Dewberry is proud to announce the promotion of Brian Batten, Ph.D., CFM, to associate in the firm’s Richmond, Virginia, office.
Batten is a senior coastal scientist and project manager with Dewberry’s resilience solutions group and leads the firm’s sea level rise (SLR) practice. He has more than 20 years of experience in coastal marine sciences and is an expert in coastal hazards, including coastal flooding, coastal erosion, and SLR.
Batten has led research efforts on coastal erosion for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, as well as storm surge modeling and coastal hazard mapping for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and serves as a technical resource on SLR. He leads pilot studies on SLR hazard and vulnerability and risk analysis, to assist in resiliency planning to an array of clients.
He was in charge of inundation and recovery map production for the Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita Recovery Mapping project for FEMA, which resulted in the production of approximately 1,700 recovery maps. He also served as a technical lead for Hurricane Sandy recovery mapping, and for recent flood impact assessments for Hurricanes Hermine and Matthew.
Recently, Batten served as project manager for the development of future coastal flood hazard information for the State of New York. This resulted in the creation of an interactive website tool developed to allow municipalities to use scientific data for resilience planning for future storms and flooding. He is also currently working with the City of Virginia Beach, Virginia, leading a comprehensive SLR and recurrent flooding risk analysis to develop SLR adaptation strategies. He has authored or contributed to more than 80 technical reports or publications on coastal hazards, the most recent being published in Environmental Science & Policy about a collaborative study on the nation’s public opinion on SLR and inundation.
Batten holds a doctorate in coastal oceanography and a master’s degree in marine environmental science from Stony Brook University, and received his bachelor’s degree in marine environmental science from Coastal Carolina University. He is a certified floodplain manager in Virginia, and a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers and the Association of State Floodplain Managers.
