Environmental Engineering Commons^™

Assessing The Relative Value Of Stereoscopic 3d Versus Head Tracking In Large Scale Immersive Visualization, Derrick Turner, Daniel P. Ames

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The use of large-scale stereoscopic immersive visualization environments is growing globally as a supplement to field work in environmental science and engineering. Such systems typically include large-scale stereoscopic displays and head/hand tracking to facilitate an immersive user experience. These components can add significant cost and complication to such a system that may not be warranted if the components do not significantly improve the user experience. This paper presents a study conducted in a large-scale visualization environment called the VuePod, to help determine the relative value of head-tracking and stereoscopic technologies in terms of improved data interpretation. Forty-eight individuals were recruited …

2d Hydrodynamic Based Logic Modelling Tool For River Restoration Decision Analysis: A Quantitative Approach To Project Prioritization, David J. Bandrowski, Yong G. Lai, D. Nathan Bradley, Josh Murauskas, Dave Gauman

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

In the field of river restoration sciences there is a growing need for analytical modelling tools and quantitative processes to help identify and prioritize project sites. Two-dimensional (20) hydraulic models have become more common in recent years and with the availability of robust data sets and computing technology, it is now possible to evaluate large river systems at the reach scale. The Trinity River Restoration Program (TRRP) - Bureau of Reclamation in Northern California is now analyzing a 40 mile segment of the Trinity River to determine priority and implementation sequencing for its Phase II channel rehabilitation projects. A comprehensive …

Biofilm Susceptibility In A Drinking Water Distribution System Regarding 24 Hours Demand Curve, Eva Ramos-Martínez, Manuel Herrera, Joaquín Izquierdo, Rafael Pérez-García

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Biofilm leads to various undesirable problems in drinking water distribution systems (DWDSs), representing a critical paradigm in the management of these systems. Biofilm depends on a complex interaction of water quality, operational factors, and infrastructure associated to DWDSs. Although, it is known that all these factors do influence biofilm development, they have not been studied to the same extent. Those associated with the design and operation of DWDSs have been the most unconsidered. Besides, the joint influence of these factors has been scarcely investigated due to the complexity of the community and the environment under study. In order to bridge …

A Conceptual Model To Guide Exploration Of Global Food-Water Security, Joseph H. A. Guillaume, Matti Kummu, Miina Porkka, Olli Varis

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

While food security can be approached as a local issue, it is strongly influenced by factors at inter-regional and global scales related to production, transaction (e.g. trade and distribution) and consumption, and by drivers such as climate, population growth, diet change, as well as social, political and technological developments. Action on food security therefore benefits from being informed by current global patterns and potential future changes and taking an integrated approach to assessing impacts of proposed responses. Modelling can notably contribute by assessing the influence of various factors on food security. Due to the significant complexity and uncertainty involved, model …

Relationship Between Von Karman And Reynolds Number: A Critical Analysis Using The Wind Profile Method, Pelliccioni Armando

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The Von Karman constant k is important for the study of lower layer of atmosphere. This parameter can be calculated using two methods: the gradient methods and the profile methods. In this work the profile methods has been applied. A dataset, collected in a meteorological tower sited at the National Wind Technology Center in Boulder was used. Data were selected for high neutral turbulence conditions, vertical homogeneity for the wind direction and friction velocity. A near-neutral correction has been applied to the observed Von Karman constant. The profile method permits to calculate the roughness Reynolds number, a parameter link to …

Balancing Conflicting Management Objectives Using Interactive, Three-Dimensional Visual Analytics, Joseph Kasprzyk, Joshua Kollat, Chris Danilo

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

In the US, the recently introduced Principles and Requirements for Federal Investment in Water Resources captures an increasing trend for using multiple objective approaches to make funding decisions for water resources and environmental problems. Moreover, advanced search tools such as multi objective evolutionary algorithms can develop solutions to such problems, even when the problems are characterized by non-linearities, uncertainty, and false optima. However, our presentation argues that multi-objective decision support requires innovative methods for visualizing complex trade-offs between conflicting objectives, interrogating design possibilities, imposing preferences between objectives, and eventually negotiating a small set of final alternatives. Specifically we present a …

Problem-Specific Rule Extraction For Better Performance Of Evolutionary Algorithms, Joaquin Izquierdo, Idel Montalvo, Enrique Campbell, Rafael Pérez-García

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Evolutionary algorithms (EAs) are ubiquitous to many environmental issues. Typically, most evolutionary techniques use just a small part of the solutions evaluated at a time. Thus, many of the solutions evaluated during the search process are "forgotten" after one generation, and combined experience of several generations is typically not well exploited. Data mining (DM) techniques can enable deeper insight into the many "good" solutions that have been just simply glimpsed and have been rapidly disregarded because they were dominated by better solutions during an ephemeral moment in the evolution process. Based on a database obtained by suitably recording certain of …

Modeling With Citizen Scientists: Using Community- Based Modeling Tools To Develop Citizen Science Projects, Steven Gray, David Mellor, Rebecca Jordan, Alycia Crall, Greg Newman

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Although model-based reasoning is often at the center of environmental science and management, the process of constructing, refining and empirically validating scientific models is not often made explicit to participants in many citizen science programs. The lack of attention that modeling receives in citizen science programs is likely attributable to resource constraints, given that scientific modeling often requires considerable training and scientific software tools are not easily accessible to members of the general public. To address these constraints, we describe the development and use of a fuzzy-logic cognitive mapping software called Mental Modeler (http://www.mentalmodeler.org/), embedded within a citizen science …

Automated Data Quality Assessment: Dealing With Faulty On-Line Water Quality Sensors, Janelcy Alfreres, Peter A. Vanrolleghem

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Compared to traditional grab sampling modern measurement systems enable continuous water quality monitoring of water systems at high frequency. However, in real world applications on-line sensors are still subject to functional, technical and operational constraints. Challenges thus remain associated with the automation of data collection and especially data validation to ensure proper use and interpretation of the data and avoid the danger of building data graveyards. Poor quality data could drastically affect the results of their application, e.g. water quality models for river basin management, model-based control, WWTP control rules, decision making, etc. For practical fault detection purposes, in this …

Assessing Environmental Trade-Offs With Bayesian Decision Networks - Comparing Ecosystem Services And Irrigation Needs Of Urban And Peri-Urban Plant Species In Xinjiang, Nw China, Sina K. Frank, Petra Döll, Martin Welp, Ümüt Halik, Hamid Yimit

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Decisions in environmental management often have trade-offs attached: Either cost-benefit trade-offs, such as real costs and effectiveness of water treatment alternatives, or environmental trade-offs, such as environmental costs and benefits of land use alternatives which are more difficult to quantify. Vegetation managers in oasis towns of the Taklamakan desert in Xinjiang, NW China, were interested in a specific local environmental trade-off. They wanted to know which urban and peri- urban plant species were most effective in mitigating dust weather while needing the least irrigation. To assess this trade-off, we developed a Bayesian Network and two simple Bayesian Decision Networks (BDNs). …

Use Of Cfd In The Initial Design Of A Snow Fence, Sarah Jane Wakes

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The predominant reason for controlling snow deposition using fences is to keep roads and areas around buildings clear of snow during winter months. Empirical guidelines exist but little work has been done optimising fencing design for specific purpose and location. An alternative use of snow fences in New Zealand has been to control the position of drifting snow to simulate changing climatic conditions for plant research over 30 years. This has been of varied success due to lack of design guidelines and the difficulty of gathering field data for snow deposition for validation. Initial work uses Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) …

Investigating Operational Decision-Making In Agriculture, Charlotte Daydé, Stéphane Couture, Frédérick Garcia, Roger Martin-Clouaire

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Farmers, in their role as production managers, have to make daily management decisions about the technical operations to be performed on the biophysical components of their farms. These decisions have important implications in terms of the sustainability of the farm business and deserve in-depth examination with a scientific approach. The traditional decision research paradigm assumes an idealized decision situation in which the farm manager knows all the relevant alternatives, their consequences and probabilities, and has fixed preferences and possesses the cognitive capacity to efficiently process them. Many studies have shown that the farmer's decision-making context does not meet these assumptions. …

Three-Dimensional Numerical Model To Evaluate The Suspended Solid Removal In Surface Flow Constructed Wetland, Sangsoo Han, Zhi Chen, Fayi Zhou

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Surface flow constructed wetlands (SFCWs) have been widely used to treat various types of wastewater and stormwater due to the advantages such as low costs for operating and maintenance compared with conventional treatment systems. In SFCW, the flow pattern, which is determined by the geometric features including bed morphology and vegetation distribution, significantly influences the removal processes of suspended solids and other pollutants. In this study, a three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics model, that integrates hydrodynamic model and the Lagrangian particle tracking model, is applied to determine the effectiveness of a SFCW in removing suspended solids based on the predicted flow …

Benefits Of The Use Of Natural User Interfaces In Water Simulations, Gennadii Donchyts, Fedor Baart, Arthur Van Dam, Bert Jagers

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The use of natural user interfaces instead of conventional ones has become a reality with the emergence of 3D motion sensing technologies. However, some problems are still unsolved (for example, no haptic or tactile feedback); so this technology requires careful evaluation before the users can benefit from it. We argue that the best benefits can be achieved when these natural user interface technologies are combined with classical computer interaction devices such as mouse and keyboard. In our demonstration, we will show how the LEAP Motion controller can be applied in environmental modeling when combined with the shallow water flow model …

Calsim Modeling Of Proposed San Joaquin River Basin Flow Standards, Thomas W. Fitzhugh

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Water resources system modeling was conducted using the CalSim II San Joaquin River model to evaluate streamflow standards proposed during the current update to the 2006 Water Quality Control Plan for the San Francisco Bay/Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Estuary (Bay-Delta Plan Update). Phase I of the Bay-Delta Plan Update will select and implement State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) standards for San Joaquin River instream flows and salinity. CalSim II is a monthly model of reservoir and water system operations in the Central Valley of California. The first modeling effort was to analyze a proposed agreement between the Bureau of Reclamation …

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 …