Digital Commons Network^™

Linked Hydraulic And Impact Models In The Drihm Project, J. Lhomme, P. Cleverley, D Kelly, M. Wetton, M. Panzeri, Q. Harpham

Open Water Journal

The Distributed Research Infrastructure in Hydro-Meteorology (DRIHM) project is developing a prototype e-Science environment to facilitate the collaboration between meteorologists, hydrologists, and Earth science experts. The environment aims to promote accelerated scientific advances in hydrometeorological research (HMR) through the provision of end-to-end HMR services (models, datasets and post-processing tools) at the European level, with the ability to expand to global scale.

What the DRIHM e-infrastructure will allow is a connection of all the components in a transparent way for the end-users, thus pooling the dispersed expertise by fostering cross-disciplinary work. In addition, the DRIHM infrastructure will offer a unique framework …

Recent Developments Of The Swim Eco-Hydrological Model To Site-Specific Characteristics Of Large Basins, Stefan Liersch, Hagen Koch, Shaoshun Huang, Tobias Vetter, Fred F. Hattermann, Valentina Krysanova

Open Water Journal

From a hydrological modellers perspective, large river basins are complex systems with several generalisable attributes. Unfortunately, some river basins have very unique features that challenge models and their developers or users, respectively. Heavily modified basins are one example. In this case it is often necessary to incorporate impoundments by dams and reservoirs or to account for water withdrawals directly from the river or from groundwater for agricultural, industrial or domestic uses. Water allocation within the catchment, from another basin into the catchment under study or vice versa can also be an issue that complicates the modelling task. Some river basins …

Assessment The Spatial-Temporal Variation Of Soil Moisture In The Bibischbach Watershed, Grand-Duchy Of Luxembourg, Mohsen Tavakoli, Florimond De Smedt, Patrick Matgen

Open Water Journal

In the present work, an updated version of the Water and Energy Transfer between Soil, Plants and Atmosphere (WetSpa) model is introduced and the performance of the model is evaluated for simulated discharge and soil moisture content in the experimental Bibeschbach watershed, Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. The model is applied and validated for 1 year hourly data of river flow and soil moisture content. Discharge data at the outlet are used for model calibration and in situ soil moisture data recorded at 11 monitoring sites are used for validation of the model performance. The model predictions agree well with the …

Qgis/Postgis : Stacking Foss4g For Water Management, Vincent Picavet

Open Water Journal

Hydrological GIS data are widely used by public organizations, environment, water supply and water treatment companies. Water data analysis can be very specific, and is not a GIS-only field.

It is therefore interesting to look at FOSS4G applications, to see how they fit the need to have a real FOSS4G stack for water-related data handling and analysis.

Using The Finite Volume Method For Generalized Approach Of Catchment Models, Ina Plesca, Philipp Kraft, Hans-Georg Frede, Lutz Breuer

Open Water Journal

Classical mathematical models and methods have been constantly applied to solve different hydrological problems, especially for water flux processes description. The Catchment Modeling Framework (CMF) is an open source, modular and expandable platform which has been created to simulate the water balance from plot to landscape scale. CMF consists of several modules, each applied for specific flux-processes depending on different parameters or dimensions. The CMF expandability allows applying hydrological model structures that fit best the current context.

Trace Metal Transport Modeling Using Openmi: A Case Study Of Zenne River, Brussels Belgium, Chrismar Punzal, Narayan Kumar Shrestha, Olkeba Tolessa Leta, Bruno De Fraine, Ann Van Griensven, Marc Elskens, Willy Bauwens

Open Water Journal

In 2000, the European Water Framework Directive was developed, requiring a good ecological status for all surface waters in all member states by 2015 (EC, 2000). In order to achieve this, Environmental Quality Standards (EQS) for several substances and pollutants have been laid down (EC, 2008).

Since then, large investments were made for the management of the wastewaters of Brussels. This improved the water quality flowing into the river Zenne (Garnier et al., 2012). Despite these investments, the river still receives high loads of pollutants, especially considering the low discharge of the river and the water quality downstream from Brussels …

Integrating Open Hardware And Software: An Ocean Drifter Prototype, M. Alvarez, D. Ochoa, L. Dominguez, J. Cruz, J. Rivera, G. Sacarelo, R. Carrillo

Open Water Journal

Drifters have been traditionally used on the study of marine currents in order to better understand local and global circulation patterns. This work describes our work in the design and test of an ocean drifter prototype for measuring environmental parameters. Currently, our drifter prototype is able to transmit its location at regular intervals to a mobile device located at the coastline. The drifter data processing unit was build using an open hardware microcontroller-based board along with off-the-shelf low-cost hardware modules for GPS data acquisition and transmission. A mobile version of Quantum GIS open source software was extended for real time …

How To Manage Hydrological Measurements?, Tadesse Alemayehu

Open Water Journal

Hydrological measurements need good management for the data not to be lost. Multiple, often overlapping files from various loggers with heterogeneous formats need to be merged. Data needs to be validated and cleaned and subsequently converted to the format for the hydrological target application. Preferably, all these steps should be easily tracable.

RObsDat is an R package designed to support such data management. It is a command line user interface to support hydrologists to enter and adjust their data in a database following the Observations Data Model (ODM) standard by QUASHI. RObsDat helps in the setup of the database within …

Open Source Development Of Exploration And Graphics For River Trends (Egret): An R-Package For The Analysis Of Long-Term Changes In Water Quality And Streamflow, Including The Water-Quality Method Weighted Regressions On Time, Discharge, And Season, Laura Decicco, Robert Hirsch

Open Water Journal

The development of an R package: Exploration and Graphics for River Trends (EGRET) is discussed. R is a free programming language developed for statistical computing and graphics. The development of this package was done using gitHub, allowing for easy collaboration between colleagues. The EGRET package includes 3 major features. The first is simplifying the methods for obtaining water quality, streamflow, and metadata. A large collection of United States river data is available through web services from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Water Information System (NWIS). Functions for importing data from the NWIS system were included in a supplement to …

Using Catchment Modeling Framework For Modeling Of Water And Pesticide Fate At Hillslope Scale, K. Djabelkhir, P. Kratt, C. Lauvernet, N. Carluer

Open Water Journal

Control and reduction of water contamination by pesticides are major issues for the protection of aquatic ecosystems. In order to better understand and formalize the main pathways of pesticides transport, the Catchment Modeling Framework (Kraft et al., 2011) has been chosen, which is an open source hydrological framework providing a spatial distribution with an object-oriented approach. Modularity characteristic of CMF, allows users given a modular design to our landscape, and to choose equations describing flux connection between hydrological response units either in surface and subsurface, and to add new modules and functions.

The aim of this study is to better …

The “Acronet Paradigm”, An “Open Hardware” Project, Adriano Fedi, Daniele Ferrari, Marco Lima, Fabio Pintus, Cosimo Versace, Giorgio Boni

Open Water Journal

For the monitoring of hydrometeorological variables, and more generally, for decision support systems, the instrumental in-situ measurement is crucial.

Referring to professional micrometeorological stations, there is a problem represented by the high costs of measures.

The high cost can be substantially related to the quality of the materials, to the array of industrial production processes and to the costs of skilled workers, needed for the installation and for the maintenance of the equipment.

A further problem in the development of such measuring networks is represented by "closed" products which, for structural layouts, data management and communications, are almost always referred …

Social.Water—An Open-Source Python Code For Citizen-Driven Data Acquisition, Michael N. Fienen, Christopher S. Lowry

Open Water Journal

Remote telemetry has a long history at the USGS and other hydrologic monitoring organizations, enabling real-time hydrologic data presentation on the Web. Citizen volunteers have also long contributed to hydrologic data–Wisconsin’s USGS and Wisconsin State Geological and Natural History Survey (WGNHS) groundwater network has nearly 100 volunteers participating. Ubiquitous short message service (SMS) messaging and email-capable mobile phones mean nearly everyone can provide telemetric data if they know what information to provide and the infrastructure to accept the information exists: this is “crowdsourcing.”

Crowdhydrology.org, a crowdsourcing project originating in New York State, USA, was implemented by posting signs near stream …

Discontinuous Finite Element Mechanistic Water Quality Model For The Simulation Of Adsorptive Pollutants Transport In River Systems., F. P. Fiengo, L. Sweeck, M. Elskens, W. Bauwens

Open Water Journal

The close interaction between humans, animals and the river system requires to have control about the concentration of different pollutants in the water column in order to avoid damage to the environment. Due to the fact that the measurements are time consuming, expensive and in most of the cases very local, it is required to develop tools in order to predict the spatial and temporal distribution of the pollutants in the system.

Once pollutant effluents are discharged in waters, part of them is transported in liquid phase and the rest is attached to the suspended sediments and to the bed …

Software Tools For Rapid Integrated Model Setup, Gennadii Donchyts, Bert Jagers

Open Water Journal

Impact assessments need to be carried out in more and more detail, both with respect to resolution and number of environmental processes included, and in an ever decreasing amount of time. For the researcher it is important to easily integrate increasing amounts of data from heterogeneous sources into multi-disciplinary models, while at the same time the overall model validity can still be guaranteed. It is important to develop tools that assist both the skilled modeller and beginning user, each at the right level.

Availability of a good quality data on a large geospatial extent is a crucial element of an …

Python Package For Model Structure Analysis (Pystan), S. Van Hoey, Johannes Van Der Kwast, I Nopens, P. Seuntjens

Open Water Journal

The selection and identification of a suitable hydrological model structure is more than fitting parameters of a model structure to reproduce a measured hydrograph. The procedure is highly dependent on various criteria, i.e. the modelling objective, the characteristics and the scale of the system under investigation as well as the available data. Rigorous analysis of the candidate model structures is needed to support and objectify the selection of the most appropriate structure for a specific case (or eventually justify the use of a proposed ensemble of structures). This holds both in the situation of choosing between a limited set of …

Monte Carlo Based Parameterization And Uncertainty Analysis Of A Coupled Crop Growth And Hydrological Model, T. Houska, S. Multsch, P. Kraft, H.-G. Frede, L. Breuer

Open Water Journal

Abstract computer simulations are widely used to support decision making and planning in the agriculture sector. The model structure and parameterization are important to achieve reliable results. On the one hand, many 1D crop growth models are using simplified hydrological processes and structures, e.g. by the use of a small number of soil layers or by the application of simple water flow approaches. On the other hand, in many hydrological models crop growth processes are poorly represented. Hence, fully coupled models with a high degree of process representation, would allow analysing the dynamic behaviour of the soil-plant interface in more …

H2pl: A New Open Source Library For Hydrological Modeling, Khodayar Abdollahi, Okke Batelaan, Marijke Huysmans

Open Water Journal

Due to spatial and temporal variation of hydrologic processes, development of distributed hydrological models remained a difficult task over the last decades. As a consequence application of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) has become a useful and popular tool not only for hydrology but also in many different fields of science. On the other hand, literature emphasizes that hydrological modelers use GIS blindly but should take the advantage of advances in computing technology. This issue generates a demand for development of hydrological frameworks to conceptualize time and space models which targets hydrological modeling specifically.

This study presents the development of an …

Role Of The Endocannabinoid System And Medical Cannabis, Sabrina Jarvis, Sean Rasmussen, Blaine Winters

Student Works

Our bodies produce substances called endocannabinoids which attach to receptors within the endocannabinoid system (ECS) impacting physiological processes on a daily basis. The cannabis plant contains over 100 different cannabinoids which also manipulate the ECS. Knowledge about these interactions have led to an increase in cannabis based pharmacological studies. Providers should have a basic understanding about how the ECS works and how cannabis is being used to treat certain illnesses. This article presents what is currently known about the ECS and how cannabis based medicines impact it, as well as the current laws providers need know regarding cannabis use.

Health-Related Quality Of Life In Older Coastal Residents After Multiple Disasters, Katie E. Cherry, Laura Sampson, Sandro Galea, Loren D. Marks, Kayla H. Boudoin, Pamela F. Nezat, Katie E. Stanko

Faculty Publications

Objective: Exposure to multiple disasters, both natural and technological, is associated with extreme stress and long-term consequences for older adults that are not well understood. In this article, we address age differences in health-related quality of life in older disaster survivors exposed to the 2005 Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the role played by social engagement in influencing these differences.

Methods: Participants were noncoastal residents, current coastal residents, and current coastal fishers who were economically affected by the BP oil spill. Social engagement was estimated on the basis of disruptions in charitable …

How Flawed Memories Sabotage Your Marriage, Jason B. Whiting

Faculty Publications

Shelby and Stan (names have been changed) were arguing in front of me over an incident at her parent’s house. “We went there for a family barbecue after we first started dating,” Shelby reported. “Stan was just getting to know my family, and he ended up losing his temper and embarrassing me in front of everyone. It was a catastrophe!”

Evaluating Potential Impacts Of Climate Change On Surface Water Resource Availability Of Upper Awash Sub-Basin, Ethiopia, Mekonnen Daba, Kassa Tadele, Andualem Shemalis

Open Water Journal

Climate changes alter regional hydrologic conditions and results in a variety of impacts on water resource systems. Such hydrologic changes will affect almost every aspect of human well-being. The economy of Ethiopia mainly depends on agriculture, and this in turn largely depends on available water resources. The aim of this study is to assess the impacts of climate change on surface water resource availability of upper Awash River basin by using Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) hydrological model and Regional climate model. This studies were present the results on downscaling of large scale atmospheric variables simulated with regional climate …

Influence Of Seasonality On Salmonella Concentration And Dynamics In Khartoum Wastewater Stabilization Station, Ayman A. Elshayeb, Abdelazim A. Ahmed, Adil A. El-Hussien

Open Water Journal

Introduction: Seasonal weather variables are universal and can obviously affect different Salmonella sp populations’ dynamics in wastewater influencing their fluctuations.

Objectives: This work was conducted to create a predictive mathematical model for Salmonella spread, distribution and outbreak in local wastewater resources with understanding the mechanisms and impacts of seasonal environmental drivers.

Methods: Empirical models were developed to solve several biologically distinct mechanisms of Salmonella sp by which seasonality can impact their interactions, including seasonal changes in replication, distribution and mortality rates.

Results: Mathematical models and field observations show that the strength and mechanisms of seasonality can alter the spread and …

The Impact Of Bacteriophages In Bacteria Removal Associated With Soba Stabilisation Station Efficiency, Ayman A. Elshayeb

Open Water Journal

Introduction: Bacteriophages are viruses that infect and lyse bacteria, the applications of phage’ techniques in wastewater treatment systems improve effluent and sludge emissions into the environment.

Methods: The existence of bacteriophages in wastewater of Soba Stabilisation Station was determined by isolating and identifying methods for their activities against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus isolated from the anaerobic, facultative and maturation ponds.

Results: The general viable count of the bacteria showed an average of 2.0x 10⁶ cfu/ml. In broth media the affection of the bacteriophage interactions with bacteria showed increasing of bacteriophages with concomitant decrease in bacteria due to culture …

Gemss Hydrodynamic Modelling Approach To Assess The Risk Of Microbial Contamination Of Recreational Water After Heavy Rainfall Event, Fasil Ejigu Eregno, Torulv Tjomsland, Magdalena Kempa, Arve Heistad, Ingun Tryland

Open Water Journal

Microbial contamination of recreational beach waters is often at its worst after heavy rainfall events. Storm flood carries fecal matter and other pollutants from the watershed, join with overflows of untreated sewage from combined sewerage system and flow into the ocean via storm drains and streams, deposited near the beach. In order to understand the phenomena, a model study was conducted aiming to obtain a scientific understanding of hydrodynamic characteristics of the beaches and to characterize the temporal and spatial variations of indicator microorganisms (E. coli) after heavy rainfall events. For this study, GEMSS, an integrated 3D hydrodynamic …

Evaluating The Effect Of Climate Change And Land Use/Cover Change On Catchment Hydrology Of Gumara Watershed, Upper Blue Nile Basin, Ethiopia, Gashaw Gismu

Open Water Journal

Climate and land cover change are very important issues in terms of global context and their responses to environmental and socio-economic drivers. The dynamic of these two factors is currently affecting the environment in unbalanced way including watershed hydrology. In this paper individual and combined impacts of climate change and land use land cover change on hydrological processes were evaluated through application of the model Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) in Gumara watershed, Upper Blue Nile basin Ethiopia. The regional climate; temperature and rainfall data of the past 40 years in the study area were prepared and changes were …

The Aquacrop-Vhm Model Combination To Simulate Catchment Hydrology In Agricultural Areas, H. Van Gaelen, P. Willems, J. Diels, D. Raes

Open Water Journal

While distributed hydrological models require large datasets and extensive calibration, conceptual hydrological models can predict catchment hydrology with acceptable accuracy using only few inputs and parameters. However, conceptual models often simplify the simulation of the water content in the unsaturated zone as some process dynamics related to crop growth and evapotranspiration are typically disregarded. Therefore, conceptual models have limitations to accurately assess the effect of agricultural management and climate change on catchment hydrology.

In this research, a new modeling tool to simulate hydrological processes in agricultural catchments was developed by combining the crop water productivity model AquaCrop, with the lumped …

Investigation On Ceramic Membrane Based Filter Backwash Water Recycling, S. N. Kalaimathy, C. Visvanathan

Open Water Journal

Filtration is the most important and essential process involved to the removal of suspended and colloidal matters, bacteria and other microorganisms in a conventional potable water treatment system. In general, sand media is used for this purpose and get clogged due to the suspended impurities present in water. This results in reduction of rate of filtration. To bring back the filtration to the original rate, nearly 1.42% of treated water is used for backwashing in Bangkhen water treatment plant in Thailand.

This wastewater after backwashing is generally discharged without treatment to the nearby natural watercourses. Besides substantial water losses, such …

Does Depth And Sanitation Type Affect The Quality Of Faecal Sludge In The Tropics? The Case Of Yaoundé, Cameroon, W.A. Letah Nzouebet, I. M. Kengne, A. Rechenburg

Open Water Journal

Background: Faecal sludge (FS) management is a challenging problem in low-income countries where large parts of the urban population rely on onsite sanitation systems (Koné, 2010; Strande et al., 2014). In these countries, the discharge of raw faecal sludge directly into the environment is a common practice that threatens environmental and public health, because pollution of water resource. To avoid this situation, characterization of faecal sludge for adequate treatment before discharge into the environment is needed. Many studies were carried out on the faecal sludge characterization and treatment (Kengne, 2008; Bassan et al., 2013). Cameroon like other sub-Saharan countries lack …

Establishing Sediment Concentration Rating Curves In The Upper Blue Nile Basin, Mamaru A. Moges, Fasikaw A. Zemale, Muluken L. Alemu, Getaneh K. Ayele, Dessalegn C. Dagnew, Seifu A. Tilahun, Tammo S. Steenhuis

Open Water Journal

Because of scarcity of continuous sediment data for rivers, methods have been developed to predict sediment loads based on few discontinues measurements. Traditionally, loads are predicted using rating curves that relate sediment load to discharge. The relationship assumes inherently a unique relationship between concentration and discharge and therefore although performing satisfactorily in predicting loads, it may be less suitable for predicting concentration. This is especially true in the Blue Nile basin of Ethiopia where concentrations decrease for a given discharge with the progression of the rainy monsoon phase. The objective of this paper is to improve the sediment concentration predictions …

Water Sharing In Eastern-Nile River Basin: A Geopolitical Perspective Of Conflict To Cooperation, Muraree Lal Meena

Open Water Journal

Water is an indispensable natural resource that the countries of the Nile river basin possess. Its efficient and optimal use would not only help countries of the Nile river basin to build a strong economy but also substantially contribute to the growing water requirements of the countries, as water is becoming an increasingly scarce resource in the contemporary period. Distribution of river water is a complicated issue especially when a river passes through a number of countries. This study has investigated the resolving (win-win situation) of water-sharing conflict among the four riparian countries of the Eastern-Nile basin: Ethiopia, South Sudan, …