49 research outputs found
Integrated Urban Water Resources Modeling In A Semi-Arid Mountainous Region Using A Cyber-Infrastructure Framework
Water resources management in cities is facing growing challenges related to increases in water demand, uncertain future climate variability, and conflicts related to water rights and access. Integrated water resource management (IWRM) is an inter-disciplinary framework which connects separated infrastructures and elements of a water resource system together which have dynamic interconnection. An IWRM process broadly involves water supply systems, stormwater management, wastewater collection, climate variables, groundwater and other water related sectors to solve the water and environmental problems. In this study, an integrated framework applying the GoldSim Monte-Carlo simulation software is presented to provide dynamic simulation of inter-related parts of an urban water system. The framework supports fast access and application of data resources, exchange of data among sub-models, and capacity to produce long-term simulations with sufficiently high spatial resolution to support urban water management research. Also parts of the framework are web-based interface, results analysis, and visualization tools. Working with local water managers the framework has been designed to provide specific and useful information for stakeholders, water managers and researchers to answer location-specific questions related to water availability, stormwater management, and other aspects. It also has the potential to provide exploratory opportunities for community and K-12 education. This paper describes the framework and presents an analysis of decentralized versus centralized urban water management solutions for the Salt Lake City metropolitan area in Utah, USA
Impacts of Large-Scale Stormwater Green Infrastructure Implementation and Climate Variability on Receiving Water Response in the Salt Lake City Area
This study evaluated impacts of Green Infrastructure (GI) as a stormwater management practice on return flows and the further Implications of climate variability. The goal was to create a model to explore the impacts that bioretention and Rainwater Harvesting (RWH) representing GI had using goldsim and Stormwater Management Modeling (SWMM) software. The software was used to represent impacts that climate variability individually and combined, may have on downstream stakeholders and receiving water systems in Salt Lake city, Utah, USA. Primary stakeholders included downstream water rights users, Farmington Bay waterfowl management area and the migratory birds that rely on Farmington Bay and the advocates that represent them. The steps to reach this goal were broken down incrementally to: (1) Characterize daily inflows to Farmington Bay, (2) Provide daily inflows from natural and urban runoff to the Jordan river, (3) Create a daily water balance model of Farmington Bay, (4) Demonstrate the model with and without stormwater GI and climate variability scenarios and (5) Determine trends of inflow to the Jordan River, duck clubs and Farmington Bay under various scenarios. The simulation results demonstrated that bioretention and RWH individually and combined had minimal impact on downstream water users, Jordan River flows and ultimately Farmington Bay water levels. Bioretention reduced the flow in the Jordan River minimally, with reductions primarily during peak flow. RWH actually kept more water in the natural system on average because less water was needed from the water treatment facilities when outdoor irrigation was supplemented with rainwater. The user reliability did not differ for any of the bioretention and RWH scenarios. The climate variability scenario had the greatest impact to Jordan River flows, Farmington Bay water levels and user reliability. When analyzed without GI implementation, the climate variability induced reduction in tributary flows and precipitation led to an average decrease of 11% in the Jordan River streamflow when compared to average baseline scenario over a 25 year simulation. The user reliability decreased by 5% and most importantly there was found to be an average of 36% decrease in the water levels in Farmington Bay. The resultant of the decrease in Farmington Bay water level is a loss of up to 61 square kilometers (15,000 acres) of open bay that would impact bird habitat, brine shrimp grounds, recreationalists, bird watchers, hunters and more. For this case study the implications of climate variability on the water system are much greater than implementing GI
Impacts of DEM Type and Resolution on Deep Learning-Based Flood Inundation Mapping
This paper presents a comprehensive study focusing on the influence of DEM
type and spatial resolution on the accuracy of flood inundation prediction. The
research employs a state-of-the-art deep learning method using a 1D
convolutional neural network (CNN). The CNN-based method employs training input
data in the form of synthetic hydrographs, along with target data represented
by water depth obtained utilizing a 2D hydrodynamic model, LISFLOOD-FP. The
performance of the trained CNN models is then evaluated and compared with the
observed flood event. This study examines the use of digital surface models
(DSMs) and digital terrain models (DTMs) derived from a LIDAR-based 1m DTM,
with resolutions ranging from 15 to 30 meters. The proposed methodology is
implemented and evaluated in a well-established benchmark location in Carlisle,
UK. The paper also discusses the applicability of the methodology to address
the challenges encountered in a data-scarce flood-prone region, exemplified by
Pakistan. The study found that DTM performs better than DSM at lower
resolutions. Using a 30m DTM improved flood depth prediction accuracy by about
21% during the peak stage. Increasing the resolution to 15m increased RMSE and
overlap index by at least 50% and 20% across all flood phases. The study
demonstrates that while coarser resolution may impact the accuracy of the CNN
model, it remains a viable option for rapid flood prediction compared to
hydrodynamic modeling approaches
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Impacts of elevation data spatial resolution on two-dimensional dam break flood simulation and consequence assessment
A grid resolution sensitivity analysis using a two-dimensional flood inundation model has been presented in this paper. Simulations for 6 dam breaches located randomly in the United States were run at 10,30,60,90, and 120 meter resolutions. The dams represent a range of topographic conditions, ranging from 0% slope to 1.5% downstream of the dam. Using 10 meter digital elevation model (DEM) simulation results as the baseline, the coarser simulation results were compared in terms of flood inundation area, peak depths, flood wave travel time, daytime and nighttime population in flooded area, and economic impacts. The results of the study were consistent with previous grid resolution studies in terms of inundated area, depths, and velocity impacts. The results showed that as grid resolution is decreased, the relative fit of inundated area between the baseline and coarser resolution decreased slightly. This is further characterized by increasing over prediction as well as increasing under prediction with decreasing resolution. Comparison of average peak depths showed that depths generally decreased as resolution decreased, as well as the velocity. It is, however, noted that the trends in depth and velocity showed less consistency than the inundation area metrics. This may indicate that for studies in which velocity and depths must be resolved more accurately (urban environments when flow around buildings is important in the calculation of drag effects), higher resolution DEM data should be used. Perhaps the most significant finding from this study is the perceived insensitivity of socio-economic impacts to grid resolution. The difference in population at risk (PAR) and economic cost generally remained within 10% of the estimated impacts using the high resolution DEM. This insensitivity has been attributed to over estimated flood area and associated socio-economic impacts compensating for under estimated flooded area and associated socio-economic impacts. The United States has many dams that are classified as high-hazard potential that need an emergency action plan (EAP). It has been found that the development of EAPs for all high-hazard dams is handicapped due to funding limitations. The majority of the cost associated with developing an EAP is determining the flooded area. The results of this study have shown that coarse resolution dam breach studies can be used to provide an acceptable estimate of the inundated area and economic impacts, with very little computational cost. Therefore, the solution to limited funding may be to perform coarse resolution dam breach studies on high-hazard potential dams and use the results to help prioritize the order in which detailed EAPs should be developed
A Systematic Review of Quantitative Resilience Measures for Water Infrastructure Systems
Over the past few decades, the concept of resilience has emerged as an important consideration in the planning and management of water infrastructure systems. Accordingly, various resilience measures have been developed for the quantitative evaluation and decision-making of systems. There are, however, numerous considerations and no clear choice of which measure, if any, provides the most appropriate representation of resilience for a given application. This study provides a critical review of quantitative approaches to measure the resilience of water infrastructure systems, with a focus on water resources and distribution systems. A compilation of 11 criteria evaluating 21 selected resilience measures addressing major features of resilience is developed using the Axiomatic Design process. Existing gaps of resilience measures are identified based on the review criteria. The results show that resilience measures have generally paid less attention to cascading damage to interrelated systems, rapid identification of failure, physical damage of system components, and time variation of resilience. Concluding the paper, improvements to resilience measures are recommended. The findings contribute to our understanding of gaps and provide information to help further improve resilience measures of water infrastructure systems
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Building Height-Characteristics in Three U.S. Cities
Urban canopy parameterizations have been used to represent urban effects in numerical models of mesoscale meteorology, the surface energy budget, and pollutant dispersion. The urban canopy parameterization accounts for the drag exerted by urban roughness elements, the enhancement of turbulent kinetic energy, and the alteration of the surface energy budget (Brown 2000). Accurate representation of urban effects in numerical simulations requires the determination of urban morphological parameters, including building height statistics. Computer analysis of 3-D building digital datasets can provide details of the urban environment in an efficient manner. Ratti ut al. (2001) describe a method for obtaining urban canopy parameters from digital imagery using image processing techniques, Burian et al. (2002) present an alternative analysis approach using a geographic information system (GIS). In this paper, building height statistics computed for three U.S. cities following the GIS approach are presented
National Urban Database and Access Portal Tool, NUDAPT
Based on the need for advanced treatments of high resolution urban morphological features (e.g., buildings, trees) in meteorological, dispersion, air quality and human exposure modeling systems for future urban applications, a new project was launched called the National Urban Database and Access Portal Tool (NUDAPT). NUDAPT is sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) and involves collaborations and contributions from many groups including federal and state agencies and from private and academic institutions here and in other countries. It is designed to produce and provide gridded fields of urban canopy parameters for various new and advanced descriptions of model physics to improve urban simulations given the availability of new high-resolution data of buildings, vegetation, and land use. Additional information include gridded anthropogenic heating and population data is incorporated to further improve urban simulations and to encourage and facilitate decision support and application linkages to human exposure models. An important core-design feature is the utilization of web portal technology to enable NUDAPT to be a Community based system. This web-based portal technology will facilitate customizing of data handling and retrievals (http://www.nudapt.org). This article provides an overview of NUDAPT and several example applications
Integration of SWMM into a Dam Break, Hurricane, and Extreme Flood Modeling and Damage Assessment Framework
SWMM5 has been seamlessly integrated with a Geographic Information System (GIS) for simulation of inundation and analysis of consequences resulting from extreme flood events. The GIS-based environment processes digital elevation models, land use/cover data, stream networks and soils to create stream network, sub-basins, and cross-section shapefiles for river basins selected for analysis. The following readily-available public-domain datasets are utilized: 30-m topographical data from the United States Geological Survey (USGS), 30-m NLCD, Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) (STATSGO), and National Hydrography Dataset (NHD). Rainfall predictions are made by a numerical weather model and ingested in gridded format into the simulation environment. Runoff hydrographs are estimated using Green-Ampt infiltration excess runoff prediction and a onedimensional diffusive wave overland flow routing approach. The hydrographs and the channel morphology are used to generate a SWMM5 compatibl
First records of Baetis vernus Curtis (Ephemeroptera: Baetidae) in North America, with morphological notes
The Baetis vernus group (Ephemeroptera: Baetidae) – which includes B. brunneicolor McDunnough, B. bundyae Lehmkuhl, B. hudsonicus Ide, B. jaervii Savolainen, B. liebenauae Keffermüller, B. macani Kimmins, B. subalpinus Bengtsson, B. tracheatus Keffermüller & Machel, and B. vernus Curtis – is both diverse and taxonomically tangled. Some members of the group – B. brunneicolor, B. bundyae, and B. hudsonicus – have been previously found in North America. The remainder of the group is known to be only of Palearctic distribution, including B. vernus, which has a wide trans-Palearctic distribution. We report the collection of specimens from the Northwest Territories and British Columbia that we have identified as B. vernus using DNA barcoding and morphological examination and provide characters to assist separation of the North American members of the group from B. vernus. A genetically cohesive Holarctic clade for B. vernus likely relates to a Beringian dispersal event. This substantial expansion of the known range of B. vernus adds new phylogeographic and ecological complexity, but it may also help to provide further clues to the evolutionary history of this group
Higher Education Capacity Building in Water Resources Engineering and Management to Support Achieving the Sustainable Development Goal for Water in Pakistan
Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals requires a multi‐pronged approach, with a key element being the development of a trained Community of Practice to sustain the advances in the relevant sectors. The engagement of higher education as a catalyst in the development and capacity building of the next generation of professionals and citizens comprising the Community of Practice is essential to meet the challenges of poverty, climate change, and clean water and to sustain those advances past 2030. This paper describes a capacity building program funded by the United States Agency for International Development to partner the University of Utah, in the United States, with Mehran University of Engineering and Technology, in Pakistan, to create the U.S.‐Pakistan Center for Advanced Studies in Water (USPCASW). The USPCASW program includes six core components of Curriculum Reform, Applied Research, Exchanges and Training, Governance, Gender Equity, and Sustainability. This paper describes the project, the activities for each component, and the multi‐level assessment of the program, activities, and impact. The paper also highlights the overarching impact of the program and its alignment with achieving the Sustainable Development Goal for Water. Following the description of the program components and assessment, the paper concludes with a discussion of challenges and lessons learned