Engineering Commons^™

Development Of The Mask Scentometer, A Comparison Of Ambient Odor Assessment Methods, And Their Application In Ground Truthing Atmospheric Dispersion Models, Christopher G. Henry

Department of Biological Systems Engineering: Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation is organized as four stand-alone papers. Paper No. 1 describes the development of the Mask Scentometer and reports dilution ratios measured during use by twelve different people. Dilution ratios at the Mask Scentometer’s five dilution-to-threshold (D/T) settings were found to be 0.35, 1, 2, 4.5 and 18. In Paper No.’s 2 and 4, ambient odor assessment methods were compared in both controlled laboratory conditions and in the field. Laboratory analysis of ambient air samples using dynamic triangular forced-choice olfactometry (DTFCO) did not correlate well with any of the ambient odor assessment methods. Average intensity-predicted D/T was roughly five …

Nutrient And Bacterial Transport In Runoff From Soil And Pond Ash Amended Feedlot Surfaces, John E. Gilley, Jason R. Vogel, Elaine D. Berry, Roger Eigenberg, David B. Marx, Brian L. Woodbury

Department of Biological Systems Engineering: Papers and Publications

The addition of pond ash (fly ash that has been placed in evaporative ponds and subsequently dewatered) to feedlot surfaces provides a healthier environment for livestock and economic advantages for the feedlot operator. However, the water quality effects of pond ash amended surfaces are not well understood. The objectives of this field investigation were to: (1) compare feedlot soil properties, and nutrient and bacterial transport in runoff, from pond ash amended surfaces and soil surfaces; (2) compare the effects of unconsolidated surface materials (USM) (loose manure pack) and consolidated subsurface materials (CSM) (compacted manure and underlying layers) on nutrient and …

An Integrated Flow And Transport Model To Study The Impact Of Mercury Remediation Strategies For East Fork Poplar Creek Watershed, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, Stephanie Long

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

An integrated flow and transport model using MIKE SHE/MIKE 11 software was developed to predict the flow and transport of mercury, Hg(II), under varying environmental conditions. The model analyzed the impact of remediation scenarios within the East Fork Poplar Creek watershed of the Oak Ridge Reservation with respect to downstream concentration of mercury. The numerical simulations included the entire hydrological cycle: flow in rivers, overland flow, groundwater flow in the saturated and unsaturated zones, and evapotranspiration and precipitation time series. Stochastic parameters and hydrologic conditions over a five year period of historical hydrological data were used to analyze the hydrological …

Career: The Role Of Microorganisms In Arsenic Contamination Of Groundwater, Jean D. Macrae

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

Arsenic is the only contaminant for which exposure through drinking water has been proven to cause cancer in humans. The US Environmental Protection Agency has concluded that the present drinking water limit of 50 ug/L arsenic is not sufficiently protective and proposes a new limit of 10 ug/L. In most cases, the arsenic originates in the geologic materials of the aquifer. While correlations with bedrock types have been made, the factors that affect arsenic concentrations and speciation in drinking water are poorly understood. As(III), the reduced inorganic form, is more mobile and more toxic than As(V), thus speciation affects both …

Stormwater Irrigation Volume Iii: Transport Of The Cyanotoxin Microcystin In Groundwater Beneath Stormwater Ponds: Results Of Soil Column Experiments, Martin Wanielista

BMP Trains Research and Publications

As the demand for fresh water increases in central Florida to meet both public supply and irrigation needs, stormwater is increasingly being managed as a resource to help offset possible future declines in aquifer water levels. Water quality is an important consideration when using stormwater for recharge or harvesting. A constituent of recent concern is cyanobacteria (popularly known as blue-green algae) because some of these can produce toxins (cyanotoxins) that are detrimental to animal and human health. Microcystins are the most commonly found type of cyanotoxin in Florida and have been detected in a variety of rivers, natural lakes, and …

Characterization Of Proteins In Effluents From Three Wastewater Treatment Plants That Discharge To The Connecticut River, Pamela J. Westgate

Environmental & Water Resources Engineering Masters Projects

This research characterizes the proteins in domestic wastewater treatment plant effluents in order to understand the organic fraction of effluent nitrogen. Domestic wastewater treatment plants have been identified as a major source of excess nitrogen that leads to eutrophication in marine environments in general, and the Long Island Sound, in particular. Initiatives to reduce the nitrogen load into Long Island Sound are underway. In Connecticut, regulators have instituted a cap and trade program for nitrogen releases from wastewater treatment plants, and in western Massachusetts new NPDES permits are requiring facilities that release into receiving waters that flow into the sound …

Minimizing Energy Use In Large Groundwater Supply Systems, Mikaela Martin

Environmental & Water Resources Engineering Masters Projects

Two optimization formulations have been developed. The first formulation minimizes the energy required to pump water from an aquifer. This formulation is non- linear, requiring the use of quadratic terms in the objective function. The second formulation minimizes the maximum lift in an aquifer and is called the MINIMAX formulation. This formulation is linear and may be an acceptable substitution for the minimize energy formulation under conditions where there are small differences in initial lifts at the wells and where the demand is sufficient to require pumping at all wells such that the lifts at all wells are equal.

The …

Modeling The Wachusett Reservoir, Central Massachusetts, Tributaries For Improved Watershed Management, Erich Fiedler

Environmental & Water Resources Engineering Masters Projects

The Wachusett Reservoir watershed is an integral component of the Metropolitan Boston water supply. The Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) is responsible for water resource management and water quality protection and has implemented extensive environmental monitoring and modeling programs. These efforts have been used to identify and direct management priorities. Also, a long term collaborative effort with the University of Massachusetts, Amherst has focused on improving data collection and watershed modeling. From the environmental monitoring program, annual nutrient fluxes for total phosphorus (TP), nitrate (NO3-N), and total organic carbon (TOC) have been estimated. These annual nutrient fluxes have …

The Very Basics Of Sustainability - An Alternative Viewpoint (Slides With Audio) (Large File! To Speed Up Download, Right-Click On "Download" Link To Save To Own Pc.), Jim Mcgovern

Other resources

This presentation sets out the very basics of ‘sustainability’, although a definition of sustainability is not attempted. Some of the very basics are the context in which the Earth and humankind exist in space and time, the Earth’s climate, the Earth’s population and humankind’s options and choices. The author advocates keeping an open mind on all available options, including the use of oil, gas, coal, tar sands, carbon capture and sequestration, nuclear power etc., as well as the technologies that are more widely considered ‘green’. The author also argues that, in addressing the challenges that humankind faces, globally concerted effort …

Assessment Of The Embodied Co2eq In Buildings Towards A Sustainable Building Design And Construction, Adolf Acquaye, Aidan Duffy, Biswajit Basu

Conference Papers

Research studies have shown that the initial energy embodied in a building can be as much as 67% of the operational energy over a 25 year period. With growing global concerns over material and resource consumption and the emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere, the energy embodied in buildings constructed in town and cities becomes important and one of the key issues that needs to be tackled in the design stages in order to strive towards sustainable buildings design. In this paper, a hybrid embodied carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2eq) methodology used to assess the CO2eq embodied in buildings is presented. …

Land Conservation And Land Use In New England: Trends, Challenges & Opportunities, Amanda Loomis, Tom Devine, Andrea Small, Brittany Howard, Brett Richardson, Stephanie Dulac

Land Conservation

Sprawling development patterns accelerated across the New England landscape in the last three decades and consumed the region‘s forests, farms, and open spaces at an unprecedented rate. New England‘ers in all six states formed land trusts, supported statewide conservation organizations, and collaborated with state and federal partners to protect some of their most-prized recreation lands, wildlife habitats, and working lands. The current economic recession has slowed development pressures across the region and offers an opportunity to build on recent successes. The time is right to plan a coordinated New England conservation strategy that protects and links the region‘s natural assets. …

South Burlington Vt: New Urbanist South Village, Jack Kartez, Richard Barringer

Planning

The 220 acre master plan for South Village, the largest project in the City of South Burlington’s history, encompasses multiple housing types and innovative provisions for affordable housing. It integrates housing with open space and natural resource conservation, including a major Community Supported Agriculture project developed by a nonprofit partner, the Intervale Foundation. While not a mixed-use project (that is, commercial as well as residential development), South Village nonetheless represents a qualitative change in approach for South Burlington by incorporating large-scale open space preservation as part of development and multiple housing-types in one project. The case study recounts events leading …

Chlorine Contribution To Quantitative Structure And Activity Relationship Models Of Disinfection By-Products' Quantum Chemical Descriptors And Toxicities, Fang Wang

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationship (QSAR) has been applied extensively in predicting toxicity of Disinfection By-Products (DBPs) in drinking water. Among many toxicological properties, acute and chronic toxicities of DBPs have been widely used in health risk assessment of DBPs. These toxicities are correlated with molecular properties, which are usually correlated with molecular descriptors. The primary goals of this thesis are: 1) to investigate the effects of molecular descriptors (e.g., chlorine number) on molecular properties such as energy of the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (ELUMO) via QSAR modelling and analysis; 2) to validate the models by using internal and external cross-validation techniques; …

Chloride Characterization From Pavement Runoff Using Automated Samplers And Specific Conductivity Sensors At Three Eastern Massachusetts Locations, Paul G. Chang

Environmental & Water Resources Engineering Masters Projects

The objective of this research is to relate the chloride concentration of highway runoff through specific conductivity measurements and to characterize the role that the pavement surface texture has in the dissolution kinetics of the chloride residing in this layer. The quantity of deicing agents applied throughout the winter season is correlated to the concentration of chloride in highway runoff and linked to the length of time since application. A unit hydrograph was developed from precipitation measurements and the resulting hydraulic parameters were calibrated for use in a specific conductivity flux model. From this model a pollutograph was developed characterizing …

Rainwater Harvesting Pilot Project Report, Liam Mccarton, Sean O'Hogain, Anna Reid, Niamh Mcintyre, Jenny Pender

Reports

The rainwater harvesting pilot project was commissioned by the National Rural Water Monitoring Committee in 2005 to assess the feasibility of supplementing treated mains water used for non-potable purposes. The project involved the design, installation, commissioning and monitoring of rainwater harvesting facilities in a rural housing development in County Carlow and in a 250-acre livestock farm in County Meath. Construction was carried out between 2005-2007.

Vertical Boil Propagation From A Submerged Estuarine Sill, C. Chris Chickadel, Alexander R. Horner-Devine, Stefan A. Talke, Andrew T. Jessup

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Surface disruptions by boils during strong tidal flows over a rocky sill were observed in thermal infrared imagery collected at the Snohomish River estuary in Washington State. Locations of boil disruptions and boil diameters at the surface were quantified and are used to test an idealized model of vertical boil propagation. The model is developed as a two-dimensional approximation of a three-dimensional vortex loop, and boil vorticity is derived from the flow shear over the sill. Predictions of boil disruption locations were determined from the modeled vertical velocity, the sill depth, and the over-sill velocity. Predictions by the vertical velocity …

Sustainable Portland: Implementation Series 2, New England Environmental Finance Center

Climate Change

The Portland Municipal Climate Change Working Group prepared a report in March 2008 that outlined several recommendations as a commitment by the City to address greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) produced during daily municipal operations. The Municipal Climate Action Plan was written in partnership with Clean Air – Cool Planet and Portland officials, and acknowledges under Recommendation #2 that an employee energy efficiency program would provide significant positive impact on the City’s reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Best practices from three cities show that focus on the greening of City Hall is critical in developing a program that promotes partnerships, community …

Using Oceanic-Atmospheric Oscillations For Long Lead Time Streamflow Forecasting, Ajay Kalra, Sajjad Ahmad

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

We present a data-driven model, Support Vector Machine (SVM), for long lead time streamflow forecasting using oceanic-atmospheric oscillations. The SVM is based on statistical learning theory that uses a hypothesis space of linear functions based on Kernel approach and has been used to predict a quantity forward in time on the basis of training from past data. The strength of SVM lies in minimizing the empirical classification error and maximizing the geometric margin by solving inverse problem. The SVM model is applied to three gages, i.e., Cisco, Green River, and Lees Ferry in the Upper Colorado River Basin in the …

Role Of Forward Model In Surface-Wave Studies To Delineate A Buried High-Velocity Layer, Xiaohui Jin, Barbara Luke, Carlos Calderon-Macias

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

Procedures are tested and compared for processing Rayleigh surface wave data to obtain one-dimensional shear wave velocity profiles for a hypothetical site that contains a buried high-velocity layer (HVL). The main purpose of such an investigation would be to discriminate and characterize the HVL. When target dispersion curves are derived from synthetic time histories, for the most part, the HVL is better identified when profiles are inverted using only the fundamental mode of Rayleigh wave propagation, rather than a more compatible but more complex forward model. The outcomes imply that in practice, a simple forward model might be more successful …

Economic Impact Of South Dakota’S Regional Water Systems, Matthew J. Pajl, Delvin E. Deboer, Gary Taylor, Dwight Adamson

Water and Environmental Engineering Research Reports

Regional water systems are a primary conduit of water supply for much of South Dakota’s rural and small community populations. As of 2006, greater than one-third of South Dakota’s population was served by water supplied from regional water systems, and when Lewis and Clark Rural Water delivers water to Sioux Falls, over one-half of South Dakota’s population will be served by regional water systems. Greater than 75% of incorporated communities with public water supplies are served by regional water systems, either as bulk communities or as individual customers. Many farms and agricultural industries use rural water for domestic use, livestock …

Holiday Shores Stormwater Retrofitting Project, Stormwater Academy

BMP Trains Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Flood Attenuation Studies, Michael Bruen, John O'Sullivan, Sangaralingam Ahilan, Zeinab Bedri

Reports

No abstract provided.

Catchment Modelling Tools And Pathways Review, Zeinab Bedri, Michael Bruen

Reports

No abstract provided.

Interpreting Surface-Wave Data For A Site With Shallow Bedrock, Daniel W. Casto, Barbara Luke, Carlos Calderon-Macias, Ronald Kaufmann

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

The inversion of dispersive Rayleigh-wave data has been shown to be successful in providing reliable estimated shear-wave velocities within unconsolidated materials in the near surface. However, in a case where the multi-channel analysis of surface waves method was applied to a site consisting of clay residuum overlying basalt bedrock, inversion for the fundamental-mode Rayleigh wave resulted in shear-wave velocities within the rock that are less than half of expected values. Forward modeling reveals that the fundamental-mode dispersion curve is hardly sensitive to bedrock velocity perturbations over a practical range of wavelengths, leading to poorly constrained solutions. Standard surface-wave methods can …

Preserving Assets In At-Risk Municipalities: Financial Strategies For Climate Change Adaptation, New England Environmental Finance Center

Climate Change

A large share of America's population, businesses and economic activity now occurs in coastal areas. At the same time, during this century many coastal communities are likely to be severely impacted by sea level rise and increased storm surge and tidal flooding.

“What to do” about this vulnerability is the subject of this brief. It is intended to help municipalities identify courses of action and steps they might take toward increasing their resilience, especially regarding financial resources that will need to be allocated toward the various strategies identified.

Feedback Between Residual Circulations And Sediment Distribution In Highly Turbid Estuaries: An Analytical Model, Stefan A. Talke, Huib E. De Swart, H. M. Schuttelaars

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Motivated by field studies of the Ems estuary which show longitudinal gradients in bottom sediment concentration as high as O(0.01 kg/m⁴), we develop an analytical model for estuarine residual circulation based on currents from salinity gradients, turbidity gradients, and freshwater discharge. Salinity is assumed to be vertically well mixed, while the vertical concentration profile is assumed to result from a balance between a constant settling velocity and turbulent diffusive flux. Width and depth of the model estuary are held constant. Model results show that turbidity gradients enhance tidally averaged circulation upstream of the estuarine turbidity maximum (ETM), …

An Idealized Model And Systematic Process Study Of Oxygen Depletion In Highly Turbid Estuaries, Stefan A. Talke, Huib E. De Swart, Victor De Jonge

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The sensitivity of oxygen depletion in turbid estuaries to parameters like freshwater discharge, depth, and sediment availability is investigated using an idealized model. The model describes tidally averaged circulation and suspended sediment concentration (SSC), which are input into an advection–diffusion sink module of dissolved oxygen (DO). Based on the analysis of field data collected in the Ems estuary, the modeled oxygen depletion rates are proportional to SSC. The model is calibrated to the observed variation of DO with SSC and temperature. Modeled DO closely tracks changes to the estuarine turbidity zone (ETZ): increased channel depth, decreased freshwater discharge, and decreased …

The Potential Contribution Of Organic Salts To New Particle Growth, Kelley Barsanti, Peter H. Mcmurry, J. N. Smith

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Field and lab measurements suggest that low-molecular weight (MW) organic acids and bases exist in accumulation and nucleation mode particles, despite their relatively high pure-liquid vapor pressures. The mechanism(s) by which such compounds contribute to the mass growth of existing aerosol particles and newly formed particles has not been thoroughly explored. One mechanism by which low- MW compounds may contribute to new particle growth is through the formation of organic salts. In this paper we use thermodynamic modeling to explore the potential for organic salt formation by atmospherically relevant organic acids and bases for two system types: one in which …

Regional Co2 And Latent Heat Surface Fluxes In The Southern Great Plains: Measurements, Modeling, And Scaling, W. J. Riley, Sebastien C. Biraud, Margaret S. Torn, Marc L. Fischer, David P. Billesbach, Joe A. Berry

Department of Biological Systems Engineering: Papers and Publications

[1] Characterizing net ecosystem exchanges (NEE) of CO2 and sensible and latent heat fluxes in heterogeneous landscapes is difficult, yet critical given expected changes in climate and land use. We report here a measurement and modeling study designed to improve our understanding of surface to atmosphere gas exchanges under very heterogeneous land cover in the mostly agricultural U.S. Southern Great Plains (SGP). We combined three years of site-level, eddy covariance measurements in several of the dominant land cover types with regional-scale climate data from the distributed Mesonet stations and Next Generation Weather Radar precipitation measurements to calibrate a land surface …

Estimating Percent Residue Cover Using The Line-Transect Method, David P. Shelton, Paul J. Jasa

Department of Biological Systems Engineering: Papers and Publications

Leaving crop residue on the soil surface is one of the easiest and most cost-effective methods of reducing soil erosion. Research in Nebraska and other midwestern states has shown that leaving as little as 20 percent of the soil surface covered with crop residue can reduce soil erosion by one-half of what it would be from residue-free conditions. Greater amounts of residue cover will further reduce erosion. Many Conservation Plans specify crop residue management or residue left on the soil surface as the primary erosion control method. Generally, the amount of cover required after planting ranges from 30 percent to …