Environmental Engineering Commons^™

Accounting For Groups Of Animals In Qmra Of Recreational Waters, Richard W. Muirhead, Vanessa M. Cave

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The development of QMRA for recreational waters often involves assessing the inputs from multiple sources, including human sewage, agricultural sources and wild animals. The concentrations of microorganisms in faeces from individual animals are highly variable leading to a broad spectrum of risk. When modelling the load of faecal microbes from a group of animals, based on data from individuals, the group distribution must be correctly accounted for. A further complication to QMRA is that pathogen concentrations in faeces have a high proportion of non-detects making them difficult to model using standard mathematical distributions. Moreover, when only limited concentration data are …

Towards An Interoperable And Distributed E-Infrastructure For Hydro-Meteorology: The Drihm Project, Antonella Galizia, Daniele D’Agostino, Alfonso Quarti, Gabriele Zereik, Luca Roverelli, Emanuele Danovaro, Andrea Clematis, Fabio Delogu, Antonio Parodi, Quillon Harpham, Bert Jagers, Luis Garrote, Ljiljana Dekic, Vladimir Dimitrijevic, Evelyne Richard, Olivier Caumont

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Predicting weather and climate and its impacts on the environment, including hazards such as floods and landslides, is one of the main challenges of the 21st century with significant societal and economic implications. To advance the state of the art in forecasting extreme events, an effective collaboration with the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) scientific community is necessary to address challenges in combining meteorological, hydrological, hydraulic and impact observations and modelling tools seemingly and in a platform that allows scenario building and decision-support. With these issues in mind, the Dis- tributed Research Infrastructure for Hydro-Meteorology (DRIHM) project aims at setting …

A Spatial Planning Tool For The Evaluation Of The Effect Of Hydrological And Land-Use Changes On Ecosystem Services, Leon Mugwiza, Seleshi Yalew, Johannes Van Der Kwast, Masoom Hamdard, Willem Van Deursen

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Many point-based models have been designed to simulate hydrology, gas flux, nutrient dynamics, and/or plant growth processes at a single point on the landscape. However, these environmental processes are known to be spatially variable. Simulations at different spatial locations therefore require adjustment of model input parameters to reflect specific conditions at each location. Increased availability of geospatial data sets, including remote sensing images, land cover maps, digital soil surveys, crop yield maps, and vehicle-based plant or soil maps, can support spatial model parameterization efforts. However, tools are needed for processing geospatial data layers and interfacing the data with the simulation …

Silvio, Modelling Social Vulnerability Under A Local Perspective, Thaís López-Inojosa, Martina Neuburger, Sebastian Medina-Plascencia, Framklin Davila

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The objective of this research is to develop and to model an indicator of social vulnerability as part of a multidimensional, multivariable and non linear process. Social vulnerability can be considered as a complex system, in which many relationships in society and environment can be described by considering individual and structural factors. Numerous studies provide tools to analyze and revise social systems but these tools were developed generalizing and overviewing the relationship among many intermediate realities, for another type of systems, more formalized and conceptualized. Social systems do not have this classical formalization. The development of the SocIaL Vulnerability I …

Controls On Hydrologic Partitioning: Using A Mechanistic Model For Comparative Hydrology Across Ungauged Sub-Catchments In A Mountain Headwater Basin, Christa Kelleher, Thorsten Wagener, Francesca Pianosi, Brian Mcglynn

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Headwater streams are the most abundant portion of the river network but the least monitored. As such, we have a limited understanding of headwater stream behaviours and how they are influenced by catchment properties such as topography, geology, and vegetation. Given the lack of runoff monitoring within headwater streams, improving an understanding of how catchment properties influence hydrologic behaviour is necessary for transferring information from instrumented areas to ungauged sites. We utilize this concept to understand physical controls on similarities and differences in hydrologic behaviour for five adjacent sub-catchments located in the Tenderfoot Creek Experimental Forest in central Montana with …

Estimating The Benefits Of Early Warning Systems In Reducing Urban Flood Risk To People: A Spatially Explicit Bayesian Model., Stefano Balbi, Ferdinando Villa, Vahid Mojthaed, Carlo Giupponi

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Flood risk assessment usually focuses on damages to material objects (indirect tangible costs) and downplays the broader socio-economic aspects of flood-prone systems. Such aspects are crucial for an accurate assessment of risk to human receptors and of the benefits of non-structural measures. For example, an early warning system (EWS) that reduces the amount of direct tangible costs only partially could: (i) save lives (direct intangible costs); (ii) help avoid long-lasting trauma (indirect intangible costs); (iii) prevent post-disaster evacuation costs (indirect tangible costs). We present a methodology to assess flood risk to people, which integrates people's vulnerability and ability to cushion …

Amadeus: A System For Monitoring Water Quality Parameters And Predicting Contaminant Paths, Abdeltawab M. Hendawi, David Hazel, Joel Larson, Yiru Li, Dwaine Trummert, Mohamed Ali, Ankur Teredesai

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Managing the water quality in an urban environment is extremely challenging. While it flows, the water picks up pollutants such as lawn care chemicals, oil, and pet waste bacteria. In fact, topography plays a factor in where water runoff goes. However, there are many other factors, such as urban density, impermeable surface coverage, weather events and tidal patterns which all have the potential to impact not only the final destination of a particular pollutant but also the rate of travel along the route. In this paper, we propose a system, named AMADEUS (Azure Marketplace of Applications for Diverse Environmental Use …

Socio-Economic Regional Risk Assessment (Serra) Application To Flood Risk In The Vipacco Basin (North-East Italy), Claudia De Luca, Vahid Mojtahed, Animesh Gain, Stefano Balbi, Michele Ferri, Carlo Giupponi

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

According to EEA (European Environmental Agency), flood is the most dangerous natural hazard in Europe in terms of economic losses. The KULTURisk Project (EU FP7) has developed a novel methodology for evaluating the integrated benefits of risk prevention of water related natural hazards: SERRA (i.e. Socio-Economic Regional Risk Assessment). The proposed methodology enhances the traditional flood risk assessment. Several case studies across Europe allowed for the consolidation, validation, and refinement of SERRA. This paper presents the results of its application to assess the benefits derived from the installation of an Early Warning System in Vipacco river basin in Friuli Venezia …

Investigating Parameter Sensitivity For Management In Snow-Driven Watersheds, Elizabeth Houle, Joseph Kasprzyk

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Recent projections of environmental change have shown possible variation to temperature and precipitation patterns due to climate change. In snowmelt-dominated watersheds, adapting to such environmental changes requires a detailed understanding of hydrological processes in addition to historical snow cover and streamflow data. Snow models are often incorporated as an additional component of hydrological modeling studies that inform research and operations management. However, previous research and parameter estimation approaches using snow models assume that parameters have a single optimal value and that each parameter is sensitive. This paper demonstrates that an improved understanding of snow model parameter sensitivity can aid in …

Agent-Based Virtual Laboratories For A Novel Experimental Approach To Socio-Environmental Synthesis, Nicholas R. Magliocca, Mary Shelley, Mike Smorul

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The number of agent-based modeling (ABM) applications within the socio-environmental context has exploded over the last decade. Most of these ABMs have been designed to deepen our understanding of the decision-making processes and human-environment interactions that lead to emergent community- and/or landscape-level outcomes in specific locations and contexts. While these 'case-based' ABMs have generally been successful in this aim - to which their popularity attests - little progress has been made through this case-based approach towards the ultimate goal of building coherent theory about the structure, dynamics, and sustainability of socio-environmental systems. Moving away from case-based ABMs, this paper will …

The Qmra Wiki: A Social Media Tool For Interdisciplinary And Interagency Collaboration For Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment, Jade Mitchell, Mark H. Weir, Wietske Van Osch, Joan Rose

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

This study presents a web-based social media system that supports quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA) and collaboration among interdisciplinary scientists and interagency stakeholders, namely the QMRA wiki. The QMRA wiki is intended to aid the development of risk assessments by providing a collection of raw data, models and calculators as well as a platform for exchange and cross-fertilization between the QMRA community and its stakeholders. The wiki is organized around the exploration of the QMRA paradigm including the following five components: hazard identification, dose-response assessment, exposure assessment, risk characterization and risk management. Additionally, the wiki houses a number of case …

Using Integrated Environmental Modeling To Automate A Process-Based Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment, Gene Whelan, Keewook Kim, Rajbir Parmar, Kurt Wolfe, Mike Galvin, Paul Duda, Mark Gray, Marirosa Molina, Richard Zepp, Yakov Pachepsky, John Ravenscroft, Lourdes Prieto, Brenda Kitchens

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Integrated Environmental Modeling (IEM) organizes multidisciplinary knowledge that explains and predicts environmental-system response to stressors. A Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment (QMRA) is an approach integrating a range of disparate data (fate/transport, exposure, and human health effects relationships) to characterize potential health impacts/risks from exposure to pathogenic microorganisms. We demonstrate loosely connected IEM legacy technologies (SDMProjectBuilder, Microbial Source Module, HSPF, and BASINS) to support watershed-scale microbial source-to-receptor modeling, focusing on animal-impacted catchments. The coupled models automate manual steps in standard watershed assessments to expedite the process, minimize resources, increase ease of use, and introduce more science-based processes to the analysis. SDMProjectBuilder …

App2adapt: Using Tablet Technology To Elicit Conditional Probabilities For Bayesian Belief Network Modelling, Russell Richards, Oz Sahin, Marcello Sano, Jan-Olaf Meynecke, Rachel Tiller

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The aim of this study is to use touch-screen computer tablet technology (e.g. iPAD) and its interactive flight console capabilities (e.g. touch screen 'sliders') as an improved method to stakeholder­ driven climate change adaptation research. Climate change vulnerability and adaptation have strong human dimensions meaning that the experiences of stakeholders often plays an important role when assessing adaptation options and/or the determinants of adaptive capacity. Methods such as Bayesian belief networks {BBNs) can draw upon the extensive knowledge and beliefs of stakeholders in a straightforward manner yet are underpinned by a robust mathematical framework (i.e. Bayes theory). This is critically …

Metadata For Describing Water Models, Mohamed M. Morsy, Jonathan L. Goodall, Christina Bandaragoda, Anthony M. Castronova, Jane Greenberg

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Computer models are widely used in hydrology and water resources management. A large variety of models exist, each tailored to address specific challenges related to hydrologic science and water resources management. When scientists and engineers apply one of these models to address a specific question, they must devote significant effort to set up, calibrate, and evaluate that model instance built for some place and time. In many cases, there is a benefit to sharing these computer models and associated datasets with the broader scientific community. Core to model reuse in any context is metadata describing the model. A standardized metadata …

Engaging Australian Surf Lifesaving In Coastal Hazard And Climate Change Adaptation With Stakeholder Driven Modelling, Marcello Sono, Russell G. Richards, Oz Sahin, Shauna Sherker, Rodger Tomlinson

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Australia's beaches, an iconic playground and social hub for coastal communities, are threatened by coastal hazards and by the impacts of climate change. In particular, Surf Life Saving Australia (SLSA) has assets, facilities and personnel exposed to coastal hazards and climate change, including numerous surf life saving clubs (SLSCs), which can impact its capacity of providing beach and water safety for Australian beaches. This research employed a range of methods to identify climate change adaptation options and to identify mechanisms to enhance adaptive capacity, combining a range of system-oriented, stakeholder-based techniques, including system thinking conceptual modelling, structural analysis, system dynamics …

Addressing The Water-Energy-Climate Nexus Conundrum: A Systems Approach, Oz Sahin, Rodney A. Stewart, Russell G. Richards

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Australia has the highest per capita surface water storage capacity of any country in the world. However, this storage capacity is at the mercy of Australia's rainfall, which is the most variable of any continental region. Recent drought shaved more than 1% off the nation's economy and saw unprecedented widespread water scarcity. In South-East Queensland (SEQ), six consecutive annual drops in storage level forced the introduction of water restrictions, limiting over 2 million citizens to less than 30% of pre-drought per capita usage. Moving forward, forecasts of high population growth and climate change will simultaneously increase water demand and significantly …

Linking Water Resource Network Models To An Open Data Management Platform, Phillipp Meier, Stephen Knox, Julien Harou

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The development of models for complex water resources systems frequently involves cus- tomising model formulations to fit unique institutional or physical problems. Linking existing model components is part of this process. As an alternative to pre-packaged models or building models based on components that comply to the same standard interface we present a model platform where network resource models (water, energy, transport, etc.) are linked to a data manager in a generic way. A modular architecture is achieved using a server for data storage. Clients connecting to the server, called Apps, provide import and export functions from and to various …

Multiscale Spatial Sensitivity Analysis For Agent-Based Modelling Of Coupled Landscape And Aquatic Systems, Arika Ligmann-Zielinska, Wei Liu, Daniel B. Kramer, Kendra Spence Cheruvelil, Patricia A. Soranno, Piotr Jankowski, Seda Salap

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Models of coupled landscape and aquatic systems (CLAS) are prone to input uncertainties that vary over space. To address this challenge, we employ a comprehensive model evaluation that: [1] quantifies the variability of model results (uncertainty analysis), and [2] decomposes this variability based on the relative contribution of inputs to identify major drivers in the model (sensitivity analysis). Our study simulates how agricultural land conversion from active to fallow lands reduces nutrient loading to lakes. We employ an agent-based model of farmer decision making coupled with a spatially-explicit biophysical lake model. A number of model inputs are uncertain including: variables …

Defining The Spatiotemporal Surveillance Space For Alien Species' Invasions Using Approximate Bayesian Computation, Grant Hamilton, Rune Rasmussen, Jana Mullerova, Jan Pergl, Petr Pysek

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The spatiotemporal dynamics of an alien species invasion across a real landscape are typically complex. While surveillance is an essential part of a management response, planning surveillance in space and time present a difficult challenge due to this complexity. We show here a method for determining the highest probability sites for occupancy across a landscape at an arbitrary point in the future, based on occupancy data from a single slice in time. We apply to the method to the invasion of Giant Hogweed, a serious weed in the Czech republic and throughout Europe.

The Effect Of Recovery On Modeling Inactivation Of Bacillus Spores On Hvac Filters, Bharathi Murali, Jade Mitchell

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The ability of microorganisms to persist on fomite surfaces is an important component in modeling their spread in physical environment. For example, Bacillus anthracis (Ba) spores have been found to be extremely resistant to inactivation, environmental stresses, and stable over decades. Modeling the inactivation of spores could form an integral element for estimating the exposure and the subsequent health risks posed by them. However, there is a knowledge gap in the quantification of recovery of Bacillus spores on porous surfaces, which may have a significant effect on the quantification of their persistence in the environment. Our work investigates the recovery …

Gis-Based Environmental Modeling With Tangible Interaction And Dynamic Visualization, Anna Petrasova, Brendan Harmon, Vaclav Petras, Helena Mitasova

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

We present a new, affordable version of TanGeoMS, a tangible geospatial modeling and visualization system designed for collaboratively exploring how terrain change impacts landscape pro­ cesses. It couples a physical, three-dimensional model of a landscape with geospatial modeling and analysis through a cycle of scanning and projection. Multiple users can modify the physical model by hand while it is being scanned; by sculpting the model they generate input for modeling of geophysical processes. The modeling results are then visualized by projecting images or animations back on the physical model. This feedback loop is an intuitive way to evaluate the impacts …

An Environmental Modeling Language For Agents And Fields, Kor De Jong, Merijn De Bakker, Derek Karssenberg

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Environmental modeling involves manipulating environmental attributes represented in soft­ware by agents, fields or both, but most modeling environments are designed to be especially useful for either agent-based or field-based modeling. Agent-based and field-based modeling environments have different properties with respect to their ease of use and how well both agents and fields can be represented and manipulated. Most agent-based modeling environments require the modeler to use a general purpose object oriented programming language like Java to express models, while field-based modeling environments often implement a high level, domain specific imperative language based on map algebra, or extent a general purpose …

An Integrated Approach For Including Social Capacities, And Economic Valuation In Risk Assessment Of Water Related Hazards In Uncertain Scenarios, Carlo Giupponi, Vahid Mojtahed, Animesh K. Gain, Stefano Balbi, Claudio Biscaro

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

We propose a conceptual framework, KR-FWK (i.e. KULTURisk Framework from the name of the European project within which it originated) and its implementation methods SERRA (Socio-Economic Regional Risk Assessment) for integrated (physical and economical) risk assessment, and economic valuation of risk prevention benefits on multiple receptors. The KR-FWK and the SERRA approach are characterised by: (i) integration of physical-environmental dimensions and the socio-economic ones in risk assessment; (ii) consideration of the role of social capacities (adaptive and coping capacity) in reducing risk and related costs, (iii) quantitative (even monetary) assessment of risks and of the benefits of risk reduction measures, …

Agile Workflows For Climate Impact Risk Assessment Based On The Ci:Grasp Platform And The Jabc Modeling Framework, Samih Al-Areqi, Anna-Lena Lamprecht, Tiziana Margaria, Steffen Kriewald, Dominik Reusser, Markus Wrobel

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Analyzing and assessing potential impacts of climate change are critical and challenging tasks that require the processing of large and heterogeneous datasets. These analyses are particularly demanding because of the multi-scale and multi-objective nature of environmental modeling for climate change impact assessment. The Climate Impacts: Global and Regional Adaptation Support Platform (ci:grasp) is a web-based climate information service for exploring climate change related information in its geographical context. In this paper, we show how the agile workflow development style supported by the jABC process modeling and execution framework permits us to leverage the processes implemented in the ci:grasp platform to …

The Data Processing Inequality And Environmental Model Prediction, Steven V. Weijs

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Prediction in environmental systems, such as hydrological streamflow prediction, is a challenging task. Although on a small scale, many of the physical processes are well described, accurate predictions of macroscopical (e.g. catchment scale) behavior with a bottom-up mechanistic approach often remains elusive. On the other hand, conceptual or purely statistical models fitted to data often perform surprisingly well for prediction. The data processing inequality, from the field of information theory, says that processing data with statistical procedures can only decrease, and not increase the information content of the data. This seems to contradict the intuition that our knowledge of physical …

Managing Agricultural Landscapes For Favouring Ecosystem Services Provided By Biodiversity: A Spatially Explicit Model Of Crop Rotations In The Gama Simulation Platform, Hugo Thierry, Aude Vialatte, Jean-Philippe Choisis, Benoit Gaudou, Claude Monteil

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The need to reduce the use of pesticides in agricultural ecosystems requires studying and developing new pest regulation methods. Individual-based models are useful to better understand how dynamics of insects interact with agricultural landscapes and to study the potential effects of alternative regulation methods, taking into account the spatial and temporal stochasticity of agricultural ecosystems caused by human management. Crop rotations and crop phenology have an important impact on the life cycles of populations of insects. We developed an individual-based model simulating the dynamics of an agricultural landscape from GIS data. The spatiotemporal stochasticity is simulated using typical landcover rotations …

One-Dimensional Dynamic Modeling Of The Lower Mississippi River, Tshering T. Gurung

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The Mississippi River (MR) has been engineered with the development of the levee system, dams for flood control measures, jetties, revetments and dredging of the navigation channel. These alterations have reduced the replenishment of the sediment to the Louisiana Coastal area. To aid in the restoration planning, 1-D numerical models have been calibrated and validated to predict the river response to various changes such as channel modifications, varied flow conditions and hurricane situations. This study utilized the HEC-RAS 4.1 and the CHARIMA (Dr. Forrest Holly, University of Iowa). The models were calibrated for hydrodynamics and sediment using Tarbert Landing discharges …

3-D Hydrodynamic And Non-Cohesive Sediment Transport Modeling In The Lower Mississippi River, Grecia A. Teran Gonzalez

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research is to develop a 3-D numerical model on the Lower Mississippi River to simulate hydrodynamics and non-cohesive sediment transport. The study reach extends from Bonnet Carré Spillway (RM 127) to Head of Passes (RM 0). Delft3D with sigma coordinates was selected as the river modeling tool. This model River domain is characterized by a complex distributary system that connects the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. The boundary conditions were: water levels in the Gulf and Head of Passes; and discharges upstream. For the calibration, there are observed data for both types of boundary …

Hydrodynamics And Salinity Of Pontchartrain Estuary During Hurricanes, Sina Amini

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

A hurricane is a combination of sustained winds, low atmospheric pressures and precipitation. Over the past decades, Louisiana has experienced several devastating hurricanes.

The east bank of the City of New Orleans is bounded by Lake Pontchartrain to the North and the Mississippi River to the South. Lake Pontchartrain is a brackish system connected to the Gulf of Mexico through Lake Borgne to the East. As a Hurricane enters the Estuary from the Gulf of Mexico, it imposes a sustained surge of a few meters which may lead to flooding in areas which are not protected by levees. These flood …

Scalable, Solar Powered Membrane-Based Water Purification Systems For Community Development In Developing Countries, Yung Wong

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

This manuscript style thesis presents a community development model developed at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU) to deliver sustainable water purification systems and originate a companion micro-business to sell excess clean water in communities in Haiti. Since 2010, students and faculty from ERAU have partnered with strategic partners to not only provide clean water to their in-country operations but also provide an opportunity for economic growth through a clean water selling micro-business. Water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) training is also implemented to aid in community buy-in. Lessons learned from the history of foreign aid to developing countries is taken into account …