Digital Commons Network^™

Reduction Of The Long-Term Inaccuracy From The Avhrr–Based Ndvi Data, Md Zahidur Rahman, Leonid Roytman, M. Nazrul Islam

Publications and Research

This paper investigated the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) stability in the NOAA/NESDIS Global Vegetation Index (GVI) data during 1982-2003, which was collected from five NOAA series satellites. An empirical distribution function (EDF) was developed to eliminate the long-term inaccuracy of the NDVI data derived from the AVHRR sensor on NOAA polar orbiting satellite. The instability of data results from orbit degradation as well as from the circuit drifts over the life of a satellite. Degradation of NDVI over time and shifts of NDVI between the satellites were estimated using the China data set, because it includes a wide variety …

Remote Sensing And Ground-Based Weather Forcing Data Analysis For Streamflow Simulation, José Alberto Infante Corona, Tarendra Lakhankar, Soni M. Pradhanang, Reza Khanbilvardi

Publications and Research

Hydrological simulation, based on weather inputs and the physical characterization of the watershed, is a suitable approach to predict the corresponding streamflow. This work, carried out on four different watersheds, analyzed the impacts of using three different meteorological data inputs in the same model to compare the model’s accuracy when simulated and observed streamflow are compared. Meteorological data from the Daily Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN-D), National Land Data Assimilation Systems (NLDAS) and the National Operation Hydrological Remote Sensing Center’s Interactive Snow Information (NOHRSC-ISI) were used as an input into the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) hydrological model and …

The Effect Of Income On Health After Hurricane Katrina, Jang Wook Lee

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There is a large literature that documents a positive correlation between income and a variety of measures of good health. This correlation may reflect causality in both directions and may also reflect omitted "third variables" that are positively related to income and health. In my dissertation, I employ an exogenous negative shock to income due to a natural disaster to estimate the true causal impact of income on health. The shock I will use is Hurricane Katrina, which severely damaged counties in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana in August 2005. I use these treatment counties and a variety of alternative sets …

Science Identity Transformations Through Place-Based Teaching And Learning In The Natural World, Amy Defelice

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation includes three main components related through a sociocultural lens of identity transformation. The first component describes the Field Studies program for ninth grade students at Brooklyn Academy of Science and the Environment (BASE High School), and explores how outdoor settings and place-based pedagogies can be used to enhance urban students' science identities. Student researchers took digital photographs of their Field Studies experiences and met in cogenerative dialogues with me, their teacher, where we shared our reflections. The second component explains students' experiences and reactions to a week-long place-based geoscience program held over spring break at Prospect Park. This …

Planetary Improvement: Discourses And Practices Of Green Capitalism In The Cleantech Space, Jesse Adam Goldstein

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There is money to be made in saving the planet. A whole host of actors, such as investors, entrepreneurs, engineers, and policy makers have mobilized around our ecological problems, seeking to innovate new `green' and `clean' technologies that can serve a rapidly changing environment. The presumption that such technologies are both necessary and necessarily profitable anchors visions of a `green' capitalism that can and must be brought into existence.

However, just as free markets have never been all that free, why should we presume that green capitalism would be all that green? Instead of attempting to arbit whether or not …

The Interaction Between Arsenic And Struvite During Coprecipitation And Adsorption Processes, Ning Ma

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The formation of struvite, MgNH4PO4*6H2O (MAP), from wastes is one of the methods that can be used to recover P from wastes efficiently. However, since there are usually toxic components in the wastes, like arsenic (As), the possibility of having toxic contaminants in MAP is a big concern. So, the interaction between As and MAP during coprecipitation (CPT) and adsorption (ADS) processes were studied at pH 8-11. MAP precipitated without As at pH 8-11 was also characterized.

During CPT process, the MAP was precipitated from a MgCl2-(NH4)2HPO4-NaCl-H2O system spiked with As at an initial pH (pHi) of 8-11. The batch …

Selva Simbólica Selva Simbiótica Apuntes Para Una Ecocritica Latinoamericana, Liza Pamela Rosas-Bustos

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation focuses on Latin America's selvatic territories. It argues for prevailing ecological principles as revealed in the selected works of three twentieth-century Latin American story-writers and poets. They portray rainforests as multisensorial lands that encompass bewildering events from which a principle of local authority emerges. This analysis is based on Francisco Coloane's short stories "Tierra del Fuego" and "Cabo de Hornos," Rosario Castellanos'Balún Canán, and Luis Sepúlveda's Un viejo que leía novelas de amor. Such phenomenology is also present on the environmental poetics from Marosa di Giorgio, Cecilia Vicuña, and Leonel Lienlaf linked to emotions of fear, urgency, …

Carbon And Nitrogen Dynamics From Slow Pools Of Soil Organic Matter In A Temperate Forest: Pyrogenic Organic Matter And And Root Litter, Fernanda Dos Santos

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Soil organic matter (SOM) is the dominant reservoir of organic carbon (OC) in terrestrial ecosystems, storing approximately three times the size of the C pool in the atmosphere. In temperate forests, a major fraction of the SOM consists of slowly decaying soil organic C (SOC) pools. While slowly cycling C pools constitute a large reservoir of stable C in soils, the dominant environmental factors controlling this C pool remain unresolved. This research investigates two significant, but poorly characterized slowly decaying C pools: fine root litter (< 2mm) and thermally altered plant biomass (pyrogenic organic matter, PyOM). Specifically, I used compound-specific stable isotope analysis (¹³C and ¹⁵N) as my main methodological approach to examine the (1) …

Water Conservation To Reduce Wet Weather Pollution Loads To The Gowanus Canal, Brooklyn, Ny, Suzanne Carol Stempel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Public participation plays an important role in wet weather pollution management. However, the effects of participation programs on local water quality are often difficult to quantify. This project aims to quantify the potential effects of a community based, non-structural, BMP aimed at controlling inputs to combined sewage systems by encouraging residents to reduce their water use during rain events. A household could participate by reducing the amount of water they use for flushing toilets, washing dishes, taking showers, etc. during rain events; thereby reducing stress on the system during the time of highest demand. The Gowanus Canal sewershed in Brooklyn, …

Peak Electric Load Relief In Northern Manhattan: An Exploratory Data Analysis, Hildegaard D. Link, José Pillich, Yehuda L. Klein

Publications and Research

The aphorism “Think globally, act locally,” attributed to René Dubos, reflects the vision that the solution to global environmental problems must begin with efforts within our communities. PlaNYC 2030, the New York City sustainability plan, is the starting point for this study. Results include (a) a case study based on the City College of New York (CCNY) energy audit, in which we model the impacts of green roofs on campus energy demand and (b) a case study of energy use at the neighborhood scale. We find that reducing the urban heat island effect can reduce building cooling requirements, peak electricity …

Development Of An Autonomous And Intelligent System For Residential Water End Use Classification, Khoi Anh Nguyen, Rodney Stewart, Hong Zhang

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

Urban water supplies need to be ingeniously managed as a result of urbanisation and diminishing dam yield reliability. The advanced management of urban water consumption is deemed essential to maintain a sustainable water future. Understanding how, when and why water is used is vital for managing demand in cost-effective and equitable ways. Detailed knowledge on the quantities of water used in different circumstances gives critical knowledge for forecasting water and planning for water security (Stewart et al., 2010; 2011). Current intelligent water metering systems allow for the high resolution time series reading of water consumption (Beal et al. 2011). Such …

Optimizing Bio-Retention Locations For Stormwater Management Using Genetic Algorithm, Dieu Huong Trinh, Ting Fong May Chui

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

To minimize the change of hydrological regime due to urbanization, stormwater best management practices have been enforced in the past few decades in certain urban areas. One approach is to implement small-scale hydrologic controls, such as bio-retention systems, throughout a catchment. Optimization techniques have also been applied to determine the locations that give the most hydrological benefits. However, optimization tools are commonly built in together with specific hydrological models. Thus, the choices and components of hydrological models are usually restricted. Furthermore, it is redundant to build another hydrological model that has a built-in optimization tool if a hydrological model, and …

Developing A High Performance Computing (Hpc) Based Hydrological Modelling Framework To Support Extreme Weather Impact Studies, Dehua Zhu, Yunqing Xuan, Mike Webster, Ian Cluckie

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

Computer based modelling has long been an established norm in hydrological studies. The demand of computing power in hydrological modelling domain, although keep steadily growing over past decades, it has never been higher as we now look into many impact studies due to climate change. While HPC has long been a major player in the neighbouring field of climate sciences, its role has yet to be defined when the resources become increasingly accessible to hydrological modellers attempting to address the impact of climate change in terms of extreme weather events. In this paper, we present a framework of HPC based …

Linked Data Approach For Automated Failure Detection In Pressure Sewers Using Real-Time Sensor Data, Jonathan Yu, Paul Davis, Kerry Taylor, Scott Gould

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

The increased availability of sensor data presents opportunities for machine-assisted analytics, reporting and exploration of the sensed environment. Sensor networks provide the ability to observe physical phenomena in real-time and provide useful information to help conservation and management of environmental resources. Thus, exploring these real-time datasets can provide valuable insights for informing policy and decision support in domains such as water quality monitoring, early warning disaster detection, and physical asset degradation monitoring. However, the semantic meaning, format and interface heterogeneity of the sensors and sensor observations are barriers to effective discovery and analysis of events. We propose ontology-driven approaches for …

Merging Top-View Lidar Data With Street-View Sfm Data To Enhance Urban Flood Simulation, Vorawit Meesuk, Zoran Vojinović, Arthur E. Mynett

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

Top-view data obtainedfrom LiDAR systemshas long been used as topographic-input data for urban flood modelling applications. This high-resolution input data has considerable potential to improve urban flood modelling predictions with more detail. However, the difficulty of employing top-view data is that it may create some missing urban features because this type ofdata cannot represent anyurban features,which are hiddenunderneath other objects. These hidden featuresmay play a substantial part in diverting floodwater flowing through,especially in complex urban areas. The recent advances in Photogrammetry and Computer Vision techniques offer an opportunity to create high-resolution topographic data. By using a consumer digital camera,2Ddigital photoscan …

On The External And Iterative Coupling Of Multiple Open Channel Flow Models With Openmi, Bernhard P.J. Becker, Jan Talsma

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

For water management questions on the national scale, cross-border studies or for water authorities it can be necessary to couple models of the same type, i. e. models that represent the same flow processes, but different modelling areas, at shared boundaries. With the help of a simple test case how two open channel flow models (Sobek) can be coupled externally or iteratively according to the OpenMI standard. We discuss the simulation results from external coupling and iterative coupling against the simultaneous solution in one equation system. Conclusions on the choice of a coupling method for practical applications are made and …

The Provision Of Data From The Cosmos-Uk Soil Moisture Monitoring Network, Matthew J. Fry, Jonathan Evans, Helen Ward, James Blake, Lucy Ball, Louisa Doughty

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

This paper describes the data available from COSMOS-UK, a new soil moisture monitoring network for the UK based on passive cosmic-ray moisture probes which are capable of measuring average soil water content over a circular footprint of around 350m in radius and depths of up to 0.5 m. Around 35 probes, with an associated array of meteorological and point soil moisture sensors, will be deployed across the UK in a network designed to best represent a range of soil and land cover types, complement existing scientific monitoring over a wide range of subject areas, and capture the variability in soil …

Using Smart Water Meters In (Near) Real-Time On The Iwidget System, Michael G. Barry, Mark E. Purcell, Bradley J. Eck

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

Devices and technologies to measure and report water consumption at sub-daily intervals are growing in popularity. Data from these devices are creating new opportunities to manage the supply and demand of water in near real-time. To this end, The EU FP7 iWidget project is developing a state-of-the art analytics platform for the integrated management of urban water. Key challenges include extracting useful insights from high-resolution consumption data and exploring a range of decision-support tools for water utilities and consumers. To overcome these challenge iWIDGET is developing a distributed, open, robust, collaborative architecture that allows partners and utilities to collect and …

A Complex Adaptive Systems Approach To Simulate Interactions Among Water Resources, Decision-Makers, And Consumers And Assess Urban Water Sustainability, Alireza Mashhadi Ali, M. Ehsan Shafiee, Sankarasubramanian Arumugam, Emily Zechman Berglund

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

The balance between water supply and demand for urban water resources is threatened by population growth, land use changes, and climate change. Interactions among environmental resources, infrastructure, societal norms, and management decisions create complexity and increase the unpredictability of the dynamics of water availability. This research develops a sociotechnical framework to simulate interactions among technical and social systems and assess urban water sustainability. An agent-based model (ABM) is implemented to simulate a community of heterogeneous households as agents. The ABM is coupled with a hydrological watershed model, a water reservoir model, and climate change projections. The increase in the number …

Real-Time Water Decision Support Services For Droughts, Tingting Zhao, Barbara Minsker, Jong Lee, Fernando Salas, David R. Maidment, Cedric David

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

Through application of computational methods and an integrated information system, real-time data and river modeling systems can help decision makers identify more effective actions for management practice. The purpose of this study is to develop a real-time decision support model to recommend optimal curtailments during water shortages for decision makers. To enable ease of use and re-use, the workflows (i.e., analysis and model steps) of the real-time decision support model are published as Web services delivered through an internet browser, including model inputs, a published workflow service, and visualized outputs. The model consists of two major components: the real-time river …

Meta-Heuristic Versus Gradient-Type Methods For Real Time Demand Calibration In Water Distribution System, Arango Idel Montalvo, Jochen W. Deuerlein, Olivier A. Piller, Christian Kühnert, Mathias Braun

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

Water distribution system modeling in real time involves many challenges for water utilities. Calibration of models to match measurements coming from a water network with calculation resulting from models is a necessary step to make models reliable. There are many variables involved in the analysis of a water distribution system and each of them contains a determined level of uncertainties. Nevertheless, in a real time scenario it is significant the impact that water demands at nodes could have compared with other variables. Demands, in contrast to pipe roughness for example, are much more sensitive to changes in time. A better …

Using A Concurrent Hybrid Method To Optimize Short-Term Operation Of A Multi-Reservoir System With Multiple Objectives, Duan Chen, Arturo Leon, Nathan L. Gibson, Veronika S. Vasylkivska

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

Combining local search method with evolutionary-based algorithm has been introduced recently to improve performance of optimization on complex multi-objective problems (MOPs). Evolutionary algorithms (EAs) are attractive alternatives for solving the MOPs due to its global scope and independence of problem representation. However, it has been criticized for its relative slow convergence. Studies showed using local search method (LSM) can help to enhance convergence speed of the EA. Incorporating the LSM into the EA can mainly follow two ways: serial and concurrent. Serial approach applied the LSM after complement of the EA by predefining a switching time [1, 2]. The approach …

Numerical Modeling Of The Fecal Bacteria Transport Processes In Sediment-Laden Flow, Guoxian Huang, Roger Falconer, Binliang Lin

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

Many experiments, field measurements and few numerical tests shows the transport and fate of Faecal Bacteria have a tight relationship of the sediment transport including the absorbing, releasing and changing the radiation of sunshine especially in the fine cohesive particles and etc. The nonuniform distribution of 2-D and 3-D structures of hydrodynamic, salinity and suspended sediment (SS) in the riverine and estuary may make the solution of Faecal Bacteria to become more complex. With related measured data, the different coupling models based on modified EFDC 2D model are built to solve the dynamic processes of Faecal Bacteria and decouple the …

"Smart Pebble" Design For Environmental Monitoring Applications, Manousos Valyrakis, Edgars Pavlovskis

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

Sediment transport, due to primarily the action of water, wind and ice, is one of the most significant geomorphic processes responsible for shaping Earth’s surface. It involves entrainment of sediment grains in rivers and estuaries due to the violently fluctuating hydrodynamic forces near the bed. Here an instrumented particle, namely a “smart pebble", is developed to investigate the exact flow conditions under which individual grains may be entrained from the surface of a gravel bed. This could lead in developing a better understanding of the processes involved, while focusing on the response of the particle during a variety of flow …

Leakage Detection And Localization Method Based On A Hybrid Inverse/Direct Modelling Approach Suitable For Handling Multiple-Leak Scenarios, Jordi Meseguer, Josep M. Mirats, Gabriela Cembrano, Vicenç Puig, Eduard Bonada

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

When an accurate hydraulic network model is available, direct modeling techniques are very straightforward and reliable for on-line leakage detection and localization applied to large class of water distribution networks. In general, this type of techniques based on analytical models can be seen as an application of the well-known fault detection and isolation theory for complex industrial systems. Nonetheless, the assumption of single leak scenarios is usually made considering a certain leak size pattern which may not hold in real applications. Upgrading a leak detection and localization method based on a direct modeling approach to handle multiple-leak scenarios can be, …

Partial Information And Partial Weight - Two New Information Theoretic Metrics To Help Specify A Data-Based Natural System Model, Ashish Sharma, Rajeshwar Mehrotra

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

How to define a system? This is a problem faced routinely in science and engineering, with solutions developed from our understanding of the processes inherent, to assessing the underlying structure based on observational evidence alone. In general, system specification involves identifying a few meaningful predictors (from a large enough set that is plausibly related to the response) and formulating a relation between them and the system response being modeled. For systems where physical relationships are less apparent, and sufficient observational records exist, a range of statistical alternatives have been investigated as a possible way of specifying the underlying form. Here, …

Flood Risk From Extreme Events In Mexico, Adrián Pedrozo-Acuña, Pamela Iskra Mejía-Estrada, Juan Pablo Rodríguez-Rincón, Ramón Domínguez Mora, Fernando Jorge González-Villareal

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

Flooding is the most common and damaging natural hazard faced by civilization, and flooding threats are likely to increase given current climate change predictions that suggest more intense hurricanes and precipitation. The latter has been recently experienced in the Mexican state of Guerrero, during the severe flood of September 2013. During this event, the heavy rainfall registered in 2 days (~700 mm) produced extreme river discharges that produced significant fluvial impacts and flooding in large areas of the city of Acapulco, causing severe damages and social disruption. In order to study the causes of this disaster, an integrated methodology to …

Uncertainties In Future Projections Of Extreme Rainfall: The Role Of Climate Model, Emission Scenario And Randomness, Alireza Nazemi, Md. Shahabul Alam, Amin Elshorbagy

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

Climate change has resulted in substantial variations in annual extreme rainfall quantiles in different durations and return periods. Predicting the future changes in extreme rainfall quantiles is essential for various water resources design, assessment, and decision making purposes. Current Predictions of future rainfall extremes, however, exhibit large uncertainties. According to extreme value theory, rainfall extremes are rather random variables, with changing distributions around different return periods; therefore there are uncertainties even under current climate conditions. Regarding future condition, our large-scale knowledge is obtained using global climate models, forced with certain emission scenarios. There are widely known deficiencies with climate models, …

Wdnetxl: Efficient Research Transfer For Management, Planning And Design Of Water Distribution Networks, Daniele Laucelli, Luigi Berardi, Orazio Giustolisi

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

The WDNetXL system (www.hydroinformatics.it) is aimed at promoting transfer of research achievements in water distribution network (WDN) analysis, planning and management to practitioners, students and researchers. In order to facilitate the technology transfer, the WDNetXL functions are integrated into the worldwide known MS-Excel data-management environment. Advanced hydraulic modeling and topological analyses of WDN are combined with efficient optimization strategies to make readily available the latest, even customized, decision support tools for planning and management of WDNs. All these features make WDNetXL of practical support for technicians as well as a privileged platform to test innovations coming from research in WDN …

Combining Satellite And Gauge Precipitation Data With Co-Kriging Method For Jakarta Region, Chi Dung Doan, Jiandong Liu, Shie-Yui Liong, Dong Eon Kim, Richard Sanders, Timothy Fewtrell

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

Jakarta is vulnerable to flooding mainly caused by prolonged and heavy rainfall and thus a robust hydrological modeling is called for. A good quality of spatial precipitation data is therefore desired so that a good hydrological model could be achieved. Two types of rainfall sources are available: satellite and gauge station observations. At-site rainfall is considered to be a reliable and accurate source of rainfall. However, the limited number of stations makes the spatial interpolation not very much appealing. On the other hand, the gridded rainfall nowadays has high spatial resolution and improved accuracy, but still, relatively less accurate than …