Engineering Commons^™

The Comparison Of Gev, Log-Pearson Type 3 And Gumbel Distributions In The Upper Thames River Watershed Under Global Climate Models, Nick Millington, Samiran Das, Slobodan P. Simonovic

Water Resources Research Report

The increase in greenhouse gas emissions has had a severe impact on global temperature, and is affecting weather patterns worldwide. With this global climate change, precipitation levels are changing, and in many places are drastically increasing. The need to be able to accurately predict extreme precipitation events is imperative in designing for not only the safety of infrastructure, but also people’s lives. To predict these events, the use of historical data is necessary, along with statistical distributions that are used to fit the data.

In this study, historical data from the London International Airport station has been used, along with …

An Integrated System Dynamics Model For Analyzing Behaviour Of The Social-Energy-Economic-Climatic System: Model Description, Mohammad Khaled Akhtar, Slobodan P. Simonovic, Jacob Wibe, Jim Macgee, Jim Davies

Water Resources Research Report

The feedback based integrated assessment model ANEMI represents the society-biosphereclimate- economy-energy system of the earth and biosphere. The development of ANEMI model is done using the system dynamics simulation approach that (a) allows understanding and modeling of complex global change and (b) assists in the investigation of possible policy options for mitigating, and/or adopting to global changing conditions, within an integrated assessment modeling framework. This report presents ANEMI model and its nine individual sectors: climate, carbon cycle, land-use, population, food production, hydrologic cycle, water demand, water quality, and energy-economy. Two versions of the model are developed and presented in the …

An Integrated System Dynamics Model For Analyzing Behaviour Of The Social-Energy-Economic-Climatic System: User’S Manual, Mohammad Khaled Akhtar, Slobodan P. Simonovic, Jacob Wibe, Jim Macgee, Jim Davies

Water Resources Research Report

The User's Manual is planned to assist the user in (i) understanding the ANEMI model structure; and (ii) learning how to use the model for policy simulation. ANEMI model is a research product and is not developed as a commercial software. This manual contains a brief description of the main features of the Vensim system dynamics simulation software (Ventana, 2010), as well as integrated simulationoptimization procedure developed by incorporating MATLAB (MathWorks, 2007) functionalities with Vensim system dynamics simulation. With the help of Vensim and MATLAB software packages, the user can use, modify and/or run the ANEMI models provided with the …

Water Resources Decision Making Under Uncertainty, Dejan Vucetic, Slobodan P. Simonovic

Water Resources Research Report

Uncertainty is in part about variability in relation to the physical characteristics of water resources systems. But uncertainty is also about ambiguity (Simonovic, 2009). Both variability and ambiguity are associated with a lack of clarity because of the behaviour of all system components, a lack of data, a lack of detail, a lack of structure to consider water resources management problems, working and framing assumptions being used to consider the problems, known and unknown sources of bias, and ignorance about how much effort it is worth expending to clarify the management situation. Climate change, addressed in this research project (CFCAS, …

City Of London: Vulnerability Of Infrastructure To Climate Change Final Report, Angela Peck, Elisabeth Bowering, Slobodan P. Simonovic

Water Resources Research Report

The Earth's climate is changing and these changes are documented to have a serious impact on municipal infrastructure. Current infrastructure is designed and constructed based on standards and codes developed decades ago. These standards and codes include historic climate and design storms which are no longer representative of the current climate. With the changes in climate patterns, infrastructure may no longer have the capacity to handle new climate loads. Thus, a region must adapt its policies and procedures to consider climate change and mitigate risks to municipal infrastructure. Climate modeling suggests that the City of London can expect to experience …

Development Of Probability Based Intensity- Duration-Frequency Curves Under Climate Change, Tarana A. Solaiman, Slobodan P. Simonovic

Water Resources Research Report

Hydrologic design of storm sewers, culverts, retention/detention basins and other components of storm water management systems are typically performed based on specified design storms derived from the rainfall intensity-duration-frequency (IDF) estimates and an assumed temporal distribution of rainfall. Use of inappropriate data or design storms could lead to malfunctions of the infrastructure systems: over-estimation may result in costly over-design or under-estimation may be associated with risk and human safety. One of the expected hydroclimatic impacts of climate change for London is the increase in the magnitude and frequency of extreme rainfalls which can have serious impact on the design, operation …

Quantifying Uncertainties In The Modelled Estimates Of Extreme Precipitation Events At The Upper Thames River Basin, Tarana A. Solaiman, Slobodan P. Simonovic

Water Resources Research Report

Assessment of climate change impact on hydrology at watershed scale incorporates downscaling of global scale climatic variables into local scale hydrologic variables and computations of risk of hydrologic extremes in future for water resources planning and management. Atmosphere-Ocean General Circulation (AOGCM) models are designed to simulate time series of future climate responses accounting for enthropogenically induced green house gas emissions. The climatological inputs obtained from several AOGCMs suffer the limitations due to incomplete knowledge arising from the inherent physical, chemical processes and the parameterization of the model structure. This study explores the methods available for quantifying uncertainties from the AOGCM …

Assessment Of Global And Regional Reanalyses Data For Hydro- Climatic Impact Studies In The Upper Thames River Basin, Tarana A. Solaiman, Slobodan P. Simonovic

Water Resources Research Report

This study evaluates NCEP-NCAR reanalyses hydro-climatic data as an initial check for assessment of climate change studies and hydrologic modeling on the basin scale. Reanalysis data set for daily precipitation, and temperature from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction-National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP-NCAR) (a) global (NNGR) and (b) regional (NARR) reanalysis project are used as input into the semi-distributed hydrologic model (HEC-HMS) during the period of 1980-2005. First, the precipitation and temperature data are interpolated to selected stations to check for their trends and similarity in means and variances. Although NARR shows some over-estimated values, mainly in estimating temperature …

Use Of An Integrated System Dynamics Model For Analyzing Behaviour Of The Social-Economic-Climatic System In Policy Development, Christopher J. Popovich, Slobodan P. Simonovic, Gordon A. Mcbean

Water Resources Research Report

Climate change remains one of the most critical issues that humans and the natural world face today. Yet while a strong body of scientific research has identified the risks if mitigation and adaptation measures are not taken, there still remains a policy lag. This leads researchers to pose several questions: is there an identified need by the policy domain for more or different science? Is the science that is conducted made policyrelevant? If not, are there tools to better link science to policy? This report will explain the process of science-policy communication related to the development of an integrated system …

Assessment Of Climatic Vulnerability In The Upper Thames River Basin: Part 2, Leanna King, Tarana A. Solaiman, Slobodan P. Simonovic

Water Resources Research Report

Increasing greenhouse gas emissions will cause global temperature to rise in the coming years. Understanding the effects of rising temperature on the hydrologic cycle at a local scale is important in order to assess a wide scope of climate change impacts on management of water resources. Coupled Atmosphere-Ocean General Circulation Models (AOGCMs) are state-of-theart in climate change research, predicting the future climate based on plausible emission scenarios. Their spatial and temporal scales are quite large, so the results of their analyses must be brought to a local-scale through a downscaling process. There are several methods for downscaling AOGCM data; however …

Assessment Of Climatic Vulnerability In The Upper Thames River Basin, Leanna King, Tarana Solaiman, Slobodan P. Simonovic

Water Resources Research Report

This study provides an assessment of possible future climate conditions for the Upper Thames River Basin.

City Of London: Vulnerability Of Infrastructure To Climate Change. Background Report #2: Hydraulic Modeling And Floodplain Mapping, Dragan Sredojevic, Slobodan P. Simonovic

Water Resources Research Report

The main objective of the research project currently under way is to provide an engineering assessment of the vulnerability of London’s public infrastructure under projected rates of climate change with special emphasis on flooding. An original systematic procedure is used to gather and examine available data in order to develop an understanding of the relevant climatic effects and their interaction with municipal infrastructure. Assessment of climate change impacts on municipal infrastructure requires floodplain maps and inundation that will correspond to examined climate change scenarios. This report presents the results of hydraulic analyses used in floodplain mapping under changing climate.

Combined, …

City Of London: Vulnerability Of Infrastructure To Climate Change, Hyung-Il Eum, Slobodan P. Simonovic

Water Resources Research Report

The climate is changing and these changes may induce severe impacts on both, global and local scales. The Public Infrastructure Engineering Vulnerability Committee (PIEVC) established by Engineers Canada conducted an assessment of the vulnerability of Canadian Public Infrastructure to changing climatic conditions. The major conclusion of the assessment is that water resources infrastructure failures due to the climate change will be common across Canada. As a follow up, the City of London took an initiative to evaluate the impacts of climate change on its municipal infrastructure. An original systematic procedure is used to gather and examine available data in order …

Updated Rainfall Intensity Duration Frequency Curves For The City Of London Under The Changing Climate, Slobodan P. Simonovic, Angela Peck

Water Resources Research Report

The main focus of this study is the update of rainfall IDF curves for the City of London under the conditions of changed climate. Predicted future climate change impacts for Southwestern Ontario include higher temperatures and increases in precipitation, leading to an intensification of the hydrologic cycle. One of the expected consequences of change is an increase in the magnitude and frequency of extreme events (e.g. high intensity rainfall, flash flooding, severe droughts, etc.). Changes in extreme events are of particular importance for the design, operation and maintenance of municipal water management infrastructure. Management of municipal water infrastructure (sewers, storm …

Energy Sector For The Integrated System Dynamics Model For Analyzing Behaviour Of The Social-Economic-Climatic Model, Evan G. R. Davies, Slobodan P. Simonovic

Water Resources Research Report

The system dynamics-based energy sector described here adds a representation of energy supply and demand dynamics, and their associated carbon emissions, to a larger society-biosphere-climate model previously described in Davies and Simonovic (2008). The inclusion of an energy sector expands the earlier model considerably, and provides new avenues for its application to policy development.

Five interconnected components constitute the full energy sector: demand, resources, economics, production, and emissions. The energy demand component calculates changes over time in heatenergy and electric-energy demand as a result of economic activity, price-induced efficiency measures, and technological change. Energy resources models changes in the amounts …

Integrated Reservoir Management System For Adaptation To Climate Change Impacts In The Upper Thames River Basin, Hyung-Il Eum, Vasan Arunachalam, Slobodan P. Simonovic

Water Resources Research Report

Climate change is one of the more pressing issues that attract the attention of scientists and policy makers. Many scientists are developing necessary methodologies to better understand the impacts of climate change, and support the development of appropriate adaptation measures. Literature on the application of adaptation measures to changing climatic conditions is very limited and the need for more work is evident on the development of adaptation strategies for mitigating negative impacts of climate change in water resources management practice.

This study presents an integrated reservoir management system for the Upper Thames River basin that includes: (1) a Weather Generator …

A Fuzzy Set Theory Based Methodology For Analysis Of Uncertainties In Stage-Discharge Measurements And Rating Curve, Rajesh R. Shrestha, Slobodan P. Simonovic

Water Resources Research Report

River stage and discharge records are essential for hydrological and hydraulic analyses. While stage is measured directly, discharge value is calculated from measurements of flow velocity, depth and channel cross-section dimensions. The measurements are affected by random and systematic measurement errors and other inaccuracies, such as approximation of velocity distribution and channel geometry with a finite number of measurements. Such errors lead to the uncertainty in both, the stage and the discharge values, which propagates into the rating curve established from the measurements. The relationship between stage and discharge is not strictly single valued, but takes a looped form due …

Optimization Using Differential Evolution, Vasan Arunachalam

Water Resources Research Report

The book explains in detail the working of Differential Evolution optimization algorithm. It also provides documentation for the use of Differential Evolution computer program to solve user-defined optimization problems. The computer program is written in C language for Windows environment. The book also demonstrates how to modify the program using an example optimization problem.

An Integrated System Dynamics Model For Analyzing Behaviour Of The Social-Economic-Climatic System: Model Description And Model Use Guide, Evan G. R. Davies, Slobodan P. Simonovic

Water Resources Research Report

The society-biosphere-climate model described here takes an integrated assessment approach to simulating global change. It consists of eight individual sectors that reproduce the main characteristics of the climate, carbon cycle, economy, land use, population, surface water flow, and water demand and water quality sectors at a global scale, each of which is described individually in the report, both in terms of the theoretical foundation and mathematical basis, and then connected through feedbacks to other sectors in order to recreate the whole system. Several of the sectors build on previous modelling work, but their manner of integration is novel, as are …

Development Of Rainfall Intensity Duration Frequency Curves For The City Of London Under The Changing Climate, Predrag Prodanovic, Slobodan P. Simonovic

Water Resources Research Report

The main focus of this study is the analysis of short duration high intensity rainfall for London, Ontario under the conditions of the changed climate. Predicted future climate change impacts for Southwestern Ontario include higher temperatures and increases in precipitation, leading to an intensification of the hydrologic cycle. One of the expected consequences of change is an increase in the magnitude and frequency of extreme events (e.g. high intensity rainfall, flash flooding, severe droughts, etc.). Changes in extreme events are of particular importance to the design, operation and maintenance of municipal water management infrastructure.

Municipal water management infrastructure (sewers, storm …

Physical, Economical, Infrastructural And Social Flood Risk -- Vulnerability Analyses In Gis, Angela Peck, Subhankar Karmakar, Slobodan P. Simonovic

Water Resources Research Report

An exhaustive knowledge of flood risk, vulnerability and exposure in different spatial locations is essential for developing an effective flood mitigation strategy for a watershed. In the present study, a flood risk-vulnerability analysis is performed. All four components of flood vulnerability: (a) physical; (b) economic; (c) infrastructure and (d) social, are evaluated individually using a Geographic Information System (GIS) environment. The proposed methodology estimates the impact on infrastructure vulnerability due to inundation of critical facilities, emergency service stations, and road bridges. The components of vulnerability are combined to determine the overall vulnerability. The patterns of land use and soil type …

A Web-Based Flood Informat Ion System, Jordan Black, Subhankar Karmakar, Slobodan P. Simonovic

Water Resources Research Report

The web has become a major source of information for many water resources management tasks. With the growing popularity of the Internet, it provides a convenient, accessible way to provide the public with flood-related information. The present study focuses on web dissemination of information on flood risk and vulnerability to different types of users; general public, decision makers, and professionals. By gearing the display and representation of risk to each user, the information can be better understood and facilitate the flood management process. A user-friendly web-based flood information system is developed to provide flood risk, different components of flood vulnerability, …

Flood Frequency Analysis Using Copula With Mixed Marginal Distributions, Subhankar Karmakar, Slobodan P. Simonovic

Water Resources Research Report

In flood frequency analysis, a flood event is mainly characterized by peak flow, volume and duration. These three variables or characteristics of flood are random in nature and mutually correlated. In this article, a methodology is developed to derive bivariate joint distributions of the flood characteristics using the concept of copula considering a set of parametric and nonparametric marginal distributions for peak flow, volume and duration to mathematically model the correlated nature among them. A set of parametric distribution functions, and nonparametric methods based on kernel density estimation and orthonormal series are used to determine the marginal distribution functions for …

Dynamic Feedback Coupling Of Continuous Hydrologic And Socio-Economic Model Components Of The Upper Thames River Basin, Predrag Prodanovic, Slobodan P. Simonovic

Water Resources Research Report

The main contribution of this work consists of formulating a novel simulation framework used in analysis of climate change impact assessment. The model developed consists of a continuous hydrologic component coupled (via feedback) to a socioeconomic component developed using system dynamics. The hydrologic component of the model responds to changes in socio-economic conditions (such as changing economic, demographic and land use patterns), while socio-economic conditions are continually influenced by hydrologic quantities (such as available ground water recharge, flow and precipitation). As the two components are connected via feedback, each dynamically influences, and is influenced by, the other thereby mimicking such …

Inverse Flood Risk Modelling Of The Upper Thames River Basin, Predrag Prodanovic, Slobodan P. Simonovic

Water Resources Research Report

This report aims to present an alternate approach to climate change impact mod- elling of water resources. The focus of the project is on the analysis of existing wa- ter resources management guidelines specifically targeting critical hydrologic events (extreme floods in this case). The critical hydrologic events are converted to their corresponding meteorologic conditions via use of an event based hydrologic model. The local climatic signal is generated by use of a non-parametric weather generator linked to outputs from a global climate model for three climate scenarios, and their corresponding frequency curves generated. Then, a critical hydrologic event of inter- …

Inverse Drought Risk Modelling Of The Upper Thames River Basin, Predrag Prodanovic, Slobodan P. Simonovic

Water Resources Research Report

This report aims to present an alternate approach to climate change impact mod- elling of water resources. The focus of the project is on the analysis of existing water resources management guidelines specifically targeting critical hydrologic events (ex- treme droughts in this case). The critical hydrologic events are converted to their corresponding meteorologic conditions via use of an appropriate hydrologic model (continuous based hydrologic model for drought analysis). The local climatic signal is generated by use of a non-parametric weather generator linked to outputs from a global circulation model for three climate scenarios, and their corresponding fre- quency curves generated. …

A Decision Support System For Integrated Risk Management, Ibrahim El-Baroudy, Slobodan P. Simonovic

Water Resources Research Report

This report provides a detailed description of the Risk Assessment Support System (RASS) for use in municipal water supply. The report explores the utility of the developed support system for evaluating the performance of a complex water supply system. A regional water supply system for the city of London is used as the case study. The theoretical foundations and computational requirements for the implementation of the RASS are provided in the report.

Application Of The Fuzzy Performance Indices To The City Of London Water Supply System, Ibrahim El-Baroudy, Slobodan P. Simonovic

Water Resources Research Report

This study explores the utility of fuzzy performance indices: (i) combined reliabilityvulnerability index, (ii) robustness index, and (iii) resiliency index, for evaluating the performance of a complex water supply system. Regional water supply system for the City of London is used as the case study. The two main components being investigated in this case study are; (i) the Lake Huron Primary Water Supply System (LHPWSS), and (ii) the Elgin Area Primary Water Supply system (EAPWSS).

Generation Of Synthetic Design Storms For The Upper Thames River Basin, Predrag Prodanovic, Slobodan P. Simonovic

Water Resources Research Report

The purpose of this report is to summarize methods available in the literature that synthetically generate rainfall hyetographs (plots of rainfall intensity vs. time). The outputs of selected methods are to be used as inputs to a hydrological model of the Upper Thames River basin, to be used for determination of hydrologic risks and extremes.

Calibration, Verification And Sensitivity Analysis Of The Hec-Hms Hydrologic Model, Juraj Cunderlik, Slobodan P. Simonovic

Water Resources Research Report

The main objective of this report is to describe the calibration, verification, and sensitivity analysis of the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Hydrologic Engineering Center’s Hydrologic Modeling System (HEC-HMS) on the data from the Upper Thames River basin (UTRb) study area. The HEC-HMS model was chosen to be the most appropriate hydrologic modeling tool for achieving the goals set in the Canadian Foundation for Climatic and Atmospheric Sciences (CFCAS) funded project “Assessment of Water Resources Risk and Vulnerability to Changing Climatic Conditions” (“project” hereafter), (Cunderlik and Simonovic, 2003). The calibration, verification and sensitivity analysis of the HMS model …