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Eric D. Swain, Ph.D.

Eric Swain has lived in Miami for over 37 years and researched South Florida hydrology with the USGS since 1988. With over 130 publications in water resources and fluid mechanics, Eric has developed a variety of analyses and models to understand the hydrologic system and provide information for water management.

Dr. Swain is a research hydrologist at the Caribbean Florida Water Science Center office in Fort Lauderdale Florida. He has a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering along with a M.S. and two B.S. degrees all from the University of Miami. He has specialized in the development of numerical models of surface-water/groundwater flow as well as statistical analysis of hydrologic parameters and methodology for determining field parameters. Dr. Swain has developed models for use in predicting the effects of ecosystem restoration efforts and the interaction with biologic concerns. His most recent work has concerned the dynamic effects of sea-level rise and other climatic factors on coastal hydrology and ecology.

 

Hydrologist for U. S. Geological Survey, Water Resources Division from November 1988 to the present. Surface Water Specialist at USGS Miami Florida Subdistrict office.

Projects include:

Developing methodology for measurement of canal discharge from ultrasonic velocity measurements;

Coupling of ground-water and canal-network computational models with modifications to simulate seasonally inundated wetlands directly connected to a regulated canal system

Analysis and optimization of a ground-water measurement network;

Determine functionality and accuracy of a regional digital model utilized by water managers for decision-making in South Florida.;

Determination of surface-water outflows by hydraulic structure rating and numerical modeling;

Digitally compute two-dimensional surface-water flow and transport in the southern coastal area of Everglades National Park and Florida Bay. This model is coupled with a ground-water model to examine flow and salinity transport in both regimes. Using boundaries from a regional model allows the coupled model to be used by water managers for restoration decisions and for input to ecologic models;

Appling parameter-estimation code to numerical model to determine the water-delivery scheme to optimize salinity values in the coastal Everglades;

Incorporating heat-transport in the coupled model to provide heat-transport as well as other hydrologic information for ecological studies;

Numerical modeling of coupled hydrodynamic surface-water and ground-water flow and transport; development of FTLOADDS model;

Utilizing numerical techniques to evaluate sea-level rise effects on coastal landscapes.

Representing historic storm effects on coastal hydrology with numerical techniques.

Applying neural network techniques to represent the rainfall/runoff process in Puerto Rico.

Modeling seepage flow in coastal areas with heat as a tracer.

Determining regional flood-frequency atribution.

Developing processes for the National Hydrologic Model (NHM)

 

Taught Fluid Mechanics at the University of Miami Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering from Fall 1999 through fall 2004.

Topics included: Fluid statics, fluid flow concepts, dynamics of inviscid and viscous fluids, closed and open channel