Civil Engineering Commons^™

Modeling Potential Environmental Impacts Of Deep Aquifer C02 Sequestration, Nigel W. T. Quinn

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

A promising measure for mitigating climate change is to store large volumes of C0₂ captured from large point-source carbon emitters in deep saline aquifers. In vulnerable systems, water resources impacts of large-scale C0₂ storage need to be evaluated and assessed before industrial­ size storage projects get under way. In California's southern San Joaquin Basin the land surface uplift caused by large C0₂ injection projects land deformation could have the potential to create reverse flow along certain canal reaches, or to reduce canal deliveries to agricultural land and managed wetlands. The impact of C0₂ storage on shallow …

Environmental Fluid Mechanics At Iemss Conferences (2002-2014), Carlo Gualtieri, Dragutin T. Mihailoviĉ

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Environmental Sciences encompass issues such as climate change, conservation, biodiversity, water quality, groundwater contamination, soil contamination, use of natural resources, waste management, sustainable development, disaster reduction, air pollution, and noise pollution. Within this broad and inherently interdisciplinary field, Environmental Fluid Mechanics (EFM) is the scientific study of naturally occurring fluid flows of air and water on our planet Earth, especially of those flows that affect the environmental quality of air and water, with scales of relevance, which are ranged (i) spatially from millimetres to kilometres, and (ii) temporally from seconds to years.

The paper presents a comprehensive review of the …

A Model Component For Simulating Co2 Emissions Growth, Gleb Alexandrov

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Development of comprehensive Earth System models requires a variety of model components related to human feedbacks. Among them are the model components relating energy use to climate change and resource availability. Simulations of the changes in usage of various fuels over the next 25 years are essential for predicting the pathways of CO2 emission reduction needed for climate change mitigation, and considered as a challenging aspect of Earth system modelling (Erickson et al, 2009). Here I present a model component for simulating CO2 emission growth that takes into account the effect of non-renewable resource availability on the rate of consumption …

We C.A.N. Do It: Actively Engaging Stakeholders In Modelling, A. Micheal S. Sheer

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Active stakeholder participation is critical when trying to find local solutions to environmental problems. When consultants present externally developed suggestions, stakeholders often distrustful. This paper describes a novel methodology that encourages and stakeholder participation, trust, and cooperation while developing model-informed solutions to such issues. This process is illustrated by examples from recent work in the Bow River Basin in Alberta, Canada.

The Computer Aided Negotiation process (CAN) is a form of Computer Modelling for Decision Support developed by Hydrologics Inc. and facilitated with OASIS software. It has 4 main stages intended to keep stakeholders engaged and clear difficult problems in …

Sustainability Indicators For Water Resource Assessment: Compatibility And Data Requirements, Marina G. Erechtchoukova, Peter A. Khaiter

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The concept of sustainability emerged as a solution to natural resource depletion and deterioration under significant anthropogenic impacts imposed on the natural environment. Recognition that changes in the state of natural environments have complex causes and even more complex consequences motivated the development of a structured approach to managing environmental issues and their interrelations with political and economic processes. Sustainable development can be achieved through management activities which are based on sustainable decisions. To evaluate a decision's sustainability, it is necessary to evaluate and analyse values of current and future welfare outcomes. The latter requires quantitative methods, simulation models, and …

Case Study: Prognostic Model Of Czech Municipal Waste Production And Treatment, Jiří Kalina, Jiří Hřebíček, Gabriela Bulková

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The paper introduces the application of multidimensional regression methods and a mathematically applicable waste streams structure model for the development of new complex model of municipal waste management (production and treatment) of the Czech Republic. This model was developed for purposes of the Ministry of the Environment of the Czech Republic and consequently of the European Environment Agency. It can evaluate the sustainability of environmental decisions on the national level with the focus on waste management data requirements, national strategies for waste data acquisition, management and processing to support sustainability of waste management in accordance with the European waste legislation.

Discovering Comprehensible Hydrogeological Profiles In The Margarita Island's Aquifers Including Post-Processing In A Data Mining Process, Conti Dante, Gibert Karina

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Groundwater wells are one of the most important water resources in the world. Control and management of these resources are of high importance due to the implicit need of water as the main resource for life. This research focuses on a hydrogeological analysis with clustering, which is one of the most popular data mining methods, including In the classical data mining scheme, last step corresponds to the effective production of knowledge. In this paper, special focus on that part is done, by means of post-processing tools. The main goal is to discover prototypical profiles from the acquifer Pedro González in …

Experiences With A Serious Online Game For Exploring Complex Relationships Of Sustainable Land Management And Human Well-Being: Landyous, Ralf Seppelt, Romina Martin, Alexander Finger, Christin Henzen, Martin Linder, Katrin Pietzsch, Andreas Werntze, Ute Zander, Jule Schulze

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Land is a limited resource. Its use for one purpose excludes other uses. Addressing the issue of human appropriation of natural resources thus requires understanding of a variety of complex feedbacks between decisions on land use and ecosystem services. The complexity is caused by a large number of mostly nonlinear feedbacks between management strategies, productivity, environmental quality, human well-being, consumption and many other aspects of land use. Here, we present LandYOUs: an educational online game, which aims at explaining and illustrating various options and feedbacks of sustainable land management (SLM) to the interested public, students and stakeholders. The game gives …

Planning Modeling In The Klamath River Basin - Usefui Tools For Stakeholders, Nancv Parker, Kristin White, Lee Traynham, Jason Cameron

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The Klamath River Basin, straddling the borders of Oregon and California, has been the scene of both substantial controversy and cooperation during the last twenty years over the analysis of water management solutions to address a broad range of interests. Threatened and endangered fish, trust obligations to four Native American tribes, the viability of irrigated agriculture, wildlife refuges on the Pacific Flyway, and a regional source of hydropower are all important aspects of the operation of this small basin. The U. S. Bureau of Reclamation has played a central role in conducting modeling studies to serve multiple management processes. A …

Numerical Modelling Of Dissolved-Oxygen In A Cold­ Region River, Ahmad Shakibaeinia, Yonas B. Dibike, Terry D. Prowse

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Dissolved oxygen (DO) content is a critical measure of the ability of water bodies to support healthy aquatic ecosystems. To better understand DO behaviour in large cold-region rivers, a one­ dimensional water quality model is setup for a -200 km reach of the lower Athabasca River below Fort McMurray, Alberta using the Mike-11 modelling system. A river-ice model is applied to reproduce ice conditions during the cold season so that the effects of ice-cover on the physical/chemical processes in the river system are taken into account. The combined model is used to simulate the transport and transformation of dissolved oxygen …

Automating Data-Model Workflows At A Level-12 Huc Scale In A Distributed Computing Environment, Lorne Leonard, Christopher J. Duffy

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The HydroTerre web services provide the Essential Terrestrial Variable (ETC) datasets to create common hydrological models anywhere in the continental United States (CONUS). These services allow web users to download data for their own purposes in their own computing environment. The datasets are provided using standard Geographic information System formats and the data transformation is dependent on the users’ own needs, goals, and computing environment. In this article, we demonstrate the feasibility of automating data-transformation workflows for United States Geological Survey level-12 Hydrological Unit Codes (HUC-12) to be consumed in hydrological models. The Penn State Integrated Hydrological Model (PIHM) is …

Graph Clustering Based On Social Network Community Detection Algorithms, Enrique Campbell, David Ayala-Cabrera, Joaquín Izquierdo, Rafael Pérez-García

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Graph network clustering has been an important field of investigation in recent years with a wide spectrum of applications, including environmental, genetic and engineering studies. There are two main types of applications; their suitability depends of the modeling context. Cases where the number of subdivisions is a priori known are tackled with different techniques than those where such number is not clearly evident. The second falls within the field of community detection, which has been broadly studied by social network scientists. Traditionally, community detection in graphs has been tackled by means of hierarchical clustering, which groups nodes based on their …

Stakeholder Engagement In Public Natural Resource Management, Lindell Ormsbee, Jim Kipp, Anna Hoover

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The management of public natural resources can be challenging, especially in the face of diverse stakeholders with varied interests and concerns. In most cases, decision-makers lack sufficient data from which to assess the range, intensity, and convergence of community preferences. Traditional attempts to acquire such information from public meetings frequently are constrained by a format that too often permits a few individuals to monopolize or co-opt sessions for their own purposes or agendas. Such experiences in past public meetings subsequently drive community expectations for future meetings, frequently resulting in decreased attendance and a less representative participant base. Consequently, regulators or …

Building Trust While Modeling With Stakeholders As Requirement For Social Learning, Meike Düsphol, Tuck Fatt Siew, Petra Döll

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Many participatory modeling approaches (PMA) aim at supporting social learning among stakeholders. Trust is one important requirement for successful social learning. We relate our experiences trying to improve participatory modeling with local experts in the identification of a region-specific strategy for renewable electricity generation. The PMA was implemented in Groβ-Gerau, a county in Germany. In the case study, we evaluated an innovative combination of methods that support the region-specific strategy identification. The methods applied are actor modeling (AM), scenario development and Bayesian Networks (BN). The evaluation of the case study and informal information shows that stakeholders do not trust each …

Trustworthiness Modelling On Continuous Environmental Measurement, Mats Neovius, Markus Stocker, Mauno Rönkkö, Luigia Petre

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

In the domain of environmental sciences, measurement is the process that maps some observed phenomenon to a formal measurement value, the latter being the result of a measurement process. The measurement process relies on data representing physical quantities of possibly continuously changing phenomena. Because of the inherent imprecision of this source data and interpretations made within the measurement process itself, the measurement processes and their measurement values are plagued with quality issues. Many of these quality issues may be parameterised and provided as metadata of the measurement value, e.g. precision, resolution, trustworthiness. Of these, trustworthiness quality parameter is evaluated by …

Quantifying Enso Impacts At The Basin Scale Using The Iterative Input Variable Selection Algorithm, Ludovica Beltrame, Daniele Carbonin, Stefano Galelli, Andrea Castelletti, Matteo Giuliani

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Medium-to-long range streamflow predictions provide a key assistance in anticipating hydro-climatic adverse events and prompting effective adaptation measures. In this context, recent modelling efforts have been dedicated to seasonal and inter-annual predictions based on the teleconnection between at-site hydrological processes and large-scale, low-frequency climate fluctuations, such as El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). This work proposes a novel procedure for first detecting the impact of ENSO on hydro-meteorological processes at the basin scale, and then quantitatively assessing the potential of ENSO indexes for building medium-to-long range streamflow prediction models. Core of this procedure is the adoption of the Iterative Input variable …

The Challenges Of Incorporating Urine And Dung Patches In Process-Based Modelling Of Grazed Agricultural Systems, Val O. Snow, Richard J. Eckard, C. Alan Rotz, Ian R. Johnson, Nicholas J. Hutchings

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Animals are well known to be important in lateral transfers of nitrogen within the farm boundary. Those transfers can be categorised into those that are: (a) primarily random and small- scale dung and urine patches within a grazed paddock, (b) larger and systematic transfers resulting from preferred grazing and resting areas and (c) those that are additionally mediated by management actions such as manure management from housing systems. We review how key simulation models treat the random category of nitrogen transfers and develop recommendations for usage and further development. While urine patches are clearly understood to be important in N …

Using Remote Sensing And Radar Met Data To Support Watershed Assessments Comprising Iem, Keewook Kim, Katie Price, Gene Whelan, Mike Galvin, Kurt Wolfe, Paul Duda, Mark Gray, Yakov Pachepsky

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Meteorological (MET) data required by watershed assessments that comprise Integrated Environmental Modeling (IEM) have traditionally been provided by land-based weather (gauge) stations; although these data may not be most appropriate for describing adequate spatial and temporal resolution if the MET stations are too few, too far away, or operating improperly. To complement land-based stations, remote sensing and radar satellite data are being increasingly used in obtaining synoptic data with the spatial and temporal resolution required for site-specific and/or event-based assessments. This study compares and contrasts the viability of automating the use of radar satellite data and land-based gauge stations to …

The Grassland Model Intercomparison Of The Macsur (Modelling European Agriculture With Climate Change For Food Security) European Knowledge Hub, Shaoxiu Ma, Marco Acutis, Zoltán Barcza, Haythem Ben Touhami, Luca Doro, Dóra Hidy, Martin Köchy, Julien Minet, Eszter Lellei-Kovács, Alessia Perego, Susanne Rolinski, Franҫoise Ruget, Giovanna Seddaiu, Lianhai Wu, Gianni Bellocchi

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The grassland model intercomparison of the FACCE MACSUR knowledge hub involves nine modelling approaches. Grassland-specific approaches (AnnuGrow, PaSim, SPACSYS) were compared to the approaches mainly conceived to simulate crops (ARMOSA, EPIC, STICS) and biomes (Biome- BGC MuSo, CARAIB, LPJmL). The model intercomparison exercise is run over nine grassland sites across Europe and peri-Mediterranean regions where data were collected from at least five up to 31 years, with focus on biomass production and carbon exchanges. The protocol for model intercomparison, derived from Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project, includes sensitivity tests, as well as blind and calibrated simulations. A fuzzy logic-based …

Pre-Processing Techniques Applied To Automatic Taxon Identification On Fish Otoliths, Ramon Reig-Bolaño, Pere Marti-Puig

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

This paper analyzes the characteristics of a rotation-invariant Feature space to be used in a classifier of fish otoliths, it is compared to two other Feature spaces, one with raw data and another with transformed data (using the Elliptic Fourier Descriptors EFD). Otoliths are found in the inner ear of fish. Their shape can be analyzed to determine sex, age, populations and species, and thus they can provide necessary and relevant information for ecological studies. The Automatic Taxon Identifier (ATI) is used to classify fish otoliths directly from a query image and is implemented on-line in a Public Database. This …

Modelling Climate Change Adaptation Using Cross-Impact Analysis: An Approach For Integrating Qualitative And Quantitative Data, Johan Veltmeyer, Oz Sahin

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Inherently, 'Climate Change Adaptation' is a complex issue requiring use of a range of methods and data, which involves many stakeholders. In this, often quantitative models relying on quantitative data are used to explore and predict the likely impact of a changing climate, and to evaluate adaptation alternatives. While such models do provide useful information, in addressing such complex issues they clearly need more data. In reality, quantitative data are not readily available, or too expensive to obtain. Therefore, to provide a more comprehensive insight, qualitative and quantitative data needs to be collected from a variety of stakeholders with different …

Operational Flash Flood Warning Systems With Global Applicability, Theresa M. Modrick, Rochelle Graham, Eylon Shamir, Robert Jubach, Cristopher R. Spencer, Jason A. Sperfslage, Konstantine P. Georgakakos

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The availability of global meteorological information (observations and forecasts) and widespread digital data on the land surface now affords the use of hydrometeorological modelling in an operational environment to provide numerical guidance for local forecasts and warnings of flash flooding by meteorological and disaster management agencies, Flash floods are among the deadliest natural disasters and can have significant impact on the natural environment and infrastructure, Working with national meteorological and hydrologic services, the Hydrologic Research Center has developed and implemented regional software systems to convey remotely sensed data and guidance products for rapid decisions regarding flash flood warnings, The systems …

Practical Identifiability Analysis Of Environmental Models, Stefano Marsili-Libelli, Michael B. Beck, Philip Brunner, Barry Croke, Joseph Guillaume, Anthony Jakeman, John Jakeman, Karel Keesman, Hans Stigter

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Identifiability of a system model can be considered as the extent to which one can capture its parameter values from observational data and other prior knowledge of the system. Identifiability must be considered in context so that the objectives of the modelling must also be taken into account in its interpretation. A model may be identifiable for certain objective functions but not others; its identifiability may depend not just on the model structure but also on the level and type of noise, and may even not be identifiable when there is no noise on the observational data. Context also means …

Predicting Citation Counts Of Environmental Modelling Papers, Barbara J. Robson, Aurélie Mousquès

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

We assessed all papers published in two key environmental modelling journals in 2008 to determine the degree to which the citation counts of the papers could be predicted without considering the paper's quality. We applied both random forests and general additive models to predict citation counts using a range of easily quantified or categorised characteristics of the papers as covariates. The more highly cited papers were, on average, longer, had longer reference lists, had more authors, were more likely to have been published in Environmental Modelling and Software and less likely to include differential or integral equations than papers with …

A Modeling Framework For Oceanic Basins Under Double Exposure, Christian Mullon, Gorka Merino, Jose Fernandez, William Cheung, Manuel Barange

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Oceans stand under double exposure to global warming and of economic globalization. This generates anxieties and contributes to the need for specific governance. A first expression lies in the needs for integrated representations allowing a collaborative development of scenarios. Main challenge here lies in finding, in these representations, a balance between realism and abstraction admissible by all participants.

In this talk, we present modeling framework that has been designed to build scenarios about the possible futures of an oceanic basin. The principle lies in using a network model in which nodes correspond to fish stocks, specialized fleets, farming systems, trade …

Alces Online: Web-Delivered Scenario Analysis To Inform Sustainable Land-Use Decisions, Matthew Carlson, Brad Stelfox, Noah Purves-Smith, Justin Straker, Shanti Berryman, Tim Barker, Barry Wilson

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Simulation models are yet to reach their potential to inform environmental sustainability, in part due to inaccessibility. ALCES Online (www.online.alces.ca) addresses this deficiency through web-delivery of high quality scenario analysis to individuals lacking a modeling background. The simulator is available for the province of Alberta, Canada, and efforts are underway to create versions for additional jurisdictions. The underlying scenario analysis is holistic through incorporation of a diverse set of drivers and indicators. Simulated land uses include energy, agriculture, mining, forestry, and human settlements; natural drivers such as fire are also included. Environmental and socioeconomic consequences are conveyed by tracking indicators …

Lidar And Hyperspectral Data For Landscape And Vegetation Classification And Monitoring, Ake Sivertun, Katharina Zöphel, Simon Ahlberg

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Mapping of forest areas and other landscapes as to combine information about ground structures, topography as well as other natural and man-made features can be made with help of Li- DAR (Elmqvist, M. 2001). The result can be used for planning military and civil missions and analysis of the possibility to drive though areas with bad or no roads (Sivertun & Gumos 2006) as well as for management of natural recourses and for example in physical planning. By combining LiDAR and other remotely sensed data it is possible to make use of the different advantages the different sensors provides. In …

The Value Of Seasonal Productivity Forecasting In Biodiesel Plans, Giulia Fiorese, Giorgio Guariso

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Crop productivity is commonly assumed as a deterministic function when developing agricultural plans. Actual data prove however that, even for the same soil at the same location, crop productivity can be better interpreted as a random variable due to the meteorological conditions of the specific year. For the production of biodiesel, crops are easily substitutable and the farmer can chose every year between various alternatives. Without information on the seasonal meteorology, the farmers select the crop to cultivate mainly on the basis of the expected productivity. However, changes in the meteorological situation may result in a reduction in crop profitability. …

W(H)Ither The Oracle? Cognitive Biases And Other Human Challenges Of Integrated Environmental Modeling, Pierre D. Glynn

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Integrated environmental modeling (IEM) can organize and increase our knowledge of the complex, dynamic ecosystems that house our natural resources and control the quality of our environments. Human behavior, however, must be taken into account. Human biases/heuristics reflect adaptation over our evolutionary past to frequently experienced situations that affected our survival and that provided sharply distinguished feedbacks at the level of the individual. Unfortunately, human behavior is not adapted to the more diffusely experienced, less frequently encountered, problems and issues that IEM typically seeks to address in the simulation of natural resources and environments. While seeking inspiration from the prophetic …

Modelling Water And Land Resource Management In Dry Rainfed Areas Of India: Connecting The Environment And Technology To Institutions And Stakeholders, Vasant P. Gandhi

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The dry rainfed areas pose a serious challenge in India due to the environment of scarcity, fragility and adversity of natural resources in these areas, and the high incidence of poverty. The government has undertaken huge programs called watershed development programs in such areas to promote scientific and judicious use of the resources to improve sustainability, incomes, livelihoods. National and international contributions commit about $500 million annually for such programs. However, effective institutional arrangements are lacking and are required to combine scientific approaches with community participation and ownership, especially given the small farm sizes and high populations. This research supported …