Acquisition will merge combined knowledge to help clients proactively prepare for and mitigate impacts from extreme weather events

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C., Oct. 31, 2024 /PRNewswire/ – Taking proactive steps to advance science and address the challenges of a changing climate, RTI International, a nonprofit research institute, today announced the acquisition of all assets of hydrological engineering and statistical software modeling companies MGS Engineering and MGS Software, combining knowledge and technology under one roof to enhance flood analysis for clients.

RTI and MGS have collaborated for more than 10 years to provide hydrological modeling and related engineering services to government agencies, hydropower operators, utility owners, dam safety organizations and more. Based in Olympia, Washington, MGS’s two principals will transition into roles as exclusive advisors to RTI, lending their breadth of experience to RTI’s Center for Water Resources team. The move extends RTI’s capacity and expertise in analyzing extreme weather events, flood risk analysis and climate change impacts, providing more streamlined and efficient precipitation analyses and implementation for clients.

“As we expand our hydrologic hazards team, we’re thrilled to expand our longtime partnership with MGS Engineering,” said Michael Kane, director of RTI’s Center for Water Resources. “With the engineering community increasingly adopting risk-based approaches, there’s a growing need for effective tools and data to enhance analysis. The MGS tools are excellent for supporting stochastic simulations and extremes analysis. RTI is well-equipped to evaluate the probabilities of extreme floods, from a single dam to an entire portfolio or even a complex managed river system.”

The tools and models are used to understand watershed precipitation frequency to support dam safety, critical infrastructure protections and stormwater design applications. The acquisition will help better answer important questions including:

What is the probability of extreme flooding?
What is the probability of having a flood of a particular size at a dam or other critical infrastructure such as nuclear storage facilities?
How should infrastructure be designed to address the flood risks?

RTI will continue to support and expand development of the MGS suite of tools, including the Stochastic Event Flood Model (SEFM), MGSFlood and others.

Learn more about RTI’s Center for Water Resources

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Kerry Branon
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