Environmental Engineering Commons^™

Bias Correction And Downscaling Of Climate Model Outputs Required For Impact Assessments Of Climate Change In The U.S. Northeast, Kazi F. Ahmed

Master's Theses

Global Climate Models (GCMs) are the typical sources of future climate data required for impact assessments of climate change. However, GCM outputs are related to model-related uncertainties and involve a great deal of biases. Bias correction of model outputs is, therefore, necessary before their use in impact studies. The coarse resolution of GCM simulations is another hindrance to their direct use in fine-scale impact analysis of climate change. Although downscaling of GCM outputs can be performed by dynamical downscaling using Regional Climate Models (RCMs), it requires large computational capacity. When daily climate data from multiple GCMs are required to be …

Adapting To Climate Change While Planning For Disaster: Footholds, Rope Lines, And The Iowa Floods, Robert R.M. Verchick, Abby Hall

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

2011 Fall Engr333 Project Final Report, Fall 2011 Engr333

ENGR 333

Analysis of the Bunker Interpretive Center (BIC) began during the spring of 2011 with the Engineering 382 Instrumentation Lab. To determine the energy use at the BIC, sensing equipment was placed on 44 different energy consuming devices, ranging from pumps to lights to heating and ventilation (HVAC) equipment. These data were collected over the spring and summer and then analyzed by the Engineering 333 Thermal Systems Design class during the fall of 2011. The class was tasked with determining whether or not the BIC was eligible for Energy Star certification. While the building was built to be LEED Gold certified, …

2011 Fall Engr333 Student Seminar Presentation, 2011 Fall Engr333

ENGR 333

File for student presentation, given by students in the Fall 2010 class of ENGR333.

Utilizing Technology To Increase The Recycled Content Of Asphalt Mix Designs, Nicholas Ricketts

Purdue Polytechnic Masters Theses

This directed project examined the idea that increasing the amount of recycled asphalt product in road construction will result in a comparable performance to the current levels of recycled asphalt product in today’s pavement. A critical review of literature is structured in four areas: describing the need (financial and environmental) for the increased use of recycled materials, describing how others have addressed the issue and technology needed for increasing the use of recycled content, describing how some contractors have created the technology needed, and finally describing the direction needed in order to encourage customers and government agencies to embrace the …

Physicochemical And Microbiological Quality Of Water From A Pilot Domestic Rainwater Harvesting Facility In Ireland., Sean O'Hogain, Liam Mccarton, Niamh Mcintyre, Jenny Pender, Anna Reid

Articles

DTC Research Group, Dublin Institute of Technology personnel were commissioned in 2005 by the Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government in Ireland to assess the feasibility of utilising harvested rainwater to replace treated mains water, for non-potable uses. A pilot project was set up. The project involved the design, installation, commissioning and monitoring of rainwater harvesting facilities in a rural housing development. A monitoring program was carried out to examine the physico-chemical and microbiological quality of the harvested rainwater. Harvested rainwater was sampled monthly and tested. Analysis of the harvested rainwater quality showed a consistently high quality of raw …

Removal Of Disinfection By-Product Precursors Using Magnetic Ion Exchange (Miex(R)): The Effects Of Ph And Source Water Variability, Sarah Cousins

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Disinfection by-products (DBPs) form as an unintended result of drinking water disinfection, from chemical reactions between disinfectants (e.g., free chlorine) and naturally occurring dissolved organic matter (DOM). At present, 11 DBPs are regulated in treated drinking waters due to potential adverse health effects, including four trihalomethanes (THMs). Despite nearly 40 years of DBP research, compliance with DBP regulations remains a challenge for many drinking water treatment plants (DWTPs), including the four DWTPs located on the Beaver Lake Reservoir in Northwest Arkansas. Due to the high net negative surface charge on DOM, anion exchange is one potentially viable method for removing …

Evaluation Of Bioaugmentation Strategies To Treat High Concentrations Of Chloroform And Carbon Tetrachloride, Han Wang

All Theses

Halogenated methanes, including carbon tetrachloride (CT) and chloroform (CF), are significant groundwater contaminants. Options for bioremediation of high concentrations are limited. Previous studies have shown that an enrichment culture (designated DHM-1) that grows on corn syrup has the potential for use in bioaugmentation. DHM-1 cometabolically biotransforms high concentrations of CT and CF to nontoxic end products (mainly CO, CO2, and organic acids) in the presence of vitamin B12 (approximately 3% of chlorinated methanes on a molar basis). Sulfide is also required by this culture to function properly. However, insufficient data are available on its performance under field conditions. Also, it …

Water Quality Models For Stormwater Runoff In Two Lincoln, Nebraska Urban Watersheds, Jake Fisher

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Water quality monitoring was conducted in two urban watersheds (Colonial Hills and Taylor Park) located in southeast Lincoln, NE over a three year period spanning from October 2008 through September 2011. In-line probes continuously measured for turbidity, conductivity, dissolved oxygen, and water temperature while other water quality constituents were analyzed for discrete water samples collected using grab and automatic sampling techniques. The water quality data was used to calculate event mean concentrations (EMCs) for sixteen storm events sampled over the duration of the project period. Three types of stormwater quality multiple linear regression models were developed for the estimation of …

Sensitivity Analysis On Mapping Evapotranspiration At High Resolution Using Internal Calibration (Metric), Venkata Naga Ravi Kumar Choragudi

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Mapping EvapoTranspiration at high Resolution using Internal Calibration (METRIC) is most widely used to quantify evapotranspiration (ET) spatially and temporally. It is essential to inspect the model’s response to errors in various parameters used in the model. Landsat 5 images from May 30 2009, July 1 2009 and a Landsat 7 image from September 27 2009 are used in this study. Fourteen different fields composed of Corn, Soybeans, Alfalfa are randomly chosen for each crop type.

Two kinds of errors are addressed in this study. One, with the errors that are transferred and potentially compensated by calibration (Global error) and …

Water Quality Trends For Section 319 Priority Watersheds In Northwest Arkansas, 1997-2010, Bryan William Bailey

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Northwest Arkansas contains two Section 319 Priority Watersheds that the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission (ANRC) has identified as being impacted by point and nonpoint sources of pollution (i.e., phosphorus, nitrogen, and sediment), and the Arkansas Water Resources Center (AWRC) has monitored the water quality at several sites within these watersheds. Water-quality data has been collected over the last decade within the Illinois River Watershed (HUC #11110103) and the Upper White River Basin (Beaver Reservoir HUC# 11010001), each watershed containing three sampling sites. The Illinois River Watershed sites are located on the Illinois River, Osage Creek, and Ballard Creek, and the …

Hydrologic Evaluation Of Established Rain Gardens In Lincoln, Nebraska Using A Storm Runoff Simulator, Andrew R. Anderson

Department of Environmental Engineering: Theses and Other Student Research

Increased urbanization has resulted in water quality and flooding problems for many receiving waters in the United States. Bioretention, or rain gardens, is one of the most widely popular and effective best management practices in low impact development (LID), which strives to return a watershed to a predevelopment hydrologic regime. Many studies have evaluated large bioretention cells in research settings. There is little information on the effectiveness of homeowner-maintained rain gardens that rely on deep percolation as the method for water exfiltration. Additionally, few studies address rain garden performance in cold, arid, or semi-arid climates found in the Midwest U.S. …

Dimensional Stability Of Geosynthetic Clay Liners In Landfill Applications, Gregory R. Olsen

Master's Theses

An investigation was conducted related to the dimensional stability of geosynthetic clay liners (GCLs) in landfill applications. Multiple occurrences of panel separation of overlap seams in GCLs have been documented; however, explanation for the relative contribution of various mechanisms causing shrinkage has been limited. A systematic test program was conducted to determine the effects of a variety of conditions on GCL dimensional stability.

Effects of initial moisture content, permeant type, and overburden pressure were tested by subjecting various GCL products to wet-dry cycles and measuring the dimensional change with each cycle. Different GCL types were each tested under various combinations …

Hydroclimatic Forecasting In The Western United States Using Paleoclimate Reconstructions And Data-Driven Models, Christopher Allen Carrier

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This thesis investigated climate variability and their associated hydrologic responses in the western United States. The western United States faces the problem of water scarcity, where the management and mitigation of available water supplies are further complicated by climate variability. Climate variability associated with the phases of oceanic-atmospheric oscillations has been shown to influence streamflow and precipitation, where predictive relationships have led to the possibility of producing long-range forecasts. Based on literature review, four oceanic-atmospheric oscillation indices were identified in having the most prominent influence over the western United States including the El Niño - Southern Oscillation (ENSO), Pacific Decadal …

Comparative Life Cycle Assessments Of Lignocellulosic And Algae Biomass Conversion To Various Energy Products Through Different Pathways, Maria Juliana Pinilla

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Bioenergy has the potential to reduce the world's dependence on fossil fuels, and to decrease the CO2 emissions due to fossil combustion. Lignocellulosic and algae biomass have been presented as promising feedstocks for bioenergy production.

In this study, a comparative Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has been developed to evaluate the environmental impacts associated with different energy products via different routes across the whole life of algal and lignocellulosic bioenergy. Results were compared per energy basis, the production of 1 million BTU of energy products.

For the development of the comparative algae biomass conversion LCA, algal biomass was converted to liquid …

Soil Chemistry And The Recovery Of Sensitive Watersheds From Chronic Acidification, Chris E. Johnson

Civil and Environmental Engineering - All Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Refining Greenstep: Impacts Of Vehicle Technologies And Its/Operational Improvements On Travel Speed And Fuel Consumption Curves, Kelly Clifton, Alexander Y. Bigazzi

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This report describes analysis undertaken to establish a method for incorporating traffic operations and ITS strategies into the GreenSTEP model. We first discuss operations impacts on fuel economy and delay from the literature. Then, an investigation of delay adjustments in GreenSTEP shows that different methods of representing delay changes lead to similar (and small) impacts on fuel economy. From this result we establish average speed adjustment by congestion level as the preferred method for incorporating delay effects from operations improvements. An investigation of aggregate traffic operations impacts produces estimates of base speeds without operations improvements, maximum speeds with full operational …

History Of The Biological Systems Engineering Program In Nebraska, University Of Nebraska-Lincoln, William E. Splinter

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

The Farm Machinery/Agricultural Engineering/Biological Systems Engineering program current and former faculty members at the University of Nebraska, as demonstrated here, has made a statewide, national, and worldwide impact on the efficient production of food. The quality of this recognition is evidenced best by peer professionals through recognized ASABE awards received by Nebraska alumni or professors. Since its inception in 1909 and until 2010, there have been 10 national presidents, 19 gold medal recipients and 33 named national award recipients. Currently there are 31 ASABE Fellows and two members of the National Academy of Engineering. This national recognition comes as a …

Green Residential Stormwater Management Demonstration: An Integrated Stormwater Management And Graywater System To Reduce The Quantity And Improve The Quality Of Residential Water Discharges, Post Co Data Analysis, Ni-Bin Chang, Martin Wanielista, Manoj Chopra, Mike Hardin, Matthew Allen Goolsby

BMP Trains Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Nitrogen Transport And Transformation Beneath Stormwater Retention Basins In Karst Areas And Effectiveness Of Stormwater Best Management Practices For Reducing Nitrate Leaching To Ground Water In Marion County, Florida, Stormwater Academy

BMP Trains Research and Publications

No abstract provided.