GlobWat – a global water balance model to assess water use in irrigated agriculture (discussion paper)

GlobWat is a freely distributed, global soil water balance model that is used by FAO to assess water use in irrigated agriculture; the main factor behind scarcity of freshwater in an increasing number of regions. The model is based on spatially distributed high resolution datasets that are consistent at global level and calibrated against values for Internal Renewable Water Resources, as published in AQUASTAT, FAO’s global information system on water and agriculture. Validation of the model is done against mean annual river basin outflows. The water balance is calculated in two steps: first a “vertical” water balance is calculated that includes evaporation from in situ rainfall (“green” water) and incremental evaporation from irrigated crops. In a second stage, a “horizontal” water balance is calculated to determine discharges from river (sub-)basins, taking into account incremental evaporation from irrigation, open water and wetlands (“blue” water). The paper describes methodology, input and output data, calibration and validation of the model. The model results are finally compared with other global water balance models.Water ManagementCivil Engineering and Geoscience

GlobWat - a global water balance model to assess water use in irrigated agriculture

GlobWat is a freely distributed, global soil water balance model that is used by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to assess water use in irrigated agriculture, the main factor behind scarcity of freshwater in an increasing number of regions. The model is based on spatially distributed high-resolution data sets that are consistent at global level and calibrated against values for internal renewable water resources, as published in AQUASTAT, the FAO's global information system on water and agriculture. Validation of the model is done against mean annual river basin outflows. The water balance is calculated in two steps: first a "vertical" water balance is calculated that includes evaporation from in situ rainfall ("green" water) and incremental evaporation from irrigated crops. In a second stage, a "horizontal" water balance is calculated to determine discharges from river (sub-)basins, taking into account incremental evaporation from irrigation, open water and wetlands ("blue" water). The paper describes the methodology, input and output data, calibration and validation of the model. The model results are finally compared with other global water balance models to assess levels of accuracy and validity.Water ManagementCivil Engineering and Geoscience

Spatial evapotranspiration, rainfall and land use data in water accounting. Part 2: Reliability of water accounting results for policy decisions in the Awash basin

Water Accounting Plus (WAC) is a framework that summarizes complex hydrological processes and water management issues in river basins. The framework is designed to use satellite-based measurements of land and water variables and processes as input data. A general concern associated with the use of satellite measurements is their accuracy. This study focuses on the impact of the error in remote sensing measurements on water accounting and information provided to policy makers. The Awash Basin in the central Rift Valley in Ethiopia is used as a case study to explore the reliability of WAC outputs, in the light of input data errors. The Monte Carlo technique was used for stochastic simulation of WAC outputs over a period of 3 yr. The results show that the stochastic mean of the majority of WAC parameters and performance indicators are within 5% deviation from the original WAC values based on one single calculation. Stochastic computation is proposed as a standard procedure for WAC water accounting because it provides the uncertainty bandwidth for every WAC output, which is essential information for sound decision-making processes. The majority of WAC parameters and performance indicators have a coefficient of variation (CV) of less than 20 %, which implies that they are reliable and provide consistent information on the functioning of the basin. The results of the Awash Basin also indicate that the utilized flow and basin closure fraction (the degree to which available water in a basin is utilized) have a high margin of error and thus a low reliability. As such, the usefulness of them in formulating important policy decisions for the Awash Basin is limited. Other river basins will usually have a more accurate assessment of the discharge in the river mouth.Water ManagementCivil Engineering and Geoscience

A many-analysts approach to the relation between religiosity and well-being

The relation between religiosity and well-being is one of the most researched topics in the psychology of religion, yet the directionality and robustness of the effect remains debated. Here, we adopted a many-analysts approach to assess the robustness of this relation based on a new cross-cultural dataset ((Formula presented.) participants from 24 countries). We recruited 120 analysis teams to investigate (1) whether religious people self-report higher well-being, and (2) whether the relation between religiosity and self-reported well-being depends on perceived cultural norms of religion (i.e., whether it is considered normal and desirable to be religious in a given country). In a two-stage procedure, the teams first created an analysis plan and then executed their planned analysis on the data. For the first research question, all but 3 teams reported positive effect sizes with credible/confidence intervals excluding zero (median reported (Formula presented.)). For the second research question, this was the case for 65% of the teams (median reported (Formula presented.)). While most teams applied (multilevel) linear regression models, there was considerable variability in the choice of items used to construct the independent variables, the dependent variable, and the included covariates.Web Information System

TORS: A train unit shunting and servicing simulator

When trains are finished with their transportation tasks during the day, they are moved to a shunting yard where they are routed, parked, cleaned, subject to regular maintenance checks and repaired during the night. The resulting Train Unit Shunting and Servicing problem motivates advanced research in planning and scheduling in general since it integrates several known individually hard problems while incorporating many real-life details. We developed an event-based simulator called TORS (Dutch acronym for Train Shunting and Servicing Simulator), that provides the user with a state and all feasible actions. After an action is picked, TORS calculates the result and the process repeats. This simulator facilitates research into a realistic application of multi-agent path finding.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Algorithmic

Creating transport models that matter: A strategic view on governance of transport models and road maps for innovation

The basic use of transport models is that they help to increase our understanding of the mobility system. In more operational terms, they can be a basis for developing quantitative insights in the past and current state of the system or scenarios about the future. Models are also useful as impact assessment tools in decision making processes or for ex post evaluation. Each purpose places different demands on the availability and quality of information. The issue treated in this paper is how we can improve the organization of the supply side of the modeling market (including the influence of public agents on this market) in a way that the models can meet policy demands of the future. We consider two dimensions of model supply: (1) the contents dimension, i.e. the ability to inform policy makers on specific policy questions and (2) the dimension of governance of model development and model applications. We report on the findings of two studies that were conducted in 2009 and 2010 sponsored by the Dutch Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management. The first study developed a long term vision on important governance aspects such as quality assurance and presentation of model results. The second study developed a long term road map for R&D of passenger and freight transport models. The combined result of the two studies should help to establish a new generation of transport models that is as rich in contents as needed, and as context friendly as possible.Infrastructures, Systems and ServicesTechnology, Policy and Managemen

Single Pixel Performance of a 32 x 32 Ti/Au TES Array With Broadband X-Ray Spectra

We are developing a kilo-pixels Ti/Au TES array as a backup option for Athena X-IFU. Here we report on single-pixel performance of a 32 × 32 array operated in a Frequency Division Multiplexing (FDM) readout system, with bias frequencies in the range 1-5 MHz. We have tested the pixels response at several photon energies, by means of a 55Fe radioactive source (emitting Mn-Kα at 5.9 keV) and a Modulated X-ray Source (MXS, providing Cr-Kα at 5.4 keV and Cu-Kα at 8.0 keV). First, we report the procedure used to perform the detector energy scale calibration, usually achieving a calibration accuracy better than ∼0.5 eV in the 5.4-8.9 keV energy range. Then, we present the measured energy resolution at the different energies (best single pixel performance: ΔEFWHM = 2.40 ± 0.09 eV @ 5.4 keV; 2.53 ± 0.10 eV @ 5.9 keV; 2.78 ± 0.16 eV @ 8.0 keV), investigating also the performance dependency from the pixel bias frequency and the count rate. Thanks to long background measurements (∼1 d), we finally detected also the Al-Kα line at 1.5 keV, generated by fluorescence inside the experimental setup. We analyzed this line to obtain a first assessment of the single-pixel performance also at low energy (ΔEFWHM = 1.91 eV ± 0.21 eV @ 1.5 keV), and to evaluate the linearity of the detector response in a large energy band (1.5-8.9 keV). ImPhys/Optic