Environmental Engineering Commons^™

My Catalyst, Gabrielle Gambino Lyon

Celebration of Learning

Over the course of my internship and shadow program with Pepper Lawson Construction and Ziegler Cooper Architects, I was able to explore the various career paths involved in the design, construction, and civil engineering fields. My work on the construction site of a high-rise apartment building located in the heart of Houston, TX allowed me first-hand experience working and learning alongside project engineers, contractors, building developers, and the construction team.

This project was the perfect confluence of my main areas of interest: structural, mechanical, civil, and environmental engineering, as well as architecture. My daily work consisted of on-site walk throughs, …

Plant Community Composition, Floristic Quality, And Establishment Of Roadside Revegetation In Nebraska, Usa, Jonathan M. Soper

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Roadside revegetation poses a challenge and opportunity for biodiversity conservation, as the land area occupied by roadsides is not expected to decline in the future. In the context of roadside revegetation activities in rural regions dominated by agricultural land uses, revegetation efforts can establish plant communities that offer unique species that would otherwise be absent on the landscape. To determine the efficacy of roadside revegetation efforts in 1) providing plant communities of high biodiversity value and 2) meeting the expectations of roadside revegetation managers for establishment, we quantified botanical composition, floristic quality, and success in seeding efforts to meet manager …

Dna Identification Of Polyculture, Andrew Schuler

Energize New Mexico (NSF EPSCoR Track 1 IV)

DNA sequencing of algae polyculture growing in oilfield produced water. It is dominated by the algae species Parachlorella kessleri and Cyanobacterium aponinum.

Evaluation Of Effectiveness Of Streambank Stabilization Practices And Flood Impact On Cedar River, Nebraska, Naisargi N. Dave

Department of Environmental Engineering: Theses and Other Student Research

Stream restoration has been a major environmental objective for preserving biodiversity, reducing loss of valuable cropland and improving water quality. The impact and efficiency of streambank stabilization practices has been simulated using erosion-prediction models; however, evaluation of the erosion-control practices to measure their efficiency is often neglected. This project monitored changes in fluvial geomorphology on the Cedar River in Nebraska and quantified the effectiveness of 18 sites with streambank stabilization practices. A flood event in 2010 due to dam failure acted as a major parameter in measuring the efficiency of the erosion control practices. The methodology included aerial imagery to …

Characterizing Patterns In E. Coli Levels In Rio Grande River Water And Riverbed Sediments Near Albuquerque, Nm, James Fluke

Civil Engineering ETDs

In this work I examined how Fecal indicator Bacteria (FIB) behave in a large environmental system (Rio Grande near Albuquerque, ~60 km distance). I addressed the questions: How do FIB levels in river water and riverbed sediments of this reach change with distance along the river and throughout one year?

I conducted year-round river water and sediment sampling for concentration of E. coli bacteria, a persistent contaminant in the area. I found that over the year, E. coli loading in river water increased along the 60 km reach and E. coli in the sediments mainly increased near the Albuquerque urban …

Metal Reactivity In Laboratory Burned Wood From A Watershed Affected By Wildfires, Asifur Rahman

Civil Engineering ETDs

Massive amounts of wood ash are deposited into nearby streams as a result of runoff from storm events after increasing frequency of wildfire events that negatively affect water quality. Ash and debris from burned vegetation can alter the pH, turbidity and dissolved oxygen (DO) in water and can release heavy metals, organic matter, and nutrients. We investigated interfacial processes affecting metal mobility in wood ash burned under laboratory-controlled conditions using aqueous chemistry, microscopy and spectroscopy analyses. Wood was collected from the Valles Caldera National Preserve in New Mexico which has experienced two wildfires since 2011 that have caused devastating effects. …

Huron-To-Erie Water Quality Data Platform, Lanyu Xu, Carol J. Miller, James Olson, Michael Beaulac

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research Publications

To address the challenges of environmental degradation, creation of a sustainable urban environment, and increased public engagement and awareness, a mass-oriented, user-friendly and cloud-based data platform has been developed and deployed to provide integrative water quality data in one of the most critical urban corridors of the Laurentian Great Lakes system. In this paper, we describe the data platform developed for the watershed and connecting channels between Lake Huron and Lake Erie, including the St. Clair River, Lake St. Chair, and the Detroit River. This data platform greatly facilitates the access of data across data providers and agencies. Several example …

Cross Photoreaction Of Glyoxylic And Pyruvic Acids In Model Aqueous Aerosol, Sha-Sha Xia, Alexis J. Eugene, Marcelo I. Guzman

Chemistry Faculty Publications

Aerosols of variable composition, size, and shape are associated with public health concerns as well as with light-particle interactions that play a role in the energy balance of the atmosphere. Photochemical reactions of 2-oxocarboxylic acids in the aqueous phase are now known to contribute to the total secondary organic aerosol (SOA) budget. This work explores the cross reaction of glyoxylic acid (GA) and pyruvic acid (PA) in water, the two most abundant 2-oxocarboxylic acids in the atmosphere, under solar irradiation and dark thermal aging steps. During irradiation, PA and GA are excited and initiate proton-coupled electron transfer or hydrogen abstraction …

A 3d Model For Earthquake-Induced Liquefaction Triggering And Post-Liquefaction Response, Arash Khosravifar, Ahmed Elgamal, Jinchi Lu, John Li

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

A constitutive soil model that was originally developed to model liquefaction and cyclic mobility has been updated to comply with the established guidelines on the dependence of liquefaction triggering to the number of loading cycles, effective overburden stress (Kσ), and static shear stress (Kα). The model has been improved with new flow rules to better capture contraction and dilation in sands and has been implemented as PDMY03 in different computational platforms such as OpenSees finite-element, and FLAC and FLAC3D finite-difference frameworks. This paper presents the new modified framework of analysis and describes a guideline to calibrate the input parameters of …

The Effect Of Destoning And Enzymatic Pretreatments On The Biofuel Production From Olive Cake, Patrick Tai

Master's Theses

More than 16,000 tons of olive cake was produced in the United States in 2017. Olive cake is a by-product of olive oil extraction, which has limited animal feed potential, and poses an environmental threat when landfilled due to its high organic load and polyphenol content. This residue has potential for biofuel (bioethanol and biomethane) production because it is rich in polysaccharides such as pectin, hemicellulose, and cellulose. Yet, olive cake contains olive stones that can impede its conversion to biofuel. Therefore, two methods of destoning, centrifugation and screening by horizontal screw press, were first compared. Both methods removed an …

Evaluating Opportunities And Barriers To Improving The Energy Efficiency Of Small Nebraska Wastewater Treatment Plants, Matthew J. Thompson

Department of Environmental Engineering: Theses and Other Student Research

Wastewater treatment plants (WWTP)s account for about 0.8% of U.S. electricity use. Small WWTPs serving communities of populations less than 10,000 accounts for 95% of treatment plants in Nebraska. These plants are significantly less efficient compared to large systems and thus improving their energy efficiency (E2) is a growing focus in efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with their operation. Energy use of plant unit operations was evaluated for several plants and included analysis of energy for space heating. Specific infrastructure and/or operational changes reported by operators following an E2 benchmarking project were evaluated by quantifying the change in …

Impact Of Recirculating Nitrified Effluent On The Performance Of Passive Onsite Hybrid Adsorption And Biological Treatment Systems, Amulya Miriyala

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Approximately 25% of households in the U.S. treat their wastewater onsite using conventional onsite wastewater treatment systems (OWTS). These systems typically include a septic tank or a series of septic tanks followed by a soil absorption system. They effectively remove biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), total suspended solids (TSS), fats and grease but are not designed to remove significant amounts of nitrogen. High nitrogen loading to coastal and ground waters can be dangerous to aquatic life and public health. Hence, there is a need for advanced onsite wastewater treatment systems that can effectively remove nitrogen. Making enhanced nitrogen removal for OWTS …

Demonstration Of The Gas Assisted Gravity Drainage (Gagd) Process In Carbonate Rocks., Alok Jiteshkumar Shah

LSU Master's Theses

The Gas Assisted Gravity Drainage (GAGD) process was developed and patented by Dr. Rao at LSU in the early 2000s. The process involves the use of several existing or new vertical injection wells to inject gas and use the natural segregation of reservoir fluids from the density difference and the gravitational forces to displace the trapped oil and mobilize the oil downwards to be produced by a horizontal producing well. The GAGD process can be implemented as a secondary or tertiary oil recovery method. Several physical model experiments have been conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the GAGD process for …

Comparative Study Of One Parameter Budyko Model Index And The Scs Curve Number, Cihad Ayberk Doner

LSU Master's Theses

This study investigates two water balance models from different levels of complexity to recognize the impacts of climate change on water resources. The main objective is to examine the capacity of future runoff calculations of a parsimonious simple water balance model compared to a more complex model under the climate change variables. The selected water balance models are the simple one-parameter Budyko-type model using the Zhang’s equation with single parameter (a) and the more complex model (HELP3) applying Soil Conservation Service (SCS) curve number method to calculate future runoff predictions. The study has a twofold focus, first on explaining the …

Wave Attenuation By Constructed Oyster Reef Breakwaters, Jason M. Chauvin

LSU Master's Theses

Biloxi Marsh, located along the shoreline of Eloi Bay in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana has experienced significant shoreline erosion in recent years. The Living Shoreline Demonstration Project, completed in November 2016, constructed three miles of living shoreline structures to attenuate waves and thus combat marsh edge erosion along the shoreline of Eloi Bay. Several types of constructed oyster reef breakwaters were installed for this demonstration project. Due to the experimental nature of these products, available performance characteristics are limited.

This research measures wave attenuation across the constructed oyster reef breakwaters using bottom-mounted pressure gauges. Seven pressure gauges were deployed to …

Underground Stormwater Treatment Performance In Urban Coastal Catchments: Case Study Of Baffle Boxes In The City Of Tampa, Awet Eyob Tsegay

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In coastal urban regions, underground stormwater treatment units are suitable infrastructure options because they take less space where premium land is expensive. Even then, they should be accessible and ideally small enough to fit into existing stormwater networks. Since 2003, the City of Tampa and Florida’s Department of Transportation (FDOT) have installed 47 baffle boxes into the city’s stormwater pipe networks. Baffle boxes are underground stormwater treatment structures designed to capture sediments and floating debris. Since their deployment, many challenges regarding their practical sediment capturing performance was raised by the city.

The objective of this research was to evaluate the …

Caregiver Perception And The Role Of Seasonality In Under-Five Childhood Diarrhea Incidence In Svay Rieng Province, Cambodia, Brian S. Wells

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Diarrheal disease has long been known to be a burden to children worldwide. Although child mortality rates as a result of diarrhea have decreased over the past two decades, overall diarrhea incidence has remained relatively stable. In Cambodia, diarrhea was the third most prevalent outpatient diagnosis for children under five in 2012, with a reported incidence rate of 12 per 100 children, up from 7 per 100 children in 2008 (Ministry of Planning Cambodia, 2012). Cambodia is an agricultural country with 80% of the population living in rural areas (National Institute of Statistics Ministry of Planning, 2013). Many are also …

Regulatory Methodology And Unmitigated Wetland Loss In Southwest Florida, Kathleen B. Castor

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research used Geographical Information System (GIS) data to estimate the acreage of wetland loss due to small-scale activities (taking into account exempt, permitted, and unauthorized activities) in the Southwest District of the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) between 2006 and 2011 and compared that net loss with the unmitigated wetland net loss that DEP documented during that time for authorized activities and violations that were discovered. The comparison allowed an estimation of the extent of undocumented small-scale unmitigated wetland loss that occurred during those six years. DEP records show that 88% of non-compliance cases remain unresolved, and the net …

Impact Of Upstream Chlorination On Filter Performance And Microbial Community Structure Of Gac And Anthracite Biofilters, Glen Andrew De Vera, Daniel Gerrity, Mitchell Stoker, Wilbur Frehner, Eric C. Wert

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

Drinking water filters may be operated to promote or deter biological activity through upstream oxidant addition. While there are several water quality benefits from biofiltration, microbial growth in biofilters warrants further investigation. In this study, routine monitoring detected target DNA sequences for Naegleria fowleri in source water and Acanthamoeba spp. in source water and biofilter effluent, triggering further microbial community characterization. Full-scale anthracite and granular activated carbon (GAC) filters receiving chlorinated waters were compared in terms of effluent water quality (i.e., turbidity and particle counts), biological activity (i.e., adenosine triphosphate (ATP)), and the composition of the microbial community (i.e., 16S/18S …

Dynamic Modeling Of An Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant, Komal Rathore

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Advanced wastewater treatment plants have complex biological kinetics, time variant influent rates and long processing times. The modeling and operation control of wastewater treatment plant gets complicated due to these characteristics. However, a robust operational system for a wastewater treatment plant is necessary to increase the efficiency of the plant, reduce energy cost and achieve environmental discharge limits. These discharge limits are set by the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) for municipal and industrial wastewater treatment plants to limit the amount of nutrients being discharged into the aquatic systems.

This document summarizes the research to develop a supervisory operational …