Environmental Sciences Commons^™

Water Whiplash In Mediterranean Regions Of The World, Citlalli Madrigal, Rama Bedri, Thomas Piechota, Wenzhao Li, Glenn Tootle, Hesham El-Askary

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

The presence of weather and water whiplash in Mediterranean regions of the world is analyzed using historical streamflow records from 1926 to 2023, depending on the region. Streamflow from the United States (California), Italy, Australia, Chile, and South Africa is analyzed using publicly available databases. Water whiplash—or the rapid shift of wet and dry periods—are compared. Wet and dry periods are defined based on annual deviations from the historical record average, and whiplash occurs when there is an abrupt change that overcomes an accommodated deficit or surplus. Of all the stations, there are more dry years (56%) than wet years …

Human And Hydrologic Influences On Nebraska's Endangered Rainwater Basin Wetlands, Sarah Thompson

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Over half of wetlands in North America have been lost or degraded. Rainwater Basin (RWB) wetlands, located in south-central Nebraska, are a primary example of such loss; an estimated 90% have been destroyed by land conversion for agriculture. Remaining RWB wetlands are often embedded in row-crop fields, where they are threatened by altered surface water runoff flow, drainage features, and excess sediment inputs. Efforts at the state and federal level have been made to preserve this wetland complex due to the critical stopover habitat these wetlands provide for migratory birds. Land managers work to maintain sufficient water levels during migratory …

Comparing Past And Future Drought And Surplus Periods In The Colorado River Basin, Rama Bedri

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

The Colorado River Basin is crucial to the Western United States, providing water for seven states and Mexico. Historical and future periods of drought and surplus are analyzed in 17 Colorado River stations. Unimpaired streamflow data are evaluated from the U.S. Geological Survey, Bureau of Reclamation, and Coupled Modeled Intercomparison Projection 5 from 1950-2099. Future projections are based on eight climate scenarios. Four climate models (HadGEM2-ES, CNRM-CM5, CanESM2, MI-ROC5) are observed at Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) 4.5 and 8.5 emission scenarios. Furthermore, the ensemble water year means of the four models are analyzed. The durations of drought or surplus, magnitudes, …

Using Sentinel-2 Imagery And Machine Learning Algorithms To Assess The Inundation Status Of Nebraska Conservation Easements During 2018–2021, Ligang Zhang, University Of Nebraska-Lincoln, Zhenghong Tang

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Conservation easements (CEs) play an important role in the provision of ecological services. This paper aims to use the open-access Sentinel-2 satellites to advance existing conservation management capacity to a new level of near-real-time monitoring and assessment for the conservation easements in Nebraska. This research uses machine learning and Google Earth Engine to classify inundation status using Sentinel-2 imagery during 2018–2021 for all CE sites in Nebraska, USA. The proposed machine learning approach helps monitor the CE sites at the landscape scale in an efficient and low-cost manner. The results confirmed effective inundation performance in these floodplain or wetland-related CE …

California Drought Outlooks Based On Climate Change Models’ Effects On Water Availability, Lauren Lynam, Thomas Piechota

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

Future streamflow in California is evaluated based on eight climate projections models and the effects on water availability. The unimpaired projected streamflow for eleven California rivers, collected from Cal-Adapt, are compared with unimpaired historical flows (1950–2015) using eight climate model projections (2020–2099) identified as representative as possible future scenarios; Warm Dry RCP 4.5, Average RCP 4.5, Cool Wet RCP 4.5, Other RCP 4.5, Warm Dry RCP 8.5, Average RCP 8.5, Cool Wet RCP 8.5, and Other RCP 8.5. Projected drought deficits (or magnitudes), durations, and intensities are statistically tested against historical values to determine significance of differences between past streamflow …

An Assessment Of The Filling Process Of The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam And Its Impact On The Downstream Countries, Prakrut Kansara, Wenzhao Li, Hesham El-Askary, Venkat Lakshmi, Thomas Piechota, Daniele Struppa, Mohamed Abdelaty Sayed

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), formerly known as the Millennium Dam, has been filling at a fast rate. This project has created issues for the Nile Basin countries of Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia. The filling of GERD has an impact on the Nile Basin hydrology and specifically the water storages (lakes/reservoirs) and flow downstream. In this study, through the analysis of multi-source satellite imagery, we study the filling of the GERD reservoir. The time-series generated using Sentinel-1 SAR imagery displays the number of classified water pixels in the dam from early June 2017 to September 2020, indicating a contrasting …

Reply To Comment By S. Han And F. Tian On "A Calibration-Free Formulation Of The Complementary Relationship Of Evaporation For Continental-Scale Hydrology", J. Szilagyi, R. Crago, R. Qualls

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Hydrogeophysical Characterization And Imaging In The Mangrove Lakes Region Of Everglades National Park And Big Pine Key, Florida, Usa, Michael Eyob Kiflai

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Coastal groundwater aquifers are susceptible to saltwater intrusion from natural and anthropogenic sources. Everglades National Park (ENP) has been adversely impacted by past human activities that altered freshwater flow through the system. In Big Pine Key (BPK), the flat and low-lying topography less than 2m makes the freshwater lens vulnerable to tidal and storm surge events. This study investigated different inversion scenarios and used Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT) and Electromagnetic (EM) survey to characterize the spatial and temporal change of the groundwater chemistry and image the aquifers. In Big Pine Key, Hurricane Irma made landfall as a category 4 storm …

Year Long Water Quality Analysis Of White Horn Brook, Kevin Dyer

Senior Honors Projects

KEVIN DYER (Marine Biology)

Year-long Analysis of the Water Quality of White Horn Brook

Sponsor: Thomas Boving (Geological Sciences)

Water is the foundation for all life on earth and is the most vital resource on this planet. Despite this, oceans and waterways all over the world are being polluted and exploited in ways detrimental to their fundamental hydrologic functions. For instance, excess nitrate levels can lead to eutrophication which gives rise to harmful algae blooms. Low pH can cause the breakdown of CaCO3 exoskeletons of organisms, such mollusks. High temperature variations are major stressors to living things and can cause …

Earth Observation And Cloud Computing In Support Of Two Sustainable Development Goals For The River Nile Watershed Countries, Wenzhao Li, Hesham El-Askary, Venkat Lakshmi, Thomas Piechota, Daniele Struppa

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

In September 2015, the members of United Nations adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with universal applicability of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 targets. The SDGs are consequential for the development of the countries in the Nile watershed, which are affected by water scarcity and experiencing rapid urbanization associated with population growth. Earth Observation (EO) has become an important tool to monitor the progress and implementation of specific SDG targets through its wide accessibility and global coverage. In addition, the advancement of algorithms and tools deployed in cloud computing platforms provide an equal opportunity to use EO …

Modeling Drought, Drought Teleconnection, And Its Effect On Groundwater Level Dynamics In The Biscayne Aquifer, Anteneh Z. Abiy

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Developing a self-sufficient water supply system in Southeast Florida is one input to the success of the ongoing restoration effort in the Everglades. Maintaining a high groundwater level in the urban side of the Biscayne Aquifer (BA) is important to sustain the urban water supply. However, the long-term groundwater table condition in the Biscayne Aquifer (BA) is threatened by a combination of drought, groundwater pumping, and sea-level rise. Further, the long-term drought pattern, drought drivers, and the aquifer’s response to drought and other stress conditions are not well known. As a result, options that would help to maintain a high …

Influence Of Forest-To-Silvopasture Conversion And Drought On Components Of Evapotranspiration, Adam P. Coble, Alexandra R. Contosta, Richard G. Smith, Nathan W. Siegert, Matthew A. Vadeboncoeur, Katie A. Jennings, Anthony J. Stewart, Heidi Asbjornsen

Natural Resources & the Environment

The northeastern U.S. is projected to experience more frequent short-term (1-2 month) droughts interspersed among larger precipitation events. Agroforestry practices such as silvopasture may mitigate these impacts of climate change while maintaining economic benefits of both agricultural and forestry practices. This study evaluated the effects of forest-to-silvopasture (i.e., 50% thinning) conversion on the components of evapotranspiration (transpiration, rainfall interception, and soil evaporation) during the growing season of 2016. The study coincided with a late-summer drought throughout the northeastern U.S., which allowed us to also evaluate the effects of forest-to-silvopasture conversion on drought responses of multiple tree species, including Pinus strobus, …

Vegetation, Rainfall, And Pulsing Hydrology In The Pantanal, The World's Largest Tropical Wetland, Sarah J. Ivory, Michael M. Mcglue, Stephanie Spera, Aguinaldo Silva, Ivan Bergier

Earth and Environmental Sciences Faculty Publications

Wetlands provide valuable ecosystem services and play a central role in global carbon cycling. Changes in rainfall and the flood-pulse are likely to disrupt the processes that maintain these landscapes; further, landscape modification may dramatically alter wetlands and promote terrestrialization. The Pantanal, South America, is the world's largest wetland due to flooding along the Upper Paraguay River. Predicting how water resources in the Pantanal may change is problematic due to a complex drainage network, resulting in the out-of-phase timing of rainfall and the flood pulse. We use remote sensing data of vegetation and climate to better understand the relationships among …

The Relationship Between Forest Management And Stream Discharge In Mazumbai And Baga Ii Forest Reserves, Tanga Region, Tanzania, Shannon Duffy

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Deforestation is known to alter hydrology by reducing interception, transpiration and infiltration capacity, and increasing runoff which all leads to higher stream discharge. For rural Tanzanian communities, surface water resources are crucial for meeting basic needs, so the integrity of headwater catchments need to be maintained to ensure their reliability. The objectives of this study were to a) map the streams in the two forests because none currently exist and b) determine the effect of deforestation on discharge variability. Over fifteen days of data collection, this study analyzed variability of discharge and the degree of correlation between discharge and rainfall …

Flow Alteration-Ecology Relationships In Ozark Highland Streams: Consequences For Fish, Crayfish And Macroinvertebrate Assemblages, Dustin T. Lynch, Douglas R. Easure, Daniel D. Magoulick

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

We examined flowalteration-ecology relationships in benthic macroinvertebrate, fish, and crayfish assemblages in Ozark Highland streams, USA, over two years with contrasting environmental conditions, a drought year (2012) and a flood year (2013). We hypothesized that: 1) there would be temporal variation in flow alteration-ecology relationships between the two years, 2) flow alteration-ecology relationshipswould be stronger during the drought year vs the flood year, and 3) fish assemblages would show the strongest relationships with flow alteration. We used a quantitative richest-targeted habitat (RTH) method and a qualitative multihabitat (QMH) method to collect macroinvertebrates at 16 USGS gaged sites during both years. …

Flow Alteration-Ecology Relationships In Ozark Highland Streams: Consequences For Fish, Crayfish And Macroinvertebrate Assemblages, Dustin Thomas Lynch, Douglas R. Leasure, Daniel D. Magoulick

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

We examined flowalteration-ecology relationships in benthic macroinvertebrate, fish, and crayfish assemblages in Ozark Highland streams, USA, over two years with contrasting environmental conditions, a drought year (2012) and a flood year (2013). We hypothesized that: 1) there would be temporal variation in flow alteration-ecology relationships between the two years, 2) flow alteration-ecology relationshipswould be stronger during the drought year vs the flood year, and 3) fish assemblages would show the strongest relationships with flow alteration. We used a quantitative richest-targeted habitat (RTH) method and a qualitative multihabitat (QMH) method to collect macroinvertebrates at 16 USGS gaged sites during both years. …

Long Reach Lane At Long Marsh, Harpswell, 2018 Post-Project Monitoring Report; Year 5 Of 5, Matthew Craig

Publications

No abstract provided.

Twenty-Three Unsolved Problems In Hydrology (Uph) – A Community Perspective, Günter Blöschl, Christopher M. U. Neale, A Cast Of Thousands

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

This paper is the outcome of a community initiative to identify major unsolved scientific problems in hydrology motivated by a need for stronger harmonisation of research efforts. The procedure involved a public consultation through online media, followed by two workshops through which a large number of potential science questions were collated, prioritised, and synthesised. In spite of the diversity of the participants (230 scientists in total), the process revealed much about community priorities and the state of our science: a preference for continuity in research questions rather than radical departures or redirections from past and current work. Questions remain focused …

Introductory R For Water Resources - Fall 2019 - University Of North Carolina At Chapel Hill, David Gorelick, Gregory Characklis

All ECSTATIC Materials

This is all course material for R for Researchers, a one-credit course taught at UNC Chapel Hill in Fall 2019 to introduce upperclassmen and graduate students to the R programming language and apply learned skills in basic water resources applications, as well as other (semi-related) topics of interest to students.

Lecture notes were distributed before (as a subset of full lecture notes) and after lectures, and lectures involved collaborative coding exercises with students in class without any powerpoint material. Course material here includes:

Syllabus: rough schedule and description of lectures

Lectures: pdf lecture notes with embedded code, including …

Ncer Assistance Agreement Annual Progress Report For Grant #83582401 - Assessment Of Stormwater Harvesting Via Manage Aquifer Recharge (Mar) To Develop New Water Supplies In The Arid West: The Salt Lake Valley Example, Ryan Dupont, Joan E. Mclean, Richard C. Peralta, Sarah E. Null, Douglas B. Jackson-Smith

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

The goals of the original proposed project remain the same, that is, to test the hypothesis that Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) for stormwater harvesting is a technically feasible, socially and environmentally acceptable, economically viable, and legally feasible option for developing new water supplies for arid Western urban ecosystems experiencing increasing population, and climate change pressures on existing water resources. The project is being carried out via three distinct but integrated components that include: 1) Monitoring of existing distributed MAR harvesting schemes involving a growing number of demonstration Green Infrastructure (GI) test sites; 2) Integrated stormwater/vadose zone/groundwater/ ecosystem services modeling; and …

Investigating Mechanisms Of Hydraulic Conductivity Transience In Sandy Streambeds, Wilhelm Fraundorfer

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Streambed hydraulic conductivity (K) is known to be spatially and temporally heterogeneous, but few attempts to understand the controls on temporal variability have been made. This study documents temporal K transience and demonstrates how hydraulic, geophysical, and sedimentological methods can be combined to understand the processes that give rise to changes in streambed K. Falling head permeameter tests and slug tests were conducted to determine vertical K (K_v) and K (slug test K), respectively. These tests were repeated three times over a twelve-week period on the same grid at a depth of 0.5 …

Bioassessment Of A Drinking Water Reservoir Using Plankton: High Throughput Sequencing Vs. Traditional Morphological Method, Wanli Gao, Zhaojin Chen, Yuying Li, Yangdong Pan, Jingya Zhu, Shijun Guo, Lanqun Hu, Jin Huang

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Drinking water safety is increasingly perceived as one of the top global environmental issues. Plankton has been commonly used as a bioindicator for water quality in lakes and reservoirs. Recently, DNA sequencing technology has been applied to bioassessment. In this study, we compared the effectiveness of the 16S and 18S rRNA high throughput sequencing method (HTS) and the traditional optical microscopy method (TOM) in the bioassessment of drinking water quality. Five stations reflecting different habitats and hydrological conditions in Danjiangkou Reservoir, one of the largest drinking water reservoirs in Asia, were sampled May 2016. Non-metric multi-dimensional scaling (NMDS) analysis showed …

Ncer Assistance Agreement Annual Progress Report For Grant #83582401 - Assessment Of Stormwater Harvesting Via Manage Aquifer Recharge (Mar) To Develop New Water Supplies In The Arid West: The Salt Lake Valley Example, Ryan Dupont, Joan E. Mclean, Richard C. Peralta, Sarah E. Null, Douglas B. Jackson-Smith

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

The aims of the original proposed project remain the same, that is, to test the hypothesis that Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) for stormwater harvesting is a technically feasible, socially and environmentally acceptable, economically viable, and legally feasible option for developing new water supplies for arid Western urban ecosystems experiencing increasing population, and climate change pressures on existing water resources. The project is being carried out via three distinct but integrated components that include: 1) Monitoring of existing distributed MAR harvesting schemes involving a growing number of demonstration Green Infrastructure (GI) test sites; 2) Integrated stormwater/vadose zone/groundwater/ ecosystem services modeling; and …

Linking Organic Matter Dynamics To Management, Restoration, And Climate In The Florida Everglades, Peter Regier

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Florida Everglades is a massive and highly managed subtropical wetland ecosystem, strongly influenced by anthropogenic control of freshwater distribution and highly susceptible to a changing climate, including rising sea-level and changes in temperature and rainfall. Shifting hydrologic regimes impact ecosystem function and biogeochemistry, which in turn control the sources, fate, and transport of organic matter. As a master environmental variable, it is essential to understand how organic matter dynamics will respond to changes in the balance between freshwater and saltwater associated with landscape-scale Everglades restoration efforts and climate change. The research comprising this dissertation improves current understanding of the …

Final Report To Governors From The Joint Study Committee And Scientific Professionals, Brian Haggard, Derek Smithee, Ryan Benefield, Shellie Chard, Marty Matlock, Shanon Phillips, Ryan King

Technical Reports

The intent of this publication of the Arkansas Water Resources Center is to provide a location whereby a final report on water research to a funding entity can be archived. The States of Arkansas and Oklahoma signed the Second Statement of Joint Principles and Actions in 2013 to form a governors’ appointed ‘Joint Study Committee’ to oversee the ‘Joint Study’ and make recommendations on the phosphorus criteria in Oklahoma’s Scenic Rivers. This publication has maintained the original format of the report as submitted to the Governors of Arkansas and Oklahoma.

Reproductive Ecology Of Interior Least Tern And Piping Plover In Relation To Platte River Hydrology And Sandbar Dynamics, Jason M. Farnsworth, David M. Baasch, Chadwin B. Smith, Kevin L. Werbylo

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Investigations of breeding ecology of interior least tern (Sternula antillarum athalassos) and piping plover (Charadrius melodus) in the Platte River basin in Nebraska, USA, have embraced the idea that these species are physiologically adapted to begin nesting concurrent with the cessation of spring floods. Low use and productivity on contemporary Platte River sandbars have been attributed to anthropomorphically driven changes in basin hydrology and channel morphology or to unusually late annual runoff events. We examined distributions of least tern and piping plover nest initiation dates in relation to the hydrology of the historical central Platte River …

Ncer Assistance Agreement Annual Progress Report For Grant #83582401 - Assessment Of Stormwater Harvesting Via Manage Aquifer Recharge (Mar) To Develop New Water Supplies In The Arid West: The Salt Lake Valley Example, Ryan Dupont, Joan E. Mclean, Richard C. Peralta, Sarah E. Null, Douglas B. Jackson-Smith

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

The aims of the original proposed project remain the same, that is, to test the hypothesis that Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) for stormwater harvesting is a technically feasible, socially and environmentally acceptable, economically viable, and permittable option for developing new water supplies for arid Western urban ecosystems experiencing increasing population, and climate change pressures on existing water resources. The project is being carried out via three distinct but integrated components that include: 1) Monitoring of existing distributed Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) harvesting schemes involving a growing number of demonstration Green Infrastructure (GI) test sites; 2) Integrated stormwater/vadose zone/groundwater/ ecosystem services …

Slides: Environmental Flow Case Studies: Southern And Eastern Africa, Rebecca Tharme, Kelly Fouchy, Susan Graas, John Conallin, Michael Mcclain, Unesco-Ihe, Felister Mombo, Sokoine University Of Agriculture

Coping with Water Scarcity in River Basins Worldwide: Lessons Learned from Shared Experiences (Martz Summer Conference, June 9-10)

Presenter: Rebecca Tharme, Riverfutures Ltd.

17 slides

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 …

Wetlands And Coastal Systems: Protecting And Restoring Valuable Ecosystems, Carmen T. Agouridis, Kyle R. Douglas-Mankin, Anna C. Linhoss, Aaron R. Mittelstet

Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering Faculty Publications

Wetlands and coastal systems are unique, highly productive, and often threatened landscapes that provide a host of services to both humans and the environment. This article introduces a five-article Wetlands and Coastal Systems Special Collection that evolved from a featured session at the 2015 ASABE Annual International Meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana. The Collection provides perspectives on tools and techniques for enhancing the protection and restoration of wetlands and coastal systems with emphasis on vegetation, hydrology, water quality, and planning. Topics span the Florida Everglades (two articles) and Virginia floodplain (one article) wetland systems and include remote sensing (one article) …