“California’s Delta, Levees and Risk: The application of tolerable risk guidelines and possible applications to Tidewater to manage the risk from rising sea levels.”

FEATURING:

LARRY ROTH, P.E., G.E., ENV.SP, D.WRE, D.GE

Vice President and Principal Engineer, Arcadis U.S.

Larry Roth will present the first lecture in the CEEVC’s annual lecture series on sea level rise. Mr. Roth was project manager for the Delta Levees Investment Strategy aimed at prioritizing state investments in improvements for 1,100 miles of levee in the California Delta for the Delta Stewardship Council, a California state agency. He will discuss how the state of California is applying tolerable risk guidelines to better inform the decision-making process and to ensure the best use of scarce resources. The CEEVC recognizes this approach as a possible process to assist the Tidewater region with investments to manage risk from rising sea levels. The council invited Mr. Roth to share his experience and relate it to our needs. Larry Roth co-authored “California’s Delta, Levees and Risk” published in September 2016 in the American Society of Civil Engineers’ magazine, Civil Engineering. Mr. Roth’s career in consulting civil and geotechnical engineering spans five decades, primarily in the western U.S. where he specializes in water resources projects. Before joining Arcadis, he was Executive Vice President on the staff of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) in Washington, DC. At ASCE, he led the Society’s critical infrastructure initiative following 9-11, and he was chief-of-staff for the Hurricane Katrina Independent External Review Panel, charged by the Chief of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to provide real-time review of the Corps’ after-action analysis of levee failures in New Orleans. Larry is currently a senior geotechnical engineer on three levee repair projects on the Rio Grande for the U.S. International Boundary and Water Commission, and the Ohio Creek Watershed Improvements project for the City of Norfolk, Virginia.

For additional information, please contact: Gary Schafran (gschafra@odu.edu) Dave Pezza (dpezz001@odu.edu)