Environmental Engineering Commons^™

Modeling-As-A-Service (Maas) Using The Cloud Services Innovation Platform (Csip), Olaf David, Wes Lloyd, Ken Rojas, Mazdak Arabi, Frank Geter, James Ascough, Tim Green, G. Leavesley, Jack Carlson

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Cloud infrastructures for modelling activities such as data processing, performing environmental simulations, or conducting model calibrations/optimizations provide a cost effective alternative to traditional high performance computing approaches. Cloud-based modelling examples emerged into the more formal notion: "Model-as-a-Service" (MaaS). This paper presents the Cloud Services Innovation Platform (CSIP) as a software framework offering MaaS. It describes both the internal CSIP infrastructure and software architecture that manages cloud resources for typical modelling tasks, and the use of CSIP's "ModelServices API" for a modelling application. CSIP's architecture supports fast and resource aware auto-scaling of computational resources. An example model service is presented: the …

Improved Simulation Of Evapotranspiration For Land Use And Climate Change Impact Analysis At Catchment Scale, Ann Van Griensven, Samita Maharjan, Tadesse Alemayehu

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Evapotranspiration is not only one of the major components of the hydrological cycle, it also controls impacts of drivers such as climate and land use changes. One of the widely used simulation tools for climate and impact studies is the Soil and Water Assessment Tool {SWAT). This study evaluates the evapotranspiration processes in SWAT in the Kenyan Mau forest within the Mara basin that drains to Lake Victoria. The study reveals that typical SWAT applications have flaws as in the implementation or parameterisation of tropical forests.

To improve the use of SWAT for land use and climate change studies, the …

Central Valley Water Management Screening Model For Water Management Alternatives, Nazrul Islam, Nancy Parker, Holly Canada, Erik Reyes, Tom Fitzhugh, Francis Chung, Nicky Sandhu, Z. Q. Richard Chen, Hao Xie, Kevin Kao, Raymond Hoang, Dan Easton, Tad Slawecki

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Mid-Pacific Region (Reclamation) have developed CalLite as an interactive screening model for evaluating various Central Valley water management alternatives. The CalLite model has been used as a negotiations tool in a variety of stakeholder processes for improved understanding of water system operations and for consensus based decision-making. The model has been applied to studies related to: the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, delta regulations, system reoperation, and other planning processes. CalLite was developed using the Water Resources Integrated Modeling System (WRIMS) software that uses a linear programming solver …

Water Quality Risk Simulation Of Laoguanhe River Based On Uncertainty, Jun Hu, Chunhui Li, Xuan Wang

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Laoguanhe River as the nearest upstream tributary of Danjiangkou Reservoir to the Taocha diversion main canal in South-to-North Water Diversion Project, its water quality changes will directly affect the water quality level of the project. This study is intended to provide the scientific support for the comprehensive water environment risk assessment and provide the optimization decision-making basis for the water environment management of Laoguanhe River. This research used the QUAL2Kw model to simulate the water quality of Laoguanhe river form sandaohe section to downstream section. And then the calibrated model is used to calculate the water quality risk with Markov …

The Challenge Of Model Implementation Of Regulatory Models In Integrated Environmental Modeling Systems, James G. Droppo, Mitch A. Pelton, Jeremy P. Rishel

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

This paper addresses an effort to develop a model for use both as a standalone regulatory model and as an operational module in an integrated modeling framework. As the state of the art of integrated environmental modeling advances, regulators have the opportunity to develop integrated modeling systems that have the capability of providing holistic overviews of potential environmental consequences. However because they are still bound by regulatory requirements, the implementation of regulatory models in integrated environmental modeling systems poses a number of special challenges. The component regulatory model must be able to be 1) documented as a separate entity, 2) …

Open-Hardware Meets Open Software For Environmental Monitoring, Jeffrey M. Sadler, Daniel P. Ames, Rohit Khattar

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Environmental data are critical to understanding environmental phenomena. This paper describes the design and development of a low-cost environmental monitoring system including sensor, data logger, and transmitter using several low-cost, open-source, mass-produced components. The system is connected to the open source Hydrologic Information System (HIS) software created by the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Sciences Inc. (CUAHSI) through a web service interface to the HIS HydroServer Lite. It is expected that this connection will enable the ingestion into the CUAHI HIS of near-real-time data collected by our low-cost device or similar devices through HydroServer. By publishing data …

Using Bayesian Networks To Link Environmental Flows To Ecosystem Services In The Murray-Darling Basin, Australia, Sina K. Frank, Carmel A. Pollino, Petra Döll

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

In water resources management and planning, it is important to understand both (1.) the linkages between environmental flows and ecosystem condition as well as (2.) the linkages between ecosystem condition and ecosystem services. Bayesian Networks (BNs) are an integration-based modeling tool that could be suitable for representing and quantifying these linkages. To evaluate this, we developed a BN, using the Murray-Darling Basin (Australia) as a case study. The Murray-Darling Basin has both agricultural and ecological values, and has more than a century of water resource development and planning. Recently, ecosystem services have been proposed as a means to progressing water …

Use Of The Warmf Model To Identify Sources Of Oxygen Impairment And Potential Management Strategies For The San Joaquin River Watershed, William T. Stringfellow, Joel Herr, Scott Sheeder, Shelly Gulati, Gregory Weissmann, Mary Kay Camarillo, Micheal Jue

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Eutrophication of the San Joaquin River (SJR) has resulted in low dissolved oxygen (DO) conditions, which has led to a regulatory response and development of total maximum daily load (TMDL) allocations. Due to the dynamic nature of processes governing oxygen depletion in the SJR, a model was needed to help stakeholders understand the fate and transport of nutrients and oxygen-demanding substances that cause the low DO conditions. Here, the Watershed Analysis Risk Management Framework (WARMF) model was used to simulate nutrient removal and control strategies, accounting for the secondary effects of growth and transformation between sources and discharge. Using the …

An Information Platform Fostering Re-Use Of Water Data, Ralf Denzer, Sascha Schlobinski, Gerben Boot, Frank Keppel, Erik De Rooij

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The re-use of publicly funded governmental data has received a lot of attention recently. In the environmental domain, it is clear that improved public services need exchange of data across governments at all levels. Governments keep producing information products at all levels, and some of them are more or less readily available. Reporting obligations in the EC, for instance demanded by the Water Framework Directive (WFD), are direct inputs to European datasets. The technology base for advanced systems is supported by the OGC suite of standards and by encodings for water information.

Still re-use of data is not happening at …

A Bayesian Maximum Entropy Scheme For The Assimilation Of Mobile Recordings With Simulations Of Urban Micrometeorological Data, Uwe Schlink, Gabi Fischer

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

This paper proposes a framework for assimilating urban temperature measurements with simulations of an urban micrometeorological model. Data assimilation, a technique that incorporates observations into a computer model of a real system, is commonly applied in global and regional weather forecasting and an emerging issue in urban meteorological modelling. For that purpose, we suggest applying a novel approach, the Spatiotemporal Epistemic Knowledge Synthesis (SEKS). It combines simulations of a thermodynamic urban climate model, as general knowledge base, with a model output statistics (MOS) of observations, as site-specific knowledge base, by means of Bayesian Maximum Entropy (BME) inference resulting in posterior …

Analysis Of Vegetation Heterogeneity As Sensor For Soil Moisture Patterns Using Remote Sensing, Angela Lausch, Claudia Schütze, Bernhard Siemon, Steffen Zacharias, Ulrike Werban

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Soil moisture patterns are key parameters when it comes to controlling and managing process-pattern interactions in processes relating to soil, vegetation, landscape, climate and the ecosystem. Soil pattern heterogeneity is hard to determine in European landscapes using direct procedures, which are used on soil with little or no vegetation, because the soil is often covered with vegetation all year round. The goal of this study is therefore to develop indirect procedures to analyze soil moisture patterns, which "use the biochemical-biophysical characteristics of plants as sensors and indicators" for soil moisture heterogeneity. For this research, geoelectrical methods which include electromagnetic induction …

Use Of A One-Dimensional Link-Node Model To Develop Total Maximum Daily Load Strategies For The San Joaquin River Estuary, Mary Kay Camarillo, William Stringfellow, Joel Herr, Scott Sheeder, Gregory Weissmann, Shelly Gulati, Ashley Stubblefield

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

A one-dimensional link-node model was used to simulate water quality conditions in the tidally­-influenced, deep water ship channel (DWSC) of the San Joaquin River located in Central California. The DWSC has been plagued with low dissolved oxygen (DO) conditions for decades and is currently a focus of restoration efforts. The model was calibrated using a six-year flow and water quality data set. Model simulations were run by removing the mass loads of each of the following major sources of oxygen depletion to determine the effects: elimination of the deepened ship channel (i.e., restore to its pre­ existing depth), elimination of …

Modpi: A Parallel Model Data Passing Interface For Integrating Legacy Environmental System Models, Andre Q. Dozier, Olaf David, Yao Zhang, Mazdak Arabi

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Integration of environmental system models across multiple disparate disciplines has been an area of growing interest because such models typically only represent knowledge and advancements in one discipline or several, similar disciplines. Many challenges have arisen, though, in integrating such models due to varied programming expertise amongst modelers, dependence on specific frameworks or operating systems in addition to different programming languages and requirements for two-way feedbacks that are crucial for improving model representation of the physical reality. in response to these challenges, this paper presents a novel approach based on a publish-subscribe type system to both simplify and improve the …

Whale Trails - A Smart Phone Application For Whale Tracking, Jan-Olaf Maynecke

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Whale watching is undertaken by millions of tourists every year around the world and forms an important industry for a number of countries. Recent changes in migration patterns of whales in particular Humpback whales maybe attributed to climate change. Identifying movement and resting spots of whales can provide opportunities for adaptation of the whale watch industry in times of uncertainty. Such tracking of movements and activities of whales can be collected using smart phones. Smart phones are a readily available technology and capable of complex computations. They have abilities required for tracking including GPS location, maps and a compass function. …

Crowdsourcing In Early Warning Systems, Ulrich Meissen, Frank Fuchs-Kittowski

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The use of mobile devices as an effective and targeted way for alerting the public in cases of disasters has become an important part of future infrastructures for early warning and disaster management. In contrast to classical alert approaches such as TV, Radio and sirens that are offering solely a one-directional communication the use of smart phones opens new potentials such as feedback mechanisms that support more precise warnings and adapted response actions. In this context crowdsourcing techniques show a high potential as an effective measure to meliorate the data basis for predictions and augment warnings. This paper discusses the …

Integra: From Global Scale Contamination To Tissue Dose, Dimosthenis Sarigiannis, Spyros Karakitsios, Alberto Gotti, George Loizou, John Cherrie, Roel Smolders, Kathleen De Brouwere, Karen Galea, Kate Jones, Evangelos Handakas, Krystalia Papadaki, Anne Sleeuwenhoek

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The objective of the INTEGRA project is to bring together all information necessary for assessing the source-to-dose continuum over the entire life cycle of substances covering an extensive chemical space through the use of QSARs. The major outcome of INTEGRA is a comprehensive computational platform that integrates multimedia environmental and micro-environmental fate, exposure and internal dose within a dynamic framework in time. The platform allows multimedia interactions across different spatial scales, taking into account environmental releases and related processes at global, regional and local scale, up to the level of personal microenvironment. Coupling seamlessly exposure models with refined computational tools …

Abstractions From Sensor Data With Complex Event Processing And Machine Learning, Markus Stocker, Mauno Rönkkö, Mikko Kolehmainen

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Environmental knowledge systems that build on sensor-based environmental monitoring rely on techniques in knowledge acquisition and representation to interpret the numbers obtained in measurement for what they tell about the monitored environment. Languages and systems in knowledge representation and reasoning, specifically Semantic Web technologies, support the formulation and execution of rules, a technique that enables deductive inference in a knowledge base. This technique has been used to demonstrate inference on sensor data. While the approach certainly has its merits, it is often demonstrated for numerical thresholds and, thus, for relatively trivial “semantic enrichment.” In reality, knowledge acquisition tasks of interest …

An Ontology-Based Approach For The Instrumentation, Control And Automation Infrastructure Of A Wwtp, Davide Sottara, Jean Claude Coreale, Thierry Spetebroot, Dalila Pulcini, Daniele Giunchi, Fabrizio Paolucci, Luca Luccarini

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The instrumentation, control and automation of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) is a key aspect to ensure good performance and lower operational costs. However, control systems are seldom interoperable and standard-compliant. In this paper, we propose a knowledge-based approach which decouples the description of the plants and their control strategies from their physical structure and instrumentation. In particular, we propose a semantic model based on ontologies, formalized using the W3C OWL2 standard. We have extended the Semantic Sensor Network and created a specialized representation of the WWTP domain, to provide a consistent description of instrumentation (sensors and probes), actuators and data …

Integrating Raster And Vector Spatial Representations With Interaction Graphs For Multi-Scale Environmental Simulations, Mathieu Castets, Pascal Degenne, Pascal Poncelet, Danny Lo Seen

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Nowadays, developing tools for modelling complex system is a mandatory issue in environmental research. Environmental modelling implies taking into account processes at different scales of space and time. Ocelet is a domain specific environmental modelling language that uses graphs to describe how spatial entities in the system interact, with functions attached to the arcs of the graphs that are activated within scenarios to represent the dynamics of the system. The language has a strong focus on spatial interactions where the vector format is used for attributing geometries to entities, thus allowing a precise description of their shapes. However, the vector …

Back-End Science Model Integration For Ecological Risk Assessment, Tao Hong, Chancellor Pascale, Jonathan Flaishans, Marcia Snyder, S. Thomas Purucker

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) relies on a number of ecological risk assessment models that have been developed over 30-plus years of regulating pesticide exposure and risks under Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) and the Endangered Species Act. Since computing technology have changed dramatically over this time period, constituent legacy models often contain algorithms based on source code with defunct dependencies and/or have been integrated with graphical user interface elements no longer compatible with current operating systems. Model migration to modern web applications creates integration challenges for back-end science model code residing on a server. An example …

Epidemia - An Ecohealth Informatics System For Integrated Forecasting Of Malaria Epidemics, Micheal C. Wimberly, Geoffrey M. Henebry, Yi Liu, Gabriel B. Senay

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Advance information about the timing and locations of malaria epidemics allows more effective targeting of resources for prevention, control, and treatment. However, these predictions must be accurate to ensure that potential outbreaks are not missed and resources are not wasted responding to predicted outbreaks that do not occur. Early warning systems based on environmental monitoring can identify critical risk factors before an epidemic actually starts, but their accuracy is constrained by the complex interrelationships of climatic variability, mosquito population dynamics, malaria transmission, and the resulting risk of human infection. In contrast, early detection of malaria epidemics based on epidemiological surveillance …

Swanp: Software For Automatic Smart Water Network Partitioning, Armando Di Nardo, Michele Di Natale, Giovanni Francesco Santonastaso, Francesco Paolo Tuccinardi, Giancarlo Zaccone

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The application of Information and Communication Technology in different assets of urban life has contributed to generating the notion of Smart City in which Smart WAter Network (SWAN) can be assumed as subsystems. The possibility of inserting remote control valves and flow meters in a WDS allows the implementation of the paradigm of "divide and conquer", that consists into divide a large water network into k smaller subsystems, in order to simplify and improve the management and protection of SWAN. Traditional approaches for water network partitioning, based on empirical guiding principles (such as the maximum number of properties or total …

A Chemical Properties Simulator To Support Iem, Gene Whelan, Eric Weber, Caroline Stevens, Mitch Pelton, Kurt Wolfe, Rajbir Parmar, Mike Galvin, Said Hilal, Justin Babendreier

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Users of Integrated Environmental Modeling (IEM) systems are responsible for defining individual chemicals and their properties, a process that is time-consuming at best and overwhelming at worst, especially for new chemicals with new structures. A software tool is needed to allow users to define a chemical structure, predict transformation products within an environmental setting, and calculate relevant physicochemical properties. Independent software provides relevant chemical and environmental descriptors to parameterize IEM systems that support fate/transport of organics by integrating cheminformatic applications and software technologies. These 1) encode process science using SMART reaction strings, an extension of SMILES notation; 2) generate transformation …

Interactive Web-Based Flood Modeling At Country Wide Scale And Plantar Size Resolution, Fedor Baart, Jack Ha, Arthur Van Dam, Gennadii Donchyts, Martijn Siemerink

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The flooding of rural and urban areas is an increasing hazard to society. Accurate and timely predictions are essential for the water manager to prepare and respond to these hazards. Predicting flooding requires a numerical model that represents the physical processes (rain, evaporation, infiltration, overland flow, groundwater flow). This model, fed with measurements, and possible measures, calculates the expected flooding. The traditional working method consists of a three step process: schematization setup, running and post-processing, with a total feedback time of hours. This process is suitable for confirmatory modeling. Most of the time, models are applied exploratory, requiring a different …

Mobile Device App For Small Open-Channel Flow Measurement, Lüthi Beat, Thomas Philippe, Salvador Peña-Haro

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

For effective water management, particularly in irrigated agriculture, it is essential to have reliable open-channel flow data. With present methods, such data is not readily obtained as they require measurement stations, what often results in sparse data. We present a mobile device app to measure runoff in open channels. With this tool flow data can be collected reliably and cheaply.

The technology, on which the app is based, is derived from an already implemented and tested similar webcam application. The smartphone app calculates the runoff by analyzing a few seconds of a movie sequence that is recorded by the same …

Modelling Similarities Of Endocrine Disruptors In Pine Needles And Human Breast Milk, Kristina Voigt, Rainer Bruggemann, Hagen Scherb, Ismet Cok, Karl-Werner Schramm

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

In a recently performed monitoring project, 18 OCPs (Organochlorine pesticides) in paired samples of pine needles and human breast milk samples were analysed in different regions in the Taurus Mountains in Turkey. The aim of our data evaluation approach is to find out whether there are conformities between the paired human breast milk and pine needle samples. An appropriate data analysis method to identify such conformities and differences is the discrete mathematical method named Hasse diagram technique. The software package used is the PyHasse software. It comprises several modules, which are of great support in the evaluation of environmental data. …

Developing An Aquasim Biofilm Model To Simulate A Novel Batch Biofilm Passive Aeration Technology, Noelle Jones, Maebh Grace, Eoghan Clifford

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Mathematical modelling of biofilm reactors can be complicated and time-consuming due to the complexity of the biofilms and a wide range of models have been developed to simulate biofilm reactors.

The Pumped Flow Biofilm Reactor (PFBR) is a new biofilm-based passive aeration system (PAS) that is an example of a complex biofilm system. The PFBR is a two reactor technology that employs a unique hydraulic regime and enables aerobic, anoxic and anaerobic conditions to be sequenced . Biofilm, growing on plastic media modules within the two reactors, is aerated passively as wastewater is moved alternately between the reactors during an …

Implementation Of Integrated Modelling Approach To Impact Assessment Applications For Lng Operations Using 3-D Comprehensive Modelling Framework, Shwet Prakash, Venkat S. Kolluru

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Natural gas is a premium fuel for both its energy value and environmental friendliness. Worldwide reliance on natural gas and continual discovery of new reserves around the world has spurred increased exploration and production. Offshore liquefied natural gas (LNG) developments of a large scale are being operated an built across the world requiring continual assessment of environmental impacts from operational and accidental releases. Physical and chemical environmental impacts on surface waters from these releases should preferably be assessed using a comprehensive modelling approach. In a comprehensive modelling approach, a single model is used to develop the ambient hydrodynamic conditions and …

Data Provisioning For The Object Modeling System (Oms), Jack R. Carlson, Olaf David, Wes J. Lloyd, George H. Leavesley, Ken W. Rojas, Timothy R. Green, Mazdak Arabi, Lucas Yaege, Hom Kipka

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The Object Modelling System (OMS) platform supports initiatives to build or re-factor agro-environmental models and deploy them in different business contexts as model services on cloud computing platforms. Whether traditional desktop, client-server, or emerging cloud deployments, success especially at the enterprise level relies on stable and efficient data provisioning to the models. In this paper we describe recent experience and trends with tools and services deployed to cloud platforms. Also, systematic, sustained data stewardship and alignment with standards organizations impart stability to data provisioning efforts.

Multi-Level Automated Sub-Zoning Of Water Distribution Systems, Lina Sela Perelman, Micheal Allen, Ami Preis, Mudasser Iqbal, Andrew J. Whittle

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Water distribution systems (WDS) are complex pipe networks with looped and branching topologies that often comprise of thousands of links and nodes. This work presents a generic framework for improved analysis and management of WDS by partitioning the system into smaller (almost) independent sub-systems with balanced loads and minimal number of interconnections. This paper compares the performance of three classes of unsupervised learning algorithms from graph theory for practical sub-zoning of WDS: (1) Graph clustering – a bottom-up algorithm for clustering n objects with respect to a similarity function, (2) Community structure – a bottom-up algorithm based on network modularity …