Other Civil and Environmental Engineering Commons^™

Introduction To Special Issue Of Irrigation Science: Improving Irrigation Management Across The Ogallala Aquifer, Usa, Allan A. Andales, Daran Rudnick, José L. Chávez

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Groundwater stored in aquifers is a major source of irrigation water for many agricultural regions that receive insufficient precipitation for crop production. In the U.S.A., the High Plains aquifer (HPA) that underlies parts of Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming supplies irrigation water for agricultural production. The HPA underlies around 450,658 km² (174,000 mi²) of which the Ogallala aquifer is the principal geologic formation underlying 347,059 km² (134,000 mi²) (Gutentag et al. 1984). The Ogallala aquifer is primarily a water table (unconfined) aquifer with saturated thickness ranging from 0 …

Application Of Modified River Health Index For Sungai Penchala, Sathis Venkitasamy

Student Works (2020-2029)

The aim of this study is to have a tool of management of an urban river. A simple tool in terms of index aimed to be developed to manage urban river to meet its intended usage. River Health Index (RHI) developed by combining both physico-chemical parameters and biological measures through scores and weightages. Sungai Penchala is the small urban river chosen for this study. Water quality study, which include physico-chemical parameters, benthic macroinvertebrates and surrounding land use activities have been carried out since May 2016 to September 2016. Ten sampling points have been selected to represent the condition of the …

A Study On The Performance Of University Malaya Campus Bus Service Using Dwell Time Model And Passenger Distribution Analysis, Gan Jia Jun

Student Works (2020-2029)

Accessibility and mobility are key to a sustainable transport system for the community within a green university campus. To encourage more sustainable transport usage, public transport such as campus bus service are provided for students to commute between academic buildings and residential areas on campus. The current operating timetable of the campus bus service is made by the Student Affairs Division based on the observation of bus service in the past few years. This research aimed to study the capability of the campus bus service in University of Malaya (UM) to accommodate the demand of students. A survey questionnaire was …

Permeable Road Pavement With Subsurface Precast Micro-Detention Storage: A Green Pavement Practice, Norazlina Bateni

Student Works (2020-2029)

Green infrastructure practices are uniquely applicable to address the relationship between land use and water resources through the replication of the natural hydrological process within the landscape. Implementation of such practices, especially green pavement can significantly improve the rainfall-runoff responses, and thereby minimise the occurrence of flood hazards, which may lead to uncountable economic losses. Common permeable pavements are typically composed of fine-layered particles attributed to low porosity. In this study, an innovative permeable pavement with a micro-detention pond storage (PPDS) system is proposed. It is a modified type of interlocking block permeable pavement consisting of a hollow cylinder with …

Historical Changes In Planform Geometry Of The Amite And Comite Rivers And Implications On Flood Routing, Kathleen E. Harris

LSU Master's Theses

The Amite River Basin is a 2,220 square-mile basin spanning from southwest Mississippi through southeast Louisiana, encompassing Baton Rouge and its suburbs. In response to historic flooding in August 2016 and other major flood events in the past several decades, the basin has been the subject of a number of studies to quantify the impacts of changes in land-use and reduction in river length and sinuosity. However, there have yet to be relationships defined between the changes in the historical river planform and the resulting flow, stages, and subsequent flood depths. River lengths and sinuosity were measured from the 1930s …

Hybrid Passive Control System For Seismic Response Mitigation Of Steel Frame Structures, Mohammad Hossein Mehrabi

Student Works (2020-2029)

Large vibration forces such as from seismic excitations can cause structural damage and structural collapse in the case of intense earthquakes. A large number of novel methods and of these techniques has weaknesses and strengths. Several control devices demonstrate a two-step mechanism in which the structure's stiffness is initially raised, and then the of the first vibration period down to a region where the structural response is significantly increased. The main aim of this thesis is to propose a hybrid passive control system comprises of two phases for the seismic retrofit of moment-resisting steel frames. The first phase is a …

Numerical Modeling Of Wave- And Current-Supported Turbidity Currents Over Erodible Bed, Sahar Haddadian

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The physical processes that route sediments from nearshore to the continental margin provide vital information to the global assessment of the geochemically important matter and the life in the ocean. Therefore, understanding these processes at the fundamental level will help develop accurate models that can be integrated into operational ocean models. Wave- and current-supported turbidity currents (WCSTCs) are one of the mechanisms that deliver sediments to the continental margin. WCSTCs are slow-moving turbidity currents where near-bed turbulence driven by strong surface waves and/or currents, tide- and/or wind-driven, maintain the turbidity current in motion. This study investigates the along-shelf current-supported turbidity …

Ranking Volatility In Building Energy Consumption Using Ensemble Learning And Information Entropy, Kunal Sharma, Jung-Ho Lewe

Georgia Journal of Science

Given the rise in building energy consumption and demand worldwide, energy inefficiency detection has become extremely important. A significant portion of the energy used in commercial buildings is wasted as a result of poor maintenance, degradation or improperly controlled equipment. Most facilities employ sensors to track energy consumption across multiple buildings. Smart fault detection and diagnostic systems use various anomaly detection techniques to discover point anomalies in consumption. While these systems work reasonably well in detecting equipment anomalies over short-term intervals, further exploration is needed in finding methods that consider long-term consumption to detect anomalous buildings. This paper presents a …

Morphodynamics Of Transgressive Coastal Systems: Modeling Allogenic And Autogenic Response To Sea Level Rise, Storms, And Changes In Sediment Supply, Kevin C. Hanegan

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Barrier islands are widespread and typically enclose landward basins connected to the ocean through tidal inlets. Low energy in the basin enables fine sediment accumulation and salt marsh formation. Sea Level Rise (SLR) causes loss of marshes due to their low elevations and inundation sensitivity. Both long-term trends in sediment supply due to SLR and episodic transfers of sediment due to storms are important to the sustainability of marshes and tidal basins. The trajectory of deltas, including the Mississippi River Delta (MRD), are also impacted by sediment supply. The redistribution of sediments (autogenic reorganization) within transgressive systems will determine their …

A Modeling Framework For Urban Growth Prediction Using Remote Sensing And Video Prediction Technologies: A Time-Dependent Convolutional Encoder-Decoder Architecture, Ahmed Hassan Jaad

Civil and Environmental Engineering Theses and Dissertations

Studying the growth pattern of cities/urban areas has received considerable attention during the past few decades. The goal is to identify directions and locations of potential growth, assess infrastructure and public service requirements, and ensure the integration of the new developments with the existing city structure. This dissertation presents a novel model for urban growth prediction using a novel machine learning model. The model treats successive historical satellite images of the urban area under consideration as a video for which future frames are predicted. A time-dependent convolutional encoder-decoder architecture is adopted. The model considers as an input a satellite image …

Impacts Of Beaver Dams On Mountain Stream Discharge And Water Temperature, Timothy R. Clark

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Beaver dam complexes have been shown to affect the hydrologic processes controlling river systems. These processes include surface and groundwater exchanges, water chemistry and temperature variations, and river discharge magnitudes. Majerova et al. (2015) explored the effects of beaver dams on surface and groundwater exchanges and water temperature by evaluating three years of water discharge and temperature data recorded at multiple locations within a small stream in northern Utah. They found that beaver dams increase the water surface elevation and force water into the floodplain resulting in increased inundation and groundwater recharge. They additionally found that beaver dams increase residence …

Quantitative Assessment Of Alkali-Silica Reaction In Small And Large-Scale Concrete Specimens Utilizing Nonlinear Acoustic Techniques, Clayton Malone

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

Nonlinear resonance techniques have been shown to be sensitive to microcracking in materials, including alkali-silica reaction (ASR) damage in concrete. However, application of nonlinear resonance tests have been limited due to the difficulty of application to large-scale field structures and the inability to quantitatively relate material nonlinearity with damage development. In this study, the development of ASR in concrete prisms and large concrete beam specimens of varying aggregate types and specimen sizes was monitored using linear and nonlinear resonance techniques.

For the concrete prisms, although the linear resonance frequency test could detect initiation and development of ASR damage in specimens …

Climate Change And Market-Based Insurance Feedbacks, Eric R. Holley, Adam Liska, Cory Walters, Geoffrey C. Friesen, Michael Hayes, Max J. Rudolph, Donald A. Wilhite

Adam Liska Papers

Climatic events have accounted for 91% of $1.05 trillion in insured costs for global catastrophic events from 1980 to 2016. Costs are driven by socio-economic development and increased frequency and severity of climatic disasters driven by climate change. Government policies to reduce systemic risk (e.g., cap-and-trade, carbon tax) have been a predominant approach for mitigation and adaptation. Alternatively, market-based incentives for climate change adaptation and mitigation already operate via the insurance industry to lessen impacts on society. Insurance feedbacks include changes in 1) premiums and insurance policies, 2) non-coverage, and 3) policy making and litigation. Alongside government policies, insurance feedbacks …

Biofiltration Of Volatile Organic Compounds Emitted At Ethanol Plants, Mitham Al-Faliti

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

Ethanol is a major biofuel source of energy in the U.S. Ethanol production produces several harmful emissions from both fermentation tanks and dryers. CO₂ scrubbers control the emissions from the fermentation tanks, while the emissions from the dryers are controller by regenerative thermal oxidizers. These methods are expensive to operate. A potential alternative is bio-trickling filters. Bio-trickling filters are an inexpensive and environmentally friendly alternative. For this study, two parallel bio-trickling filters were operated one at 25°C called the mesophilic bio-trickling filter and one at 60°C called the thermophilic bio-trickling filter. The mesophilic bio-trickling filter simulates emissions from fermentation …

Comparison Of Object Detection And Patch-Based Classification Deep Learning Models On Mid- To Late-Seasonweed Detection In Uav Imagery, Arun Narenthiran Veeranampalayam Sivakumar, Jiating Li, Stephen Scott, Eric T. Psota, Amit J. Jhala, Joe D. Luck, Jiating Li

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Mid- to late-season weeds that escape from the routine early-season weed management threaten agricultural production by creating a large number of seeds for several future growing seasons. Rapid and accurate detection of weed patches in field is the first step of site-specific weed management. In this study, object detection-based convolutional neural network models were trained and evaluated over low-altitude unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) imagery for mid- to late-season weed detection in soybean fields. The performance of two object detection models, Faster RCNN and the Single Shot Detector (SSD), were evaluated and compared in terms of weed detection performance using mean …

Development Of An Improved Arterial Roadway Performance Reliability Methodology, Ernest Tufuor

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

The need for reliable performance measures of urban arterial roadways is increasing because of the rise in traffic congestion and the high value of travel time. Consequently, travel time reliability (TTR), which combines components of measures of central tendency and measures of dispersion of travel times, has recently received considerable research interest.

The basis of all TTR metrics is the travel time distribution (TTD). Estimating and forecasting arterial TTDs for TTR analysis is the focus of this dissertation. This dissertation proposes a new TTR methodology that is a marked improvement on recent TTR estimation and forecasting methodologies including the current …

Past, Present And Future Of Irrigation On The U.S. Great Plains, Steve R. Evett, Paul D. Colaizzi, Freddie R. Lamm, Susan A. O'Shaughnessy, Derek M. Heeren, Thomas J. Trout, William L. Kranz, Xiaomao Lin

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Motivated by the need for sustainable water management and technology for next-generation crop production, the future of irrigation on the U.S. Great Plains was examined through the lenses of past changes in water supply, historical changes in irrigated area, and innovations in irrigation technology, management, and agronomy. We analyzed the history of irrigated agriculture through the 1900s to the present day. We focused particularly on the efficiency and water productivity of irrigation systems (application efficiency, crop water productivity, and irrigation water use productivity) as a connection between water resource management and agricultural production. Technology innovations have greatly increased the efficiency …

Groundwater Level Mapping Tool: An Open Source Web Application For Assessing Groundwater Sustainability, Steven W. Evans, Norman L. Jones, Gustavious P. Williams, Daniel P. Ames, E. James Nelson

Faculty Publications

Decision makers need an accurate understanding of aquifer storage trends to effectively manage groundwater resources. Groundwater is difficult to monitor and quantify since the data collected from monitoring wells are often available only at irregular and infrequent intervals. We present an open-source web application (app) to visualize groundwater data over time and automatically calculate changes in aquifer storage volume to help managers assess aquifer sustainability. This app uses a novel multi-linear regression (MLR) algorithm to impute missing data for infrequently sampled wells, using correlated data from other wells in the same aquifer. The app uses this MLR-imputed data to spatially …

Optimum Mixing Design Of Xanthan And Gellan Treated Soils For Slope Stabilization For Weathered Shales And Glacial Tills In Nebraska, Layal Bitar

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

Verdigre located in North Eastern Nebraska experienced slope failures. The geological formations of theses slopes largely consist of several layers of weathered shales and glacial tills. It is believed that the weathering process reduced the shear strength of the soils leading to slope failures.

In this study, strength characteristics of Xanthan and Gellan gums treated soil specimens compacted at the optimum moisture content for field application were investigated so that the biopolymer treated soils may be properly used to stabilize the slopes. The untreated and treated samples were subjected to a wet-freeze(-6^oF)-thaw(167^oF)-dry weathering process up to …

Development Of A Mash Test Level 4 Open Concrete Bridge Rail, Jacob Delone

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

An open concrete bridge rail was designed and developed according to safety performance guidelines in the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials (AASHTO) Manual for Assessing Safety Hardware (MASH) for Test Level 4 (TL-4). Systems designed and developed under previous guidance were studied, and their geometric information and full-scale crash testing performance was studied to establish the geometry of the new bridge rail. Yield-Line Theory and the AASHTO Post and Beam design methods were studied, and a modified version of the AASHTO Post and Beam method was utilized to determine the capacity of the new open concrete bridge rail. …