Informing the Vermilion River Watershed Plan through Application of the Cold Regions Hydrological Model Platform

Prepared for Ducks Unlimited Canada and North Saskatchewan Watershed Alliance.Non-Peer ReviewedThe Vermilion River Basin has been identified as one of most altered basins in the North Saskatchewan River Basin by the North Saskatchewan Watershed Alliance. Of all the basin altering activities, wetland drainage is thought to be the most important one in impacting watershed hydrology. The Cold Regions Hydrological Model (CRHM) has had recent developments that make it particularly appropriate to evaluate the impacts of Canadian Prairie wetlands on hydrology. In light of the importance of wetlands in the Vermilion River Basin and the capability of CRHM, this study had five objectives: 1) Setup CRHM for the Vermilion River Basin and conduct preliminary tests using local meteorological data. 2) Develop an improved wetland module that incorporates the dynamics of drained wetland complexes in the physically based, modular Prairie Hydrological Model of CRHM. 3) Refine CRHM results using advances in the improved wetland module, additional parameter data and other adjustments as necessary. 4) Demonstrate scenarios/sensitivity of landscape components such as wetlands and uplands to support planning decisions and make recommendations for land and watershed management. 5) Apply CRHM results to fortify recommendations and support decision making during initial plan implementation. The objectives were addressed with the following methodology. Existing data on precipitation, hydrometeorology, wetland characteristics, stage and extent, drainage pattern and land cover in the Vermilion River Basin were compiled. The existing CRHM Prairie Hydrological Model formulation was set up on the basin and test runs conducted and compared to streamflow hydrographs over multiple years. Then, improvements to the Prairie Hydrological Model formulation of CRHM were made so that CRHM could simulate sequences of many wetlands of varying sizes. The improved model was evaluated through hydrological simulation and quantitative analysis of streamflow and then used in sensitivity analysis of the effect of changing wetland drainage/restoration on streamflow for the Vermilion River. The model was then used to evaluate wetland manipulation and climate scenarios to fortify recommendations, explore options and support decision making for the implementation of the Vermilion watershed plan. The streamflow response of the Vermilion River Basin at its mouth was found to be dominated by channel hydraulics and the control structures in the lower basin and so it is influenced by wetlands only to the extent that the management regime of these control structures is affected by upstream hydrological behaviour of the tributaries with respect to volume and timing of streamflow inputs to the structures. Changes in the upper basin streamflows are more likely to be controlled by changes in the basin hydrological processes rather than in-stream water management and/or channel modifications and therefore the upper basin streamflows are more likely to show the effects of the manipulation of wetland storage

Improving and Testing the Prairie Hydrological Model at Smith Creek Research Basin

Non-Peer ReviewedThe 2010 Prairie Hydrological Model configuration of the Cold Regions Hydrological Model was developed to include improved snowmelt and evaporation physics and a hysteretic relationship between wetland storage and runoff contributing area. The revised model was used to simulate the snow regimes on and the streamflow runoff from the five sub-basins and main basin of Smith Creek, Saskatchewan for six years (2007-2013) with good performance when compared to field observations. Smith Creek measured streamflows over this period included the highest annual flow volume on record (2011) and high flows from heavy summer rains in 2012. Smith Creek basin has undergone substantial drainage from 1958 when it contained 96 km2 of wetlands covering 24% of the basin area to the existing (2008 measurement) 43 km2 covering 11% of the basin. The Prairie Hydrological Model was run over the 2007-2013 period for various wetland extent scenarios that included the 1958 historical maximum, measured extents in 2000 and 2008, a minimum extent that excluded drainage of conservation lands and an extreme minimum extent involving complete drainage of all wetlands in Smith Creek basin. Overall, Smith Creek total flow volumes over six years increase 55% due to drainage of wetlands from the current (2008) state, and decrease 26% with restoration to the 1958 state. This sensitivity in flow volume to wetland change is crucially important for the water balance of downstream water bodies such as Lake Winnipeg. Whilst the greatest proportional impacts on the peak daily flows are for dry years, substantial impacts on the peak daily discharge of record (2011) from wetland drainage (+78%) or restoration (-32%) are notable and important for infrastructure in and downstream of Smith Creek. For the flood of record (2011), the annual flow volume and the peak daily discharge are estimated to increase from 57,317 to 81,227 dam3 and from 19.5 to 27.5 m3 /s, respectively, due to wetland drainage that has already occurred in Smith Creek. Although Smith Creek is already heavily drained and its streamflows have been impacted, the annual flow volumes and peak daily discharge for the flood of record can still be strongly increased by complete drainage from the 2008 wetland state, rising to 103,669 dam3 and 49 m3 /s respectively. This model simulation exercise shows that wetland drainage can increase annual and peak daily flows substantially, and that notable increases to estimates of the annual volume and peak daily flow of the flood of record have derived from wetland drainage and will proceed with further wetland drainage

CMB-S4: Forecasting Constraints on Primordial Gravitational Waves

CMB-S4---the next-generation ground-based cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiment---is set to significantly advance the sensitivity of CMB measurements and enhance our understanding of the origin and evolution of the Universe, from the highest energies at the dawn of time through the growth of structure to the present day. Among the science cases pursued with CMB-S4, the quest for detecting primordial gravitational waves is a central driver of the experimental design. This work details the development of a forecasting framework that includes a power-spectrum-based semi-analytic projection tool, targeted explicitly towards optimizing constraints on the tensor-to-scalar ratio, $r$, in the presence of Galactic foregrounds and gravitational lensing of the CMB. This framework is unique in its direct use of information from the achieved performance of current Stage 2--3 CMB experiments to robustly forecast the science reach of upcoming CMB-polarization endeavors. The methodology allows for rapid iteration over experimental configurations and offers a flexible way to optimize the design of future experiments given a desired scientific goal. To form a closed-loop process, we couple this semi-analytic tool with map-based validation studies, which allow for the injection of additional complexity and verification of our forecasts with several independent analysis methods. We document multiple rounds of forecasts for CMB-S4 using this process and the resulting establishment of the current reference design of the primordial gravitational-wave component of the Stage-4 experiment, optimized to achieve our science goals of detecting primordial gravitational waves for $r > 0.003$ at greater than $5\sigma$, or, in the absence of a detection, of reaching an upper limit of $r < 0.001$ at $95\%$ CL.Comment: 24 pages, 8 figures, 9 tables, submitted to ApJ. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1907.0447

CMB-S4: Forecasting Constraints on Primordial Gravitational Waves

Abstract: CMB-S4—the next-generation ground-based cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiment—is set to significantly advance the sensitivity of CMB measurements and enhance our understanding of the origin and evolution of the universe. Among the science cases pursued with CMB-S4, the quest for detecting primordial gravitational waves is a central driver of the experimental design. This work details the development of a forecasting framework that includes a power-spectrum-based semianalytic projection tool, targeted explicitly toward optimizing constraints on the tensor-to-scalar ratio, r, in the presence of Galactic foregrounds and gravitational lensing of the CMB. This framework is unique in its direct use of information from the achieved performance of current Stage 2–3 CMB experiments to robustly forecast the science reach of upcoming CMB-polarization endeavors. The methodology allows for rapid iteration over experimental configurations and offers a flexible way to optimize the design of future experiments, given a desired scientific goal. To form a closed-loop process, we couple this semianalytic tool with map-based validation studies, which allow for the injection of additional complexity and verification of our forecasts with several independent analysis methods. We document multiple rounds of forecasts for CMB-S4 using this process and the resulting establishment of the current reference design of the primordial gravitational-wave component of the Stage-4 experiment, optimized to achieve our science goals of detecting primordial gravitational waves for r > 0.003 at greater than 5σ, or in the absence of a detection, of reaching an upper limit of r < 0.001 at 95% CL

An Investigation of Service Quality—Willingness to Recommend Relationship across Patient and Hospital Characteristics

This study investigates onto which dimensions of service quality have more impact on patients’ overall quality perceptions of a hospital and seeks to determine the nature of relationship between service quality and patients’ willingness to recommend a hospital to their friends and family. The study also uncovers if the levels of service quality and recommendation behaviours and the relationship between service quality and recommendation behaviour exhibit similar patterns among male versus female, black versus white patients and small/medium versus large hospitals. Data gathered via mail questionnaires and phone interviews from a large sample of the patients of a hospital system in the Southern United States serve as the study setting. Results are presented and their implications are discussed. Avenues for future research are offered

RNA backbone: Consensus all-angle conformers and modular string nomenclature (an RNA Ontology Consortium contribution)

A consensus classification and nomenclature are defined for RNA backbone structure using all of the backbone torsion angles. By a consensus of several independent analysis methods, 46 discrete conformers are identified as suitably clustered in a quality-filtered, multidimensional dihedral angle distribution. Most of these conformers represent identifiable features or roles within RNA structures. The conformers are given two-character names that reflect the seven-angle δεζαβγδ combinations empirically found favorable for the sugar-to-sugar “suite” unit within which the angle correlations are strongest (e.g., 1a for A-form, 5z for the start of S-motifs). Since the half-nucleotides are specified by a number for δεζ and a lowercase letter for αβγδ, this modular system can also be parsed to describe traditional nucleotide units (e.g., a1) or the dinucleotides (e.g., a1a1) that are especially useful at the level of crystallographic map fitting. This nomenclature can also be written as a string with two-character suite names between the uppercase letters of the base sequence (N1aG1gN1aR1aA1cN1a for a GNRA tetraloop), facilitating bioinformatic comparisons. Cluster means, standard deviations, coordinates, and examples are made available, as well as the Suitename software that assigns suite conformer names and conformer match quality (suiteness) from atomic coordinates. The RNA Ontology Consortium will combine this new backbone system with others that define base pairs, base-stacking, and hydrogen-bond relationships to provide a full description of RNA structural motifs