Kentucky River Basin: Unified Long-Range Water Resources Plan. Historic Water Supply Plans of the Kentucky River Basin

The Kentucky River Authority was mandated by regulatory statute 420 KAR I :030, Section 4 to develop a Unified Long-Range Water Resources Plan (ULRWRP) for the Kentucky River Basin. This summary document was written by the Kentucky Water Resources Research Institute under a contractual agreement with the Kentucky River Authority in support of this plan. It addresses several required components of the ULRWRP, including: Acquisition and utilization of the Kentucky River Lock and Dam system; Construction, acquisition and control of projects and facilities; Regulation of flows and allocation of supplies; Basin-wide and specific local land and water conservation measures and practices; and Economic development. This report provides summaries of the numerous documents written about the water resources of the Kentucky River. Section 1.0 provides a chronological listing of these documents. Due to the fact that many of these reports were written upon the request of a local, state or federal agency, or were required by state or federal legislation, Section 2. 0 categorizes the historical documents by the agency or organization sponsoring the specific study. The document summaries in Section 3.0 are also categorized by the sponsoring entity. Reports written about the Kentucky River basin cover a variety of topics, but focus primarily on water supply issues and the potential for developing additional supplies in the basin. Many proposals are offered for ways to increase storage in the mainstem pools of the river, as well as for potential reservoir sites in various river tributaries. The summary table at the conclusion of the report (Section 4.0) lists historically proposed water supply alternatives, along with a notation of which projects were actually implemented. For those supply alternatives not completed, an attempt is made to explain why it was not pursued

Development of a Decision Support System for Drought Characterization and Management: Application to Lexington, Kentucky

This report presents the results of an investigation into the potential use of expert system technology as an effective tool for drought forecasting and management. Historical data derived from the Kentucky River Basin was used to test the resulting decision support system. This study has demonstrated that expert system technology can serve as an effective platform for use in assisting the decision maker in both characterizing the nature of an existing drought and in selecting and implementing the required management policy. The success of any decision making process will of course be dependent upon the quality of the data upon which those decisions are made. In the current study, the critical data were the forecasted streamflow and the forecasted system demand for the coming week. Several different model structures were investigated for use in forecasting both streamflow and system demand. While a reasonable level of accuracy was obtained for the demand forecasts, only limited success was obtained in forecasting future weekly average streamflows. As a result, a probabilistic model structure was developed for use with streamflow forecasts that allowed more interaction with the decision maker. Although the resulting model evaluations failed to produce what may be considered satisfactory results, the developed model structure does provide a flexibility that may lead to improved performance by augmentation with additional rule based heuristics. Although not fully explored, several potential heuristic structures are identified. Additional model improvement can be expected by further refinement of the underlying deterministic streamflow forecast model structure

Development of Dynamic Non-Hortonian Watershed Models for Steeply Sloping Forested Watersheds: Application to Eastern Kentucky

A comprehensive conceptual watershed model is developed to simulate the hydrologic response of steeply sloping forested watersheds. Two non-Hortonian and two Hortonian models were first tested with data from selected watersheds in West Virginia and eastern Kentucky in order to understand the different mechanisms of flow responsible for storm hydrograph generation in this type of watersheds. The two non-Hortonian models tested were the kinematic storage model (Sloan et al. 1983) and the saturation deficit model (Beven and Wood, 1983). Both models were unable to adequately reproduce the observed hydrographs in the four forested watersheds considered in this research. The two Hortonian models tested were Clark\u27s unit hydrograph model and Snyder\u27s unit hydrograph model. These two models were able to reproduce the observed hydrographs only through model calibration with unrealistic parameter values. Based on the conclusions from the testing of the two non-Hortonian and the two Hortonian models, a simple conceptual comprehensive watershed model was developed for predicting storm hydrograph from small, steeply sloping forested watersheds. The conceptual model incorporates all types of flow processes including macropore flow (quick response subsurface flow). An evaluation of the resulting model was made using the data from the previously mentioned four watersheds in West Virginia and eastern Kentucky. The model predicted with reasonable accuracy the response of these watersheds to precipitation. The results indicate that the model is capable of simulating the hydrologic response of this type of watersheds while at the same time depicting the actual flow mechanism in play

Development of General Guidelines for the Planning of Stormwater Management Facilities: Application to Urban Watersheds in Kentucky

This report provides a planning methodology and a design tool to help determine the appropriate location and volume of detention basins required to control critical storm events. The technique involves using watershed characteristics including the SCS curve number, time of concentration, peak outflow rate, watershed area and the storage recurrence interval to help predict these detention volumes. Historical rainfall records are used in a revised continuous simulation program (SYNOP, Hydroscience, Inc,) to determine the rainfall excess from which runoff hydrographs are produced. Various combinations of the watershed characteristics were input and computer analyses done to obtain the required data base. A statistical analysis is performed in each computer analysis to obtain the statistics on the required volume. Graphs were drawn from these statistical results as functions of the watershed characteristics and the release rate. Entering the graphs with the governing watershed characteristics, the designer can obtain.a good estimate of the detention basin volume required

CSO Impact Assessment for Banklick Creek

This report contains the results of a combined sewer overflow (CSO) impact assessment study for Banklick Creek, which flows into the Licking River just south of Covington, Kentucky in Kenton County, Kentucky. This study is a component of a larger study that was conducted to determine the general impact of CSOs in the Northern Kentucky Region. The study was conducted through the Kentucky Water Resource Research Institute of the University of Kentucky and was funded by the Kentucky Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Cabinet through a grant from the United States Environmental Protection Agency

Development of PVDF Membrane Nanocomposites via Various Functionalization Approaches for Environmental Applications

Membranes are finding wide applications in various fields spanning biological, water, and energy areas. Synthesis of membranes to provide tunable flux, metal sorption, and catalysis has been done through pore functionalization of microfiltration (MF) type membranes with responsive behavior. This methodology provides an opportunity to improve synthetic membrane performance via polymer fabrication and surface modification. By optimizing the polymer coagulation conditions in phase inversion fabrication, spongy polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) membranes with high porosity and large internal pore volume were created in lab and full scale. This robust membrane shows a promising mechanical strength as well as high capacity for loading of adsorptive and catalytic materials. By applying surface modification techniques, synthetic membranes with different functionality (carboxyl, amine, and nanoparticle-based) were obtained. These functionalities provide an opportunity to fine-tune the membrane surface properties such as charge and reactivity. The incorporation of stimuli-responsive acrylic polymers (polyacrylic acid or sodium polyacrylate) in membrane pores also results in tunable pore size and ion-exchange capacity. This provides the added benefits of adjustable membrane permeability and metal capture efficiency. The equilibrium and dynamic binding capacity of these functionalized spongy membranes were studied via calcium ion-exchange. Iron/palladium catalytic nanoparticles were immobilized in the polymer matrix in order to perform the challenging degradation of the environmental pollutant trichloroethylene (TCE)

CSO Impact Assessment for the Licking River

This report contains the results of a combined sewer overflow (CSO) impact assessment study for a four-mile section of the Licking River just south of its confluence with the Ohio River and between Kenton and Campbell Counties in Northern Kentucky. This study is a component of a larger study that was conducted to determine the general impact of CSOs in the Northern Kentucky Region. The study was conducted through the Kentucky Water Resources Research Institute of the University of Kentucky and was funded by the Kentucky Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Cabinet through a grant from the United States Environmental Protection Agency