potential based on readily available storm parameters, while the second combines this information with highly localized parameters, desc...
Hurricane Michael made landfall as a Category 5 Hurricane on 10 October 2018 between Mexico Beach, Florida and Tyndall Air Force Base in Panama City Beach, Florida causing damages totaling $25 billion (Beven et al. 2019). While damages were caused by both wind and surge, this paper is solely concerned with the surge induced damages which were obser...
Almarshed, B.; Figlus, J.; Miller, J., and Verhagen, H.J., 0000. Innovative coastal risk reduction through hybrid design: Combining sand cover and structural defenses. Journal of Coastal Research, 00(0), 000-000. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. Worldwide, sand dunes and hard coastal structures help to minimize loss of lives and property fr...
Human population growth and accelerating coastal development have been the drivers for unprecedented construction of artificial structures along shorelines globally. Construction has been recently amplified by societal responses to reduce flood and erosion risks from rising sea levels and more extreme storms resulting from climate change. Such stru...
Human population growth and accelerating coastal development have been the drivers for unprecedented construction of artificial structures along shorelines globally. Construction has been recently amplified by societal responses to reduce flood and erosion risks from rising sea levels and more extreme storms resulting from climate change. Such stru...
In this study, the Storm Erosion Index (SEI), developed by Miller and Livermont (2008), is used to reevaluate storms that have impacted New Jersey over the past several decades based on their erosion potential. This index considers all three drivers of coastal erosion including wave height, water level, and storm duration and has been shown to more...
Storms play a significant role in coastal zone hydrodynamics, morphodynamics and flooding. The US Northeast is influenced by both extratropical (e.g. nor'easters) and tropical cyclones, which produce extreme winds, storm surges and waves, and as a result erosion and coastal damage. In this study, simulations of 100 of the most severe historical ext...
A cross-shore shoreline change model has been applied to the New Jersey coastline to provide predictions of regional shoreline position on timescales ranging from short-duration storm events to longer term seasonal fluctuations. The model relies on environmental input from readily available sources such as wave buoys and water level gauges, and is...
This paper investigates the damage caused by three different mechanisms-wave impact, scour/high velocity flow (HVF), and debris impact-to the oceanfront structures of two New Jersey coastal communities during Hurricane Sandy. The two neighboring communities, Bay Head and Mantoloking had similar dune sizes and beach profiles before the storm, with o...
As part of The Hudson River Sustainable Shorelines Project, a multi-year effort lead by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Hudson River National Estuarine Research Reserve (http:\\www.hrnerr.org), a forensic analysis was performed to investigate the site conditions of six alternative shoreline stabilization treatments, that...
Recently alternative shoreline stabilization approaches have become increasingly common in the urban northeastern United States. The occurrence of Superstorm Sandy just several months after the completion of two neighboring projects in the Bronx, NY, presented a unique opportunity to examine the performance of non-traditional shoreline projects und...
The morphologic evolution of a beach nourishment project constructed in Long Branch, New Jersey, USA is investigated using the method of empirical orthogonal functions (EOF). Most applications of EOFs on beach fill projects have focused on traditional linear fills on relatively long, straight, uninterrupted coastlines. The Long Branch project was u...
The objective of this document is to provide guidance to the engineering and regulatory community on the engineering components involved in the design of living shorelines projects. While the document is intended to provide the framework for the engineering design of living shorelines projects, the nature of these projects is such that diversity an...
Many documents have been developed with the objective of educating policy-makers, regulators, and property owners on the engineering and ecological aspects of living shorelines. The guidance presented here was developed specifically for engineering consultants, regulators, and private property owners to ensure that living shorelines projects are de...
This article provides a comparison of the damage mechanisms to oceanfront structures
protected by a beach and dune system, with vs. without a rock seawall during
Hurricane Sandy. The study investigates the damage caused by three different
mechanisms — wave impact, scour/high velocity flow (HVF), and debris impact
— to the oceanfront structures (i.e...
The purpose of the manual is to educate communities about dunes in the wake of natural disasters, sea level rise, and storm surge, by providing background information on the coastal ecosystems, their processes, and how they can mitigate the impacts of coastal storms. The information in the manual is intended to enable users to make informed decisio...
e purpose of the manual is to educate communities about dunes in the wake of natural disasters, sea level rise, and
storm surge, by providing background information on the coastal ecosystems, their processes, and how they can
mitigate the impacts of coastal storms. e information in the manual is intended to enable users to make informed
decisions...
Structures that are placed in the sandy coast can either provide protection or result in enhanced erosion. In this paper two case studies are elaborated where during the impact of Hurricane Sandy a morphological effect in cross-shore and longshore direction was measured due to the presence of a structure. In the cross-shore direction a structure ca...
Under the Hudson River Sustainable Shorelines Project, Stevens Institute analyzed Coast Guard imagery from 2004-2015 and authored Tidal Hudson River Ice Cover Climatology. This report explains the methodology and results of this climatological and statistical analyses for the ice distributions of ice thickness and ice cover as well as ice types on...
Structures that are placed in the sandy coast can either provide protection or result in enhanced erosion. In this paper two case studies are elaborated where during the impact of Hurricane Sandy a morphological effect in cross-shore and longshore direction was measured due to the presence of a structure. In the cross-shore direction a structure ca...
Structures that are placed in the sandy coast can either provide protection or result in enhanced erosion. In this paper two case studies are elaborated where during the impact of Hurricane Sandy a morphological effect in cross-shore and longshore direction was measured due to the presence of a structure. In the cross-shore direction a structure ca...
Structures that are placed in the sandy coast can either provide protection or result in enhanced erosion. In this paper two case studies are elaborated where during the impact of Hurricane Sandy a morphological effect in cross-shore and longshore direction was measured due to the presence of a structure. In the cross-shore direction a structure ca...
In this paper, twenty-one National Data Buoy Center buoys were analyzed to determine if changes in observational practices caused any inconsistencies in the long-term wave record. Wave observations along the U.S. East Coast were investigated and in the case of buoy 41002 contained 41 years of data. The effect of changes such as payload type and siz...
Hurricane Sandy made landfall in Brigantine, NJ, USA on October 29, 2012 and left many coastal communities in New York and New Jersey devastated. In New Jersey, the damage levels varied significantly between Sandy Hook in the north and Cape May to the south. This study reports on data collected under a National Science Foundation (NSF) RAPID grant...
During 2012 and 2013, the State of Florida was impacted by three tropical weather systems (Debby, Isaac, and Sandy) that caused significantly more beach erosion than similar, traditionally classified storms. Here, the storms are reclassified using the more recently developed Storm Erosion Index (SEI) which takes into consideration both the storm ti...
The evolution of a beach nourishment project constructed in Long Branch, NJ was investigated using the method of empirical orthogonal functions (EOF). Most applications of EOFs on beach fill projects have focused on traditional linear fills on relatively long, straight, uninterrupted coastlines. The Long Branch project was somewhat unique in that i...
A Comparison of the Impacts of Hurricane Irene and the “Friday the 13th” Northeaster in New Jersey
The beach fill was constructed using an innovative feeder beach design, rather than a standard linear fill template. The feeder beach design was adopted to address the concerns of local surfing groups by initially burying fewer structures, and by potentially creating additional surfing opportunities through enhanced bar formation during the equilib...
A new index which attempts to quantify past and future impacts of coastal storms based on their beach erosion potential is proposed. The new index considers changes in both waves and water levels, parameters which have typically been recorded during past storms, and which are regularly predicted for future storms. The Peak Erosion Index (PEI) combi...
A long-term water elevation record spanning 95 years at Atlantic City, New Jersey has been systematically analyzed to determine the appropriate method to calculate the stage-frequency of extreme water elevations. The annual maximum surge is found to be uncorrected with the annual maximum water elevation, indicating that a joint probability stochast...
A new method of classifying storms based on the erosion potential of its associated waves and water levels is presented. The Storm Erosion Index (SEI) and the related Peak Erosion Intensity (PEI) Index differ from traditional measures of storm magnitude in that they account for the joint occurrence of storm waves and elevated water levels in a phys...
The method of empirical orthogonal functions (EOF) or principal component analysis (PCA) is used to investigate the spatial and temporal variability of shoreline data sets from Duck, North Carolina, the Gold Coast, Australia, and the United States Pacific Northwest. The majority of the variability at each site (nearly 95%) is represented by the fir...
Paper presented at The Seventh International Conference on HydroScience and Engineering (ICHE) hosted by the College of Engineering at Drexel Univeristy on September 10-13, 2006 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The conference theme was IT in the Field of HydroSciences. It included several mini-symposia that emphasized IT topics in HydroSciences and t...
The method of empirical orthogonal function (EOF) or principal component analysis (PCA) was used to investigate the spatial and temporal variability of shoreline data sets from Duck, North Carolina, the Gold Coast, Australia, and the United States Pacific Northwest. In the present work, an attempt is made to relate the individual modes of shoreline...
Empirical orthogonal functions (EOFs) or principal components were used to extract the significant modes of shoreline variability from several data sets collected at three very different locations. Although EOFs have proven to be a valuable tool in the analysis of nearshore data, most applications have focused on the ability of the technique to des...
A simple new shoreline change model has been developed and calibrated/evaluated with several sets of high quality field data. The model is based upon the general observation that the shoreline tends to approach an equilibrium position exponentially with time when subjected to constant forcing. The model represents the shoreline response to cross-sh...
In February 2009, the New York District of the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) completed a beach renourishment project within the Long Brach, NJ reach of the Sandy Hook to Barnegat Inlet, Beach Erosion Control Project. The $9 million project placed 700,000 yd 3 of sand along a half-mile stretch of beach and included an alternative fill placement...
The Winter of 2009-2010 will go down as one of the stormiest in New Jersey's recent past and one of the most costly as well. Damage estimates within the state ran into the hundreds of millions of dollars, and resulted in the two presidential disaster declarations. Stage frequency analyses based on the maximum water level reached during each of the...