Managed Aquifer Recharge as a Tool to Enhance Sustainable Groundwater Management in California

A growing population and an increased demand for water resources have resulted in a global trend of groundwater depletion. Arid and semi-arid climates are particularly susceptible, often relying on groundwater to support large population centers or irrigated agriculture in the absence of sufficient surface water resources. In an effort to increase the security of groundwater resources, managed aquifer recharge (MAR) programs have been developed and implemented globally. MAR is the approach of intentionally harvesting and infiltrating water to recharge depleted aquifer storage. California is a prime example of this growing problem, with three cities that have over a million residents and an agricultural industry that was valued at 47 billion dollars in 2015. The present-day groundwater overdraft of over 100 km3 (since 1962) indicates a clear disparity between surface water supply and water demand within the state. In the face of groundwater overdraft and the anticipated effects of climate change, many new MAR projects are being constructed or investigated throughout California, adding to those that have existed for decades. Some common MAR types utilized in California include injection wells, infiltration basins (also known as spreading basins, percolation basins, or recharge basins), and low-impact development. An emerging MAR type that is actively being investigated is the winter flooding of agricultural fields using existing irrigation infrastructure and excess surface water resources, known as agricultural MAR. California therefore provides an excellent case study to look at the historical use and performance of MAR, ongoing and emerging challenges, novel MAR applications, and the potential for expansion of MAR. Effective MAR projects are an essential tool for increasing groundwater security, both in California and on a global scale. This chapter aims to provide an overview of the most common MAR types and applications within the State of California and neighboring semi-arid regions

Lambda Calculus for Engineers

In pure functional programming it is awkward to use a stateful sub-computation in a predominantly stateless computation. The problem is that the state of the subcomputation has to be passed around using ugly plumbing. Classical examples of the plumbing problem are: providing a supply of fresh names, and providing a supply of random numbers. We propose to use (deterministic) inductive definitions rather than recursion equations as a basic paradigm and show how this makes it easier to add the plumbing

Biological handbook for engineers

Microbiological background information is compiled in handbook for engineers and scientists working on bio-related projects. It is intended as aid in - /1/ evaluating effects of engineering procedures on microbial life, /2/ determining effects of decontamination and sterilization on performance of overall systems, and /3/ understanding language of microbiologists

Sustainable Software Ecosystems: Software Engineers, Domain Scientists, and Engineers Collaborating for Science

The development of scientific software is often a partnership between domain scientists and scientific software engineers. It is especially important to embrace these collaborations when developing advanced scientific software, where sustainability, reproducibility, and extensibility are important. In the ideal case, as discussed in this manuscript, this brings together teams composed of the world's foremost scientific experts in a given field with seasoned software developers experienced in forming highly collaborative teams working on software to further scientific research.Comment: 4 pages, submission for WSSSPE

The engineers that time forgot

You and I, dear reader of IEEE Microwave Magazine, are set to become more valuable day by day. Let me see if I can paint a picture of why

Colonizing the Thames

A case in which colonial engineers and administrators, working in concert with engineers and officials based in Britain, sought to employ the "tools of empire" on the metropole

Readers, readers, writers and engineers

Extended review of books <i>Knowledge, Power and Learning</i> and <i>Learning, Space and Identity</i>, both ed. Carrie Paechter et al., Paul Chapman Publishing (2001). ISBNs 0-769-6937-3 and 0-7619-6939-X

The mathematical components of engineering expertise: the relationship between doing and understanding mathematics

this paper are extracts from our interviews with engineers.) Where, then, is the complex mathematics that certainly exists in modern engineering? Throughout all aspects of engineering design, computer software has an overwhelming presence. Also, in the particular firm that we visited, there a small number of analytical specialists (a few per cent of the professional engineers employed) who act as consultants for the mathematical/analytical problems which the general design engineers cannot readily solve. (In general in structural engineering, such specialist work is often carried out by external consultants, eg. academic researchers

Skills in Ethics for Engineers

A script of a lecture giving examples of everyday ethical statements made in an engineering context, making a link with the views of the ethicist G.E. Moore and a conclusion about the skills that engineers might acquire to partcipate in ethical debate