Civil and Environmental Engineering Commons^™

Us/Remax Manual Vs. 2.7, Richard C. Peralta, Alaa H. Aly

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

US/REMAX is designed to assist water managers in developing optimal groundwater and/or surface water strategies for a wide range of management problems. US/REMAX uses the response matrix method, which assumes that physical system response to stimuli is linear. However, US/REMAX can also address nonlinear systems via cycling. In one application, astrategy computed using US/REMAX required 40% less pumping than one obtained via a normal simulation model. US/REMAX also easily computes tradeoffs for multiobjective problems.

Streamflow Simulation: A Nonparametric Approach, Ashish Sharma, David G. Tarboton, Upmanu L. Lall

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

In this paper kernel estimates of the joint and conditional probability density functions are used to generate synthetic streamflow sequences. Streamflow is assumed to be a Markov process with time dependence characterized by a multivariate probability density function. Kernel methods are used to estimate this multivariate density function. Simulation proceeds by sequentially resampling from the conditional density function derived from the kernel estimate of the underlying multivariate probability density function. This is a nonparametric method for the synthesis of streamflow that is data-driven and avoids prior assumptions as to the form of dependence (e.g., linear or nonlinear) and the form …

A New Method For The Determination Of Flow Directions And Contributing Areas In Grid Digital Elevation Models, David G. Tarboton

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

A new procedure for the representation of flow directions and calculation of upslope areas using rectangular grid digital elevation models is presented. The procedure is based on representing flow direction as a single angle taken as the steepest downward slope on the eight triangular facets centered at each grid point. Upslope area is then calculated by proportioning flow between two downslope pixels according to how close this flow direction is to the direct angle to the downslope pixel. This procedure offers improvements over prior procedures that have restricted flow to eight possible directions (introducing grid bia) or proportioned flow according …

Feasibility Considerations Of An Optimal Pumping Strategy To Capture Tce/Pce Plume At March Afb, Ca, Mohamed A. Hegazy, Richard C. Peralta

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

TCE/PCE contaminated groundwater from March AFB has reached off-base supply wells. Further migration of the contaminants can endanger other downstream water supply wells.

Historical Water Use Backcasting Study Luke Air Force Base, Arizona, Mohamed A. Hegazy, Richard C. Peralta

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

The goal of this report is to present historic (backcast) water use for Luke Air Force Base (LAFB), Arizona for 1941 through 1961. Historic water use (including system losses) from LAFB records can be used as groundwater pumping amounts because groundwater extracted from the underlying aquifer was the sole water source. Historical water use amounts were derived primarily using regression analysis and the Installation Water Resources Analysis and Planning System - Air Force (IWRAPS-AF). IWRAPS-AF is a computer software package designed to forecast or backcast water use and assess the effectiveness of conservation measures at Air Force Installations (Willett et. …

The Fate And Disposition Of Metolachlor And 2, 4-D Under Irrigated Corn And Turf, Ghassan R. Musharrafieh, Richard C. Peralta, Robert W. Hill, Howard M. Deer

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

A field lysimeter experiment was conducted during the summers of 1993 and 1994, at the River Laboratory, Utah State University, Logan, Utah. The intent was to study the fate and disposition of metolachlor and 2,4-D in a one dimensional soil system. Metolachlor was applied to corn and 2,4-D was applied to turf. The mobility, persistence, and degradation of these herbicides were investigated in the field lysimeters using four irrigation treatment levels on corn and two irrigation levels on turf. The four irrigation levels applied to corn were 0, 30, 60, and 120 percent of potential evapotranspiration. The two irrigation levels …

Urban Infrastructure: Transportation, Public Utilities, Waste Management And Pollution Control, A. Bruce Bishop

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Paris, tube under the channel -- London, satellite spinning above cables on the ocean floor -- New York, concrete ribbons across undulating land -- San Francisco, silver wings soaring across the Pacific -- Tokyo and Seoul. Etched against the sky are the graceful towers of mighty bridges, the broad glass and steel fronts to massive buildings, the tall slender stacks of industries exhaling; and traced on the surface are the intricate patterns of people and their machines; and buried below are the tubes and tunnels, water pipes and power conduits and communication networks along with concrete caissons and piles that …

Introduction To Simulation/Optimization Modeling For Groundwater Containment Remediation And (B) Ramifications Of Applying S/O Modeling To Groundwater Containment Remediation, With Case Study Examples, Richard C. Peralta

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Normal use of a simulation model to develop a groundwater extraction/injection strategy employs the following process: (1) specify management goals, (2) assume a pumping strategy, (3) simulate system response to the pumping strategy, (4) evaluate acceptability of the system responses, (5) repeat steps (2-4) as required. This is a trial and error approach that is unlikely to actually yield the best pumping strategy for complicated problems

Optimal System Design Of In-Situ Bioremediation Using Parallel Recombinative Simulated Annealing, Horng-Jer Shieh, Richard C. Peralta

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

We present a simulation/optimization model combining optimization with BIOPLUME II simulation for optimizing in-situ bioremediation system design. In-situ bioremediation of contaminated groundwater has become widely accepted because of its cost-effective ability to achieve satisfactory cleanup. We use parallel recombinative simulated annealing to search for an optimal design and apply the BIOPLUME II model to simulate aquifer hydraulics and bioremediation. Parallel recombinative simulated annealing is a general-purpose optimization approach that has the good convergence of simulated annealing and the efficient parallelization of a genetic algorithm. This is the first time that parallel recombinative simulated annealing has been applied to groundwater management. …

Optimal In-Situ Bioremediation System Design Using Parallel Recombinative Simulated Annealing, Horng-Jer Shieh, Richard C. Peralta

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Presented is a simulation/optimization (S/0) model combining optimization with BIOPLUME II simulation for optimizing in-situ bioremediation system design. The (S/0) model uses parallel recombinative simulated annealing to search for an optimal design and applies the BIOPLUME II model to simulate aquifer hydraulics and bioremediation. Parallel recombinative simulated annealing is a general-purpose optimization approach that has the good convergence of simulated annealing and the efficient parallelization of a genetic algorithm. We propose a two-stage management approach. The first stage design goal is to minimize total system cost (pumping/treatment, well installation and facility capital costs). The second stage design goal is to …

Preliminary Evaluation Of The Effects Of A Pumping Well On Existing Surface Water Resources Located In T. 12n, R. 2e, Sec. 23, Cache And Box Elder Counties, Denny J. Johnson, Richard C. Peralta

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

This report contains the results of a preliminary study of the impact of pumping a well located in T. 12N, R. 2E, sec. 23, Cache and Box Elder Counties, Utah. A semianalytical capture zone analysis was performed to determine if pumping at the well is likely to reduce flow in Willow Creek or any of three springs in the surrounding area. The well has been used from 1974 to present and is sometimes pumped at 90 gallons per minute (gpm) (verbal communication, Veibell, 1996).

On Hack's Law, Riccardo Rigon, Ignacio Rodriguez-Iturbe, Amos Maritan, Achille Giacometti, David G. Tarboton, Andrea Rinaldo

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Hack's law is reviewed, emphasizing its implications for the elongation of river basins as well as its connections with their fractal characteristics. The relation between Hack's law and the internal structure of river basins is investigated experimentally through digital elevation models. It is found that Hack's exponent, elongation, and some relevant fractal characters are closely related. The self-affine character of basin boundaries is shown to be connected to the power law decay of the probability of total contributing areas at any link and to Hack's law. An explanation for Hack's law is derived from scaling arguments. From the results we …

Software For Optimizing Groundwater Or Conjunctive Water Management, Richard C. Peralta, Alaa H. Aly

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

US/REMAX is a computer program designed to assist water managers in developing optimal groundwater and/or surface water strategies for a wide range of management problems. It employs response matrix, regression and other methods adapted for nonlinear systems. US/REMAX performs deterministic or reliability-based, single- or multi-objective optimization. Decision variables are ground-water extraction/injection and/or surface water diversion. State variables include water flows, stages and concentrations. Hard coded objective functions and constraints are linear, nonlinear, integer or mixed integer. Special constraints can be added to address unusual situations.

A Spatially-Distributed Hydrologic Model For A Small Arid Mountain Watershed, Thomas H. Jackson, David G. Tarboton, Keith R. Cooley

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

A distributed water balance model was developed as a part of an intensive-field study to simulate the snowmelt-driven hydrologic response of a small mountain watershed using measured values of solar radiation, wind speed, air temperature, relative humidity and precipitation as input.

Snowmelt and evapotranspiration were modeled with point energy balances, written in terms of the snow surface and soil surface temperatures, respectively, corrected for local topographic characteristics and snow drifting. Meltwater was routed to the basin outlet as topography-driven, saturated subsurface flow, with all flow in excess of local transmissivity taken as surface runoff.

The model was calibrated with 1985-6 …

Toward A Balanced Strategy To Address Contaminated Groundwater Plumes At The Massachusetts Military Reservation, Richard C. Peralta

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

This document contains the findings and recommendations of the Technical Review and Evaluation Team (TRET) for the plume containment project at the Massachusetts Military Reservation (MMR). The findings and recommendations are in response to the 60 Percent Plume Containment Design, submitted by Operational Technologies (OpTech) in January 1996. In short, the TRET recommends the MMR depart substantially from the strategy of simultaneous, 100 percent containment and treatment that was assigned to OpTech for design in accordance with the Record of Decision (ROD) for Interim Action. This strategy guided the course of the plume containment project over the past two years

Discharge Coefficient Scale Effects Analysis For Weirs, Michael Clyde Johnson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Much work has been published regarding discharge coefficients for various weir structures. What has not been published to the same extent are the effects of model scale associated with the weirs being studied. If laboratory weirs are too small, scale effects can affect the magnitude of the discharge coefficient. These errors may be significant if the weir serves as a control structure for an emergency spillway. It is imperative that discharge be accurately predicted to enable safe design and operation.

Numerical and physical means were employed to analyze the effects of scale associated with Froude Modeling of weirs with sharp …

A Nonparametric Wet/Dry Spell Model For Resampling Daily Precipitation, Upmanu L. Lall, Balaji Rajagopalan, David G. Tarboton

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

A nonparametric wet/dry spell model is developed for resampling daily precipitation at a site. The model considers alternating sequences of wet and dry days in a given season of the year. All marginal, joint, and conditional probability densities of interest (e.g., dry spell length, wet spell length, precipitation amount, and wet spell length given prior to dry spell length) are estimated nonparametrically using at-site data and kernel probability density estimators. Procedures for the disaggregation of wet spell precipitation into daily precipitation and for the generation of synthetic sequences are proffered. An application of the model for generating synthetic precipitation traces …

Effect Of Subsurface Heterogeneity On Free-Product Recovery From Unconfined Aquifers, Jagath J. Kaluarachchi

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Free-product record system designs for light-hydrocarbon-contaminated sites were investigated to evaluate the effects of subsurface heterogeneity using a vertically integrated three-phase flow model. The input stochastic variable of the areal flow analysis was the log-intrinsic permeability and it was generated using the Turning Band method. The results of a series of hypothetical field-scale simulations showed that subsurface heterogeneity has a substantial effect on free-product recovery predictions. As the heterogeneity increased, the recoverable oil volume decreased and the residual trapped oil volume increased. As the subsurface anisotropy increased, these effects together with free- and total-oil contaminated areas were further enhanced. The …

Optimal Pumping Strategies To Maximize Dissolved Tce Extraction At Mather Afb, California, Richard C. Peralta, Alaa H. Aly

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

USU first estimated the future TCE concentrations that would result if no pumping strategy were implemented (Figure 5, Scenario AO). Then USU used the procedure of Appendix B with the model formulation of Appendix C to compute optimal pumping strategies. In computing optimal strategies USU cycled until an arbitrary three percent contaminant mass convergence criterion was satisfied.

The Study Of The Resistance And Stability Of Vegetation Ecosystem Plant Groupings In Flood Control Channels: Vol. 1, William Rahmeyer, David Werth

Reports

Preface: The following report was prepared by the utah Water Research Laboratory of Utah State University in Logan, Utah. Volume 1 of the UWRL report USU--400A contains the data summary and conclusions of flow tests conducted with different plant types and ecosystem groupings of shrubs and woody vegetation in the hydraulics flumes of Utah State University. The methodology and equations that were developed to predict flow resistance for fultiple plant types include the effects of plant fexibility, varying plant density, plant characteristics, and multiple plant stems. The study included over 214 flow tests, testing of 20 different plant types, 5 …

Utah Water Research Laboratory Publications Listing 1993-1996, David S. Bowles, Leaunda S. Hemphill

Reports

No abstract provided.

Cache County Water Demand/Supply Model, Trevor C. Hughes, Gregory J. Norby, Laxman Thyagarajan

Reports

This report descibes a municipal water demand forecasting model for use in areas of mixed rural and urban housing types. A series of residential demand functions were derived which forecast water demand based on the ype and density of housing and season. Micro sampling techniques were used to correlate water use data and explanatory variable data for low, medium, and high density housing. The demand functions were incorporated into a geographic information system (GIS) platform cosisting of a desk-top mapping program, MapInfo, coupled with a user interface program written in Visual Basic. The GIS-based model analyzes water demand at the …

Critical Assessment Of The Operator-Splitting Technique In Solving The Advection-Dispersion-Reaction Equation: 1. First-Order Reaction, Jagath J. Kaluarachchi, Jahangir Morshed

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Operator-splitting technique (OST) is a common mathematical approach used in the solution of the advection-dispersion-reaction equation (ADRE), especially in the presence of biological decay, where the scales of transport and biological decay are far apart. The OST introduces a time-lag between the advection-dispersion and reaction stages by splitting the ADRE causing a breakdown of the physics of the problem, thus limiting its applicability. In this work, the applicability of the operator splitting technique is studied in parts. This first manuscript addresses the critical limitations of the operator-splitting technique as related to first-order decay, and the second manuscript extends the work …

Critical Assessment Of The Operator-Splitting Technique In Solving The Advection-Dispersion-Reaction Equation: 2. Monod Kinetics And Coupled Transport, Jahangir Morshed, Jagath J. Kaluarachchi

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

In the first manuscript of this two-part series, the behavior of the inherent time-lag error in the operator-splitting technique has been discussed. However, the discussion has been limited to the advection-dispersion-reaction equation with first-order kinetics. In this manuscript, the discussion is extended to address the applicability of the operator-splitting technique in solving the advection-dispersion-reaction equation with Monod kinetics. The discussion also considers the two-species coupled transport problem. The results of the analysis show that the behavior of the time-lag error causing a mass balance error is rather similar to those observed with first-order kinetics. The time-lag error directly depends on …

Design Factors For Improving The Efficiency Of Freeproduct Recovery Systems In Unconfined Aquifers, Jagath J. Kaluarachchi, R. Elliot

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Free-product recovery system designs for light hydrocarbon recovery were investigated to evaluate the effects of multiple-stage pumping, delayed startup, and uncertainty of key residual oil saturation input data using a vertically integrated three-phase flow model, ARMOS. The results obtained from a single well recovery system subjected to a given well location and uniform soil properties suggested that multiple-stage water pumping can enhance the recovery and provide optimal design conditions if cost and recovery oil volume are the targets. However, if containment of the spill area with simultaneous recovery is the target, then single-stage pumping still provides the optimal design. Delayed …

Optimal Pumping Strategies To Maximize Dissolved Tce Extraction At Central Base Area, Norton Afb, California, Richard C. Peralta

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Norton Air Force Base (NAFB) is located in the San Bernardino Valley, part of the California Peninsular Range geomorphic province (Figure 1). The elevation at NAFB is about 1,100 feet above mean sea level (msl). The ground slopes gradually to the southwest.

Nonparametric Stochastic Generation Of Daily Precipitation And Other Weather Variables, Rajagopalan Balaji

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Traditional stochastic approaches for synthetic generation of weather variables often assume a prior functional form for the stochastic process, are often not capable of reproducing the probabilistic structure present in the data, and may not be uniformly applicable across sites. In an attempt to find a general framework for stochastic generation of weather variables, this study marks a unique departure from the traditional approaches, and ushers in the use of data-driven nonparametric techniques and demonstrates their utility.

Precipitation is one of the key variables that drive hydrologic systems and hence warrants more focus. In this regard, two major aspects of …

Evaluation Of Synthetic Unit Hydrograph Techniques For Utah Probable Maximum Flood Determinations, Ashraf Mohammed Shammet

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Every dam must be capable of safely passing a predetermined flood magnitude. For high-hazard dams, it is a common practice to require that this flood be the Probable Maximum Flood (PMF). The determination of the PMF starts with the determination of the Probable Maximum Precipitation (PMP). We used the generalized estimates of the PMP as outlined in Hydrometeorological Report (HMR) 49. In this study we used the storm event model approach to convert the PMP into PMF. Different synthetic unit hydrograph (SUH) techniques were then used in the conversion process. The Soil Conservation Service (SCS) curve number method was used …

Spatial Variability And Error Limits Of Reference Evapotranspiration Estimates, Thomas W. Ley

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The overall objective of this research was to develop a methodology for assessing the spatial variability and error limits of reference evapotranspiration (ET_r) estimates from a weather station network. Likely errors introduced into ET_r estimates due to sensor measurement variability and nonstandard site conditions were investigated. Temporal and spatial correlation structures of the weather variables used to compute ET_r and of ET_r data collected over a three-year period by an operational agricultural weather station network were studied.

Results indicated that ET_r errors are minimal compared to inherent model error when sensors (of the type …

Considering Ecological Constraints While Optimizing Sustained Groundwater Yield, Pahvant Valley, Utah, Getachew Belaineh, Richard C. Peralta

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Concern for groundwater quality and availability is increasing in Pahvant Valley. Ground-water levels are declining due to intense groundwater extraction for irrigation; water having high total dissolved solids concentration is flowing from the southwest toward the pumping sites; and discharge from natural springs in a wildlife refuge is declining. Transient simulation of aquifer response to 20 years of the 1985 pumping rates (beginning with 1985 groundwater level) predicted that spring discharge would decrease by as much as 87% from 1985 rates. Presented are preliminary pumping strategies that maximize sustainable, steady-state groundwater extraction without unacceptably reducing discharge from the springs. A …