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Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Temporal Lidar Scanning In Quantifying Cumulative Rockfall Volume And Hazard Assessment: A Case Study At Southwestern Saudi Arabia, Abdullah A. Alotaibi, Norbert H. Maerz, Kenneth J. Boyko, Ahmed M. Youssef, Biswajeet Pradhan Aug 2022

Temporal Lidar Scanning In Quantifying Cumulative Rockfall Volume And Hazard Assessment: A Case Study At Southwestern Saudi Arabia, Abdullah A. Alotaibi, Norbert H. Maerz, Kenneth J. Boyko, Ahmed M. Youssef, Biswajeet Pradhan

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Rockfalls and unstable slopes pose a serious threat to people and property along roads/highways in the southwestern mountainous regions of Saudi Arabia. In this study, the application of terrestrial light detection and ranging (LiDAR) technology was applied aiming to propose a strategy to analyze and accurately depict the detection of rockfall changes, calculation of rockfall volume, and evaluate rockfall hazards along the Habs Road, Jazan Region, Saudi Arabia. A series of temporal LiDAR scans were acquired at three selected sites. Our results show that these three sites have different degrees of hazard due to their geological differences. The mean volume …


Development Of Digital Bathymetry Maps For Lakes Azuei And Enriquillo Using Sonar And Remote Sensing Techniques, Michael Piasecki, Mahrokh Moknatian, Fred Moshary, Jorge Gonzalez May 2019

Development Of Digital Bathymetry Maps For Lakes Azuei And Enriquillo Using Sonar And Remote Sensing Techniques, Michael Piasecki, Mahrokh Moknatian, Fred Moshary, Jorge Gonzalez

Publications and Research

This article presents an improved algorithm for optimization and development of a digital bathymetric model (DBM) for Lake Azuei (LA) (Haiti) and Lake Enriquillo (LE) (Dominican Republic) using the ANUDEM method. Both sonar data and contour lines of the lakes’ layout extracted using Landsat imagery were compiled for bathymetry development. We show that the performance of the ANUDEM method was strongly dependent on the density and irregularity of the spatial distribution of the data. Changing the resolution of the output grids and deriving auxiliary topographically corrected contours improved the ANUDEM performance and minimized the systematic errors of the method. Statistical …


Bathymetry Data For Lakes Azuei And Enriquillo, Michael Piasecki, Mahrokh Moknatian Feb 2018

Bathymetry Data For Lakes Azuei And Enriquillo, Michael Piasecki, Mahrokh Moknatian

Publications and Research

This data set supports and forms the basis for the development of Digital Bathymetry Models (DBM) for Lakes Azuei (Haiti) and Enriquillo (Dominican Republic). Bathymetric Data is typically acquired using Sonar devices that measure the depth at specific points along a boat track and for which the longitude and latitude is recorded. From the resulting point cloud one develop a seamless representation of the floor of the lake on either a raster set (which is what we have done) or try to use a contour (vector representation) model in which the depth contours appear as polygons or -lines. The raw …


Bathymetric Survey For Lakes Azuei And Enriquillo, Hispaniola, Michael Piasecki, Mahrokh Moknatian, Fred Moshary, Joseph Cleto, Yolanda Leon, Jorge Gonzalez, Daniel Comarazamy Jun 2016

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 …


Estimating The Probability Of Vegetation To Be Groundwater Dependent Based On The Evaluation Of Tree Models, Isabel C. Pérez Hoyos, Nir Y. Krakauer, Reza Khanbilvardi Apr 2016

Estimating The Probability Of Vegetation To Be Groundwater Dependent Based On The Evaluation Of Tree Models, Isabel C. Pérez Hoyos, Nir Y. Krakauer, Reza Khanbilvardi

Publications and Research

Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems (GDEs) are increasingly threatened by humans’ rising demand for water resources. Consequently, it is imperative to identify the location of GDEs to protect them. This paper develops a methodology to identify the probability of an ecosystem to be groundwater dependent. Probabilities are obtained by modeling the relationship between the known locations of GDEs and factors influencing groundwater dependence, namely water table depth and climatic aridity index. Probabilities are derived for the state of Nevada, USA, using modeled water table depth and aridity index values obtained from the Global Aridity database. The model selected results from the performance …


Integration And Delivery Of Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar [Insar] Data Into Stormwater Planning Within Karst Terranes, Brian Bruckno, Andrea Vaccari, Edward Hoppe, Scott Acton, Elizabeth Campbell Oct 2015

Integration And Delivery Of Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar [Insar] Data Into Stormwater Planning Within Karst Terranes, Brian Bruckno, Andrea Vaccari, Edward Hoppe, Scott Acton, Elizabeth Campbell

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Faculty Publications

As part of two USDOT-funded studies focused on the development of satellite-based Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) technology, the researchers integrated InSAR-derived point cloud data into the transportation design process to optimize the location of a stormwater management system in a karst terrane. After initial validation, the InSAR data (over 1.67 million data points comprising various “scatterers”) were brought into a GIS dataframe and georeferenced to locations of known sinkholes. This dataset was then used to evaluate karst hazard within a 40x40km data frame located in the Valley and Ridge Province of Virginia. The group identified systematic kinematic differences in …


A Geospatial Approach For Prioritizing Wind Farm Development In Northeast Nebraska, Usa, Adam Miller, Ruopu Li Jul 2014

A Geospatial Approach For Prioritizing Wind Farm Development In Northeast Nebraska, Usa, Adam Miller, Ruopu Li

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Being cleaner and climate friendly, wind energy has been increasingly utilized to meet the ever-growing global energy demands. In the State of Nebraska, USA, a wide gap exists between wind resource and actual energy production, and it is imperative to expand the wind energy development. Because of the formidable costs associated with wind energy development, the locations for new wind turbines need to be carefully selected to provide the greatest benefit for a given investment. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have been widely used to identify the suitable wind farm locations. In this study, a GIS-based multi-criteria approach was developed to …