Engineering Commons^™

The Use Of Repurposed Whole Textiles To Modify The Mechanical And Hydrogeological Properties Of Green Roof Media And Granular Soils, Angelis Almanzar-Chevalie, Yehya Elfgeeh, Calvin O. Walters Jr.

Publications and Research

This study investigates using repurposed whole textiles to modify the mechanical and hydrogeological properties of lightweight Green Roof media and granular pavement soils.

Green Roof Media Green roofs aim to bring the advantages of suburban agriculture to urban environments while improving energy efficiency and enhancing stormwater management in public, commercial, and residential buildings. Previous studies by City Tech undergraduate research assistants demonstrated significant modification in hydrogeological properties when incorporating textile fabric up to 3% textile by weight (%Tex) at an aspect ratio of 1:1. The effects of mixing repurposed whole textile fiber with Green Roof media is evaluated with regards …

The Utilization Of Repurposed Whole Textiles To Modify The Mechanical And Hydrogeological Soil Properties: Green Media, Angelis Almanzar-Chevalie, Yehya Elfgeeh, Calvin O. Walters Jr.

Publications and Research

The utilization of repurposed whole textiles to modify the mechanical and hydrogeological soil properties investigates the impact of adding repurposed textiles to lightweight engineered soil, documenting changes in unit weight, water content, and hydraulic conductivity. This study builds upon prior findings, which demonstrated significant alterations in hydrogeological properties when incorporating textile fabric (3% by weight at an aspect ratio of 1:1). Functioning as reinforcement, these fibers enhance the soil's strength, stability, and structural integrity—especially advantageous in erosion-prone areas, regions susceptible to landslides, or locations requiring heightened load-bearing capacity. The outcomes of this parametric study lead to green roof farms playing …

Devlopment Of A Practical Method To Quantify Infiltration Rate Through Building Entrance, Eric Reed, Ferasuddin Siddiqui, Louidelson Deguerre, Steve. Boodram

Publications and Research

Infiltration through entrance doors, vestibules, cracks and other areas have a large impact in building energy consumption. It also has a significant impact on indoor air quality. There are only a few studies about air infiltration and air tightness in the literature. The purpose of this study is to develop practical methods to measure air infiltration rates through entrance doors. We have read research articles and identify several methods in the literature. Further investigation is required to help more accurately find infraction rate, crack size and location of cracks to help reduce air infiltration, energy costs, maintain comfortable indoor conditions …

Design, Concept, And Visualization Of Urban Multi-Level Growing Table Systems In Hyper Urban Areas, Aaryan Manoj Nair, Shaheed Mohammed, Omar Rahama

Publications and Research

As of a 2019 study conducted by the National Urban Gardening Program (National Urban Gardening Program), urban farming accounts for approximately 19% of the total national farming output and is expected to triple to almost 45% by 2025. There is intensive research being conducted on aspects of reduced recidivism, communal health benefits, natural carbon capture systems, improved urban ecology and the necessity for reducing the carbon footprint of food, (informally dubbed “food miles”) there is little substantive research on optimisation, and maximation of crop productivity in hyper-urban areas.

The purpose of this report is to understand the functionalities of urban …

Data Fusion And Synergy Of Active And Passive Remote Sensing; An Application For Freeze Thaw Detections, Zahra Sharifnezhadazizi

Dissertations and Theses

There has been a recent evolvement in the field of remote sensing after increase of number satellites and sensors data which could be fused to produce new data and products. These efforts are mainly focused on using of simultaneous observations from different platforms with different spatial and temporal resolutions. The research dissertation aims to enhance the synergy use of active and passive microwave observations and examine the results in detection land freeze and thaw (FT) predictions. Freeze thaw cycles particularly in high-latitude regions have a crucial role in many applications such as agriculture, biogeochemical transitions, hydrology and ecosystem studies. The …

On A New Framework For Detecting, Classifying, And Forecasting Floods For Large-Scale Flood Risk Analysis, Equisha Glenn

Dissertations and Theses

Increasing trends in flooding events are projected to continue as climate changes have increased the chance of extreme weather events. Given the significant, damaging impacts of extreme floods, the ability to effectively model floods is crucial for risk management and mitigation of the impacts of these extreme flooding events. This dissertation presents a new framework for detecting and predicting large-scale flood risk in the United States using climate information. This methodology categorizes regional, simultaneous floods into an index that is used to forecast the risk of extreme flooding a season ahead. The index proposed herein, named the Spatial Flood Index …

Crop Water Deficits And Their Season-Ahead Climate Determinants Across The United States, Siena W. Dante

Dissertations and Theses

The agricultural sector in the United States provides an essential food and revenue source and it faces severe challenges due to increasing climate variability, which reduces reliable access to water needed for the crops. Unreliable access to water and the potential for drought result in major economic losses to the sector as well as potentially significant environmental damage. It is thus necessary to mitigate the effects of drought as well as to develop agricultural practices that include preparedness strategies for droughts. To develop these strategies, comprehensive information about droughts must be available early enough to consider before the growing season. …

Allocative Efficiency Of Grid Farming In Urban Green Built Environments, Aaryan Manoj Nair

Publications and Research

As of a 2019 study conducted by the National Urban Gardening Program (National Urban Gardening Program), urban farming accounts for approximately 19% of the total national farming output and is expected to triple to almost 45% by 2025. There is intensive research being conducted on aspects of reduced recidivism, communal health benefits, natural carbon capture systems, improved urban ecology and the necessity for reducing the carbon footprint of food, (informally dubbed “food miles”) there is little substantive research on optimization, and maximation of crop productivity in hyper-urban areas. The article attempts to study allocative efficiency in hyper urban built environments.

Quo Vadis Lakes Azuei And Enriquillo: A Future Outlook For Two Of The Caribbean Basin's Largest Lakes, Mahrokh Moknatian, Michael Piasecki

Publications and Research

Lakes Azuei (LA) and Enriquillo (LE) on Hispaniola Island started expanding in 2005 and continued to do so until 2016. After inundating large swaths of arable land, submerging a small community, and threatening to swallow a significant trade route between the Dominican Republic and Haiti; worries persisted at how far this seemingly unstoppable expansion would go. The paper outlines the approach to a look forward to answer this question vis-à-vis climate change scenarios developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It uses numerical representations of the two lakes, and it examines how the lakes might evolve, deploying three …

Adapting To Extreme Heat: Social, Atmospheric, And Infrastructure Impacts Of Air Conditioning In Megacities - The Case Of New York City, Harold Gamarro

Dissertations and Theses

Extreme heat events are becoming more frequent and intense in most large cities. Built-up surfaces also limit cooling mechanisms, leading to warmer conditions in cities, a phenomenon called the Urban Heat Island (UHI). This presents major challenges to reduce adverse health effects of hot weather, particularly in vulnerable populations like the elderly and low-income communities. Here we explore the overall impacts of increasing air conditioning (AC) system adoption in residences as an adaptive measure to reduce human health risks under heat waves, with New York City (NYC) as a case study. This study uses AC adoption data from the 2017 …

Energy & Carbon Neutral Nyc, Evan Banks, Elena Zimareva, Elena Malysheva

Publications and Research

In 2016, the world's leading countries signed the Paris Agreement which focused on reducing anthropogenic climate change on the planet. On May 2019, New York State and New York City declared its own ambitious goals aimed at decarbonizing the city and restricting the state’s energy use to relying completely on renewables.

Some of these goals specifically target infrastructure in the city since estimates cite buildings as accounting for nearly 70% of New York’s energy use. The main law of New York’s Climate Policy, Local Law 97, requires all buildings over 25,000 sq ft to reduce their CO2 footprint by 40% …

The Water/Energy Nexus: Climate, Consumption And Ecosystem Services, Hildegaard D. Link

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Water and energy are drivers of living systems. This work provides an assessment of the Water Energy Nexus in the United States, comparing the well-watered north-east and the arid west. Electric grid systems are most stressed on hot summer afternoons. Grid stress can lead to cascading failures of electricity, water and wastewater treatment systems. (Zimmerman, 2017) Water for power generation and/or water supply depend on ecosystem services. The ecosystem services and resource trade-offs embedded in provision of a watt of power and an ounce of potable water, however, have yet to be comprehensively enumerated nor have the cost relationships been …

Development Of Digital Bathymetry Maps For Lakes Azuei And Enriquillo Using Sonar And Remote Sensing Techniques, Michael Piasecki, Mahrokh Moknatian, Fred Moshary, Jorge Gonzalez

Publications and Research

This article presents an improved algorithm for optimization and development of a digital bathymetric model (DBM) for Lake Azuei (LA) (Haiti) and Lake Enriquillo (LE) (Dominican Republic) using the ANUDEM method. Both sonar data and contour lines of the lakes’ layout extracted using Landsat imagery were compiled for bathymetry development. We show that the performance of the ANUDEM method was strongly dependent on the density and irregularity of the spatial distribution of the data. Changing the resolution of the output grids and deriving auxiliary topographically corrected contours improved the ANUDEM performance and minimized the systematic errors of the method. Statistical …

Observational Time Series For Lakes Azuei And Enriquillo: Surface Area, Volume, And Elevation, Mahrokh Moknatian, Michael Piasecki

Publications and Research

In this report, we present historical time series of surface area, volume, and elevation for lakes Azuei (Haiti) and Enriquillo (Dominican Republic). The intention is to present a history of the lakes’ levels for both bodies of water as derived from Landsat imagery that is augmented by reports and narratives that reach further back in time. We also summarize lake level time series data collected and developed through various other efforts and compare these data sets to our time series. The time series contains 45 years’ worth of data ranging from 1972 to 2017 which we developed from Landsat imagery …

Global Food Security Under Climate-Water-Energy Nexus, Ehsan Najafi

Dissertations and Theses

During the last few decades, the global agricultural production has risen and technology enhancement is still contributing to yield growth. However, population growth, water and energy crisis, and extreme weather, climate change, etc. threaten the global food security. The focus of this study is to advance the understanding of the associations between crops productivity and large scale and local scale climatic variables, climate change, technology enhancement and assessing food-water-energy nexus to enhance global food security in a sustainable manner considering current available resources. As decision-makers try to improve food security, it is important to identify the impact of technology enhancement …

Improving Retrievals Of Crop Vegetation Parameters From Remote Sensing Data, Nathaniel Levitan

Dissertations and Theses

Agricultural systems are difficult to model because crop growth is driven by the strongly nonlinear interaction of Genotype x Environment x Management (G x E x M) factors. Due to the nonlinearity in the interaction of these factors, the amount of data necessary to develop and utilize models to accurately predict the performance of agricultural systems at an operational scale is large. Satellite remote sensing provides the potential to vastly increase the amount of data available for modelling agricultural systems as a result of its high revisit time and spatial coverage. Unfortunately, there have been significant difficulties in deploying remote …

Hydroclimate Drivers And Atmospheric Dynamics Of Floods, Nasser Najibi

Dissertations and Theses

Our preliminary survey showed that most of the recent flood-related studies did not formally explain the physical mechanisms of long-duration and large-peak flood events that can evoke substantial damages to properties and infrastructure systems. These studies also fell short of fully assessing the interactions of coupled ocean-atmosphere and land dynamics which are capable of forcing substantial changes to the flood attributes by governing the exceeding surface flow regimes and moisture source-sink relationships at the spatiotemporal scales important for risk management. This dissertation advances the understanding of the variability in flood duration, peak, volume, and timing at the regional to the …

An Overview Of Smartwater Management System: Strategic Potential In Bangladesh, Muhammad Qumrul Hassan, Mir F. Karim, Nazrul I. Khandaker, Jowaher Raza

Publications and Research

Water loss management is becoming an increasingly important as supplies are stressed by population growth or water scarcity. A SmartWater system ensures optimum consumption and prediction of future water use. Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable countries due to global climate change considering its rapid urbanization, inequitable land use, low income and greater reliance on climate sensitive sectors, particularly agriculture. Agricultural lands used for cropping and livestock rearing are more susceptible to degradation than non-agricultural lands. Most farmers irrigate through flooding, losing up to 75% of water to evaporation and creating a substantial drawdown of much needed water for …

Removal Of Organic Micro-Pollutants From Water Using Sewage Sludge Based Composite Adsorbents, Rui Ding

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Millions of tons of sewage sludge, waste oil sludge and fish waste are produced annually, and improper treatment/disposal of these wastes have resulted in numerous environmental issues. On the other hand, these wastes are rich in organic materials, metals, and inorganic minerals and could be sustainable resources if utilized properly. The main purpose of this dissertation study was, therefore, to convert these wastes into composite adsorbents, and then use these adsorbents to remove various types of organic pollutants, emerging organic contaminants in particular, from wastewater and drinking water sources.

It is hypothesized that a hydrophobic carbon phase in the composite …

The Political Water Web Of The United States, Omar Hammad

Dissertations and Theses

The United States’ water systems are interstate in their nature; these systems are governed by Congressional compact agreements. Water compacts have been influenced by common factors that have reverberated throughout the water-web of the country. These impacts varied in their scale, national level federal regulations, such as the Endangered Species Act of 1973, and recent concerns about climate change are macro-scale influences. Localized drivers such as regional economics and population change are localized impacts. While these concepts and issues influence water compacts as a whole, their impacts occur at different periods, albeit for the same reason. As such, we see …

Bathymetric Survey For Lakes Azuei And Enriquillo, Hispaniola, Michael Piasecki, Mahrokh Moknatian, Fred Moshary, Joseph Cleto, Yolanda Leon, Jorge Gonzalez, Daniel Comarazamy

Publications and Research

The two largest lakes on the Caribbean Island of Hispaniola, Lake Azuei in Haiti and Lake Enriquillo in the Dominican Republic, have experienced dramatic growth and surface area expansion over the past few years leading to severe flooding and loss of arable land around the lake perimeters. In order to better understand the reasons for this unprecedented rate of expansion and the resulting consequences a multi-disciplinary team comprised of researchers from Haiti, the DR, and the US have embarked on an extensive data collecting and hydrologic and climatological modeling campaign. While the sensor deployment entails stations that measure climatological data …

A Review Of Advances In The Identification And Characterization Of Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems Using Geospatial Technologies, Isabel C. Pérez Hoyos, Nir Y. Krakauer, Reza Khanbilvardi, Roy A. Armstrong

Publications and Research

Groundwater Dependent Ecosystem (GDE) protection is increasingly being recognized as essential for the sustainable management and allocation of water resources. GDE services are crucial for human well-being and for a variety of flora and fauna. However, the conservation of GDEs is only possible if knowledge about their location and extent is available. Several studies have focused on the identification of GDEs at specific locations using ground-based measurements. However, recent progress in remote sensing technologies and their integration with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) has provided alternative ways to map GDEs at a much larger spatial extent. This paper presents a review …

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, …

Using Avhrr-Based Vegetation Health Indices For Estimation Of Potato Yield In Bangladesh, Rahman A., Kaiser Khan, Nir Y. Krakauer, Leonid Roytman, Kogan F.

Publications and Research

We developed a model correlating Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR)-based Temperature Condition Index (TCI) and Vegetation Condition Index (VCI) with potato yield in Bangladesh. Weekly TCI and VCI Indices for 1993–2005 along with official potato yield statistics were used for model development. We found a strong correlation between inter annual variation in potato yield and TCI and VCI during the critical period of potato growth (vegetative phase and tuber initiation), mid-December to mid-January. Principal component regression (PCR) was used to construct a model to predict potato yield as function of TCI and VCI. The model explained about 75% of …

Using Microwave Brightness Temperature Diurnal Cycle To Improve Emissivity Retrievals Over Land, Hamidreza Norouzi, William Rossow, Marouane Temimi, Catherine Prigent, Marzieh Azarderakhsh, Sid Boukabara, Reza Khanbilvardi

Publications and Research

To retrieve microwave land emissivity, infrared surface skin temperatures have been used as surface physical temperature since there is no global information on physical vegetation/soil temperature profiles. However, passive microwave emissions originate fromdeeper layerswith respect to the skin temperature. So, this inconsistency in sensitivity depths between skin temperatures and microwave temperaturesmay introduce a discrepancy in the determined emissivity. Previous studies showed that this inconsistency can lead to significant differences between day and night retrievals of land emissivity which can exceed 10%. This study proposes an approach to address this inconsistency and improve the retrieval of land emissivity using microwave observations …

Tunnel Geology As Seen By Geologists: Manhattan, New York City, Nazrul I. Khandaker, Stanley Schleifer, Masud Ahmed, Alan R. Slaughter, Belal A. Sayeed, Dorean J. Flores, Mario Jo-Ramirez

Publications and Research

Current exploratory boring operations in and around Manhattan, New York City are providing geologists and geotechnical engineers with a plethora of new and interesting geological information, which has not been previously reported. The rocks encountered, mostly medium to high-grade metamorphic rocks, with both mafic and felsic intrusives, are highly variable in competency and mechanical durability. One of the most frequently encountered rock types is a garnetiferous-muscovite-biotite schist which grades into schistose gneiss and displays a wide variety of structural, compositional, and textural attributes. Metamorphic minerals showing the variable degree of metamorphism include graphite, talc, garnet, kyanite, tourmaline, emory, and occasionally …