Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Development Of Predictive Models For Water Budget Simulations Of Closed-Basin Lakes: Case Studies Of Lakes Azuei And Enriquillo On The Island Of Hispaniola, Mahrokh Moknatian, Michael Piasecki

Publications and Research

The historical water level fluctuations of the two neighboring Caribbean lakes of Azuei (LA) and Enriquillo (LE) on Hispaniola have shown random periods of synchronous and asynchronous behaviors, with both lakes exhibiting independent dynamics despite being exposed to the same climatic forces and being directly next to each other. This paper examines their systems' main drivers and constraints, which are used to develop numerical models for these two lakes. The water balance approach was employed to conceptually model the lakes on an interannual scale and examine the assumptions of surface and subsurface processes. These assumptions were made based on field …

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 …

Floodalert: A Simplified Radar-Based Ews For Urban Flood Warning, Xavier Llort, Rafael Sánchez-Diezma, Alvaro Rodríguez, David Sancho, Marc Berenguer, Daniel Sempere-Torres

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

Urban floods can be caused by intense rainfall accumulations in short time periods that eventually exceed the capacity of the sewer networks. Despite the efforts made in the last years in all cities to increase the sewer’s capacity many cities are still exposed to these heavy rainfall events. In this work, we present a simplified flood Early Warning System, called FloodAlert, based on the use of radar observations to issue local flood warnings. Although precipitation accumulation estimates based on radar observations may suffer from different sources of error, they may also be the quickest way to obtain a reliable estimate …

Wibasin: Basin Management Through An Integrated Platform, Xavier Llort, Rafael Sánchez-Diezma, David Sancho, Alvaro Rodríguez, Marc Berenguer, Daniel Sempere-Torres

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

A key issue in basin and dam management is the correct estimation of accumulated rainfall (observed as well as forecasted) over the catchment (over the characteristic concentration time for critical short-term management, and over longer time periods to anticipate rainfall situations). In this work we present a platform for basin and dam management, called WiBasin, which integrates different sources of precipitation (both observed and forecasted) in a continuous time series of hourly rainfall accumulation fields, having the best precipitation estimation available at each time step. Optimal rainfall estimates used for the past time steps are based on a geostatistical approach …

Hidromet: A Cloud-Based Ews Platform For Real Time Urban Flood Warning, Alvaro Rodríguez, Xavier Llort, David Sancho, Rafael Sánchez-Diezma, Ramon Bella, Vicente Gomez

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

Urban real time flood’s Early Warning Systems have been traditionally based on the use of punctual precipitation observations (raingauges) to model the sewer network’s behaviour by means of hydraulic models. Since a key issue in the EWS is the leadtime in detecting potential risks, Hidromet takes advantage of radar nowcasting techniques to feed a hydraulic model, not only with observed precipitation by raingauges, but also with forecasted precipitation for the following few hours. Radar nowcasting techniques allow forecasting the precipitation with a high degree of accuracy. This fact, together with the rapid update of the forecasts (typically around 10 minutes), …

Short-Term Hydropower Optimization Using A Time-Decomposition Algorithm, Jonathan R. Lamontagne, Jery Russell Stedinger

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

Hydropower operations optimization models select a sequence of releases from one or more reservoirs that maximizes the expected benefit while honoring many social and environmental constraints. A 3-tiered time-decomposition algorithm is adopted to compute optimal sub-daily releases for the Harris Station reservoir in Maine, USA. This involves solving nested optimization models, each with a different planning horizon and time-step, where the longer-term planning models inform the shorter-term models. This allows for rapid optimization of short-term operations, while efficiently considering seasonal objectives and constraints. In the case study presented, 6-hr release decisions in a weekly model are made by iteratively solving …

Transport Modeling – Technical And Legal Issues, Adrian Brown

Uncovering the Hidden Resource: Groundwater Law, Hydrology, and Policy in the 1990s (Summer Conference, June 15-17)

27 pages.

Contains footnotes.