Environmental Engineering Commons^™

On A New Framework For Detecting, Classifying, And Forecasting Floods For Large-Scale Flood Risk Analysis, Equisha Glenn

Dissertations and Theses

Increasing trends in flooding events are projected to continue as climate changes have increased the chance of extreme weather events. Given the significant, damaging impacts of extreme floods, the ability to effectively model floods is crucial for risk management and mitigation of the impacts of these extreme flooding events. This dissertation presents a new framework for detecting and predicting large-scale flood risk in the United States using climate information. This methodology categorizes regional, simultaneous floods into an index that is used to forecast the risk of extreme flooding a season ahead. The index proposed herein, named the Spatial Flood Index …

Global Food Security Under Climate-Water-Energy Nexus, Ehsan Najafi

Dissertations and Theses

During the last few decades, the global agricultural production has risen and technology enhancement is still contributing to yield growth. However, population growth, water and energy crisis, and extreme weather, climate change, etc. threaten the global food security. The focus of this study is to advance the understanding of the associations between crops productivity and large scale and local scale climatic variables, climate change, technology enhancement and assessing food-water-energy nexus to enhance global food security in a sustainable manner considering current available resources. As decision-makers try to improve food security, it is important to identify the impact of technology enhancement …

Hydroclimate Drivers And Atmospheric Dynamics Of Floods, Nasser Najibi

Dissertations and Theses

Our preliminary survey showed that most of the recent flood-related studies did not formally explain the physical mechanisms of long-duration and large-peak flood events that can evoke substantial damages to properties and infrastructure systems. These studies also fell short of fully assessing the interactions of coupled ocean-atmosphere and land dynamics which are capable of forcing substantial changes to the flood attributes by governing the exceeding surface flow regimes and moisture source-sink relationships at the spatiotemporal scales important for risk management. This dissertation advances the understanding of the variability in flood duration, peak, volume, and timing at the regional to the …

Coupling The Hydrodynamic And Water Quality Model Ce-Qual-W2 With A Multi-Trophic Fish Bio-Energetics Model For Lake Roosevelt, Washington, Michael Lee Mckillip

Dissertations and Theses

Grand Coulee Dam created Franklin D. Roosevelt Lake as part of the Columbia Basin Project. Located in northeastern Washington State, the Project provides economically important hydropower (19 billion kilowatt hours per year), irrigation (225,000 ha), flood control, and sport fishing ($5 to 20 million annually). A good system understanding aids in balancing these beneficial uses for the 230 km long reservoir. The reservoir's atypical 45-day mean residence time is much shorter than a typical lake, and much longer than for a riverine dam. The spring freshet requires drawdowns of 15 to 20 m for flood control—the driving characteristic of reservoir …

Analysis And Prediction Of The Water Temperature Of The Mckenzie River, Oregon Using The Equilibrium Temperature Approach, R. Peder Hansen

Dissertations and Theses

A one dimensional, steady flow, unsteady temperature model is used to evaluate the effects of two U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (COE) dams and resulting reservoirs on hourly water temperatures of the mainstem McKenzie River from Delta Park (RM 62.1) to Leaburg Dam (RM 38.8). Both COE projects are on tributaries to the McKenzie River and at present have only bottom withdrawl capabilities.

Water temperatures were simulated using the equilibrium temperature approach with air temperature used to estimate equilibrium temperature and also using computed hourly equilibrium temperature. Results obtained using computed equilibrium temperatures were less satisfactory than results using air …

Forecasting For Local Water Management, Douglas Alan Putnam

Dissertations and Theses

Forecast models are investigated and developed for use in local water management to aid in determining short term water requirements and availability. The forecast models include precipitation occurrence and depth using a Markov chain model, temperature and solar radiation with a multivariate autoregressive model, and streamflow with autoregressive-moving average models. The precipitation, temperature, and solar radiation forecasts are used with a soil moisture model to determine water demands. A state space approach to the Muskingum-Cunge streamflow routing technique is developed. The forecast water demands and streamflow forecasts are used as inputs to this routing model. Forecast model errors and propagation …

State Space Approach To Flood Stage Estimation, Gregory Allen Jones

Dissertations and Theses

A flood routing and stage prediction model is developed using the techniques of State Space and Kalman filtering. The governing equation is the physically based hydrologic method of flood routing with the output being an optimal estimate of stage given known inputs of streamflow. These equations are developed in state space and the Kalman filter is employed to estimate the flow and river stage.

The model is applied to the Toutle and Cowlitz Rivers in the State of Washington, where the stage is affected by a shifting bed elevation. With the deterministic inputs at Mayfield Dam on the Cowlitz and …