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	Memorandum
U.S. Department of Transportation
Federal Highway Administration

The Federal Highway Administration in partnership with the Tennessee Department of Transportation, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, the Transportation Research Board, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Cold Regions Research Laboratory, is pleased to announce the 2012 National Hydraulic Engineering Conference (NHEC) in Nashville, Tennessee. Dates for the conference are August 28 through 31, 2012. The conference venue is the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center and their Website is: www.gaylordhoels.com/Gaylord-Opryland. Rooms will be at the government rate of $107, plus taxes and fees per night. Reservations must be made 30 days prior to August 28 to obtain the government rate. Participants should identify themselves as being with NHEC or use group code X-DOT 12.

The theme of the fifth national conference will be "Flow Near, Under, and Over Roads: Optimizing Highway Hydraulics." Conference presentations will highlight solutions to challenges highway agencies face regarding flows over, under, and near roadways. Such challenges include scour, stream stability, water quality, climate change, modeling, etc. Additionally, conference attendees will meet hydraulic engineering practitioners from around the country and be able to learn more about solutions to these challenges in one-on-one conversations during breakfasts, lunches, and break times. We encourage your appropriate division staff, your corresponding State and local agency staff, and surface transportation professionals from related technical disciplines (e.g. hydraulic engineers, environmental engineers and specialists, and roadway designers) to attend this conference.

For those interested in sharing experiences, methods, or tools for optimizing highway hydraulics, the conference is now accepting abstracts for presentations. The main topics of the conference include:

• Infrastructure Maintenance/Management (culverts, unknown foundations)
• Coastal Engineering (storm surge)
• Climate Change (sea level rise, precipitation changes, interpreting climate modeling data)
• Physical modeling (wave oscillation)
• Pipe Rehabilitation or pipe liner research
• Stormwater Quality (fountains for aeration to prevent anoxic conditions, stormwater reuse, ultra urban stormwater management, wetlands)
• Erosion and sediment control (turbidity monitoring)
• Strategies for TMDL compliance and technical review (lessons learned about TMDLs – TMDL new science, infiltration)
• Low Impact Development
• Flooding Case Studies
• Failures Case Studies
• Change in watersheds - hydromodification analysis
• Scour (research, case studies, risk management, plans of action)
• Bridge and culvert hydraulics
• Stream Stability Issues
• Highway Projects in a Floodplain

Please submit your abstract to Cynthia Nurmi at cynthia.nurmi@dot.gov by April 30, 2012. Presentation selection and notification to speakers will take place by May 2012.

Additional information concerning registration, field trips, etc., will be provided soon. In the meantime, you may contact Cynthia Nurmi at cynthia.nurmi@dot.gov or Brian Beucler at brian.beucler@dot.gov.

On behalf of the conference steering committee and the sponsoring agencies, thank you for supporting this important event.

cc:
Cynthia Nurmi, HRC-ATL

Also see:

2012 National Hydraulic Engineering Conference web site