Environmental Engineering Commons^™

Learning From Machines: Insights In Forest Transpiration Using Machine Learning Methods, Morgan Tholl

Dissertations and Theses

Machine learning has been used as a tool to model transpiration for individual sites, but few models are capable of generalizing to new locations without calibration to site data. Using the global SAPFLUXNET database, 95 tree sap flow data sites were grouped using three clustering strategies: by biome, by tree functional type, and through use of a k-means unsupervised clustering algorithm. Two supervised machine learning algorithms, a random forest algorithm and a neural network algorithm, were used to build machine learning models that predicted transpiration for each cluster. The performance and feature importance in each model were analyzed and compared …

Hydrologic Response Caused By Wetland Expansion At Huntley Meadows Park In Hybla Valley, Virginia, Stephen Fraser Stone

OES Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this study was to understand the effects of wetland expansion across a watershed. The 2013 restoration and expansion of the wetlands at Huntley Meadows Park (Fairfax County, VA) performed by Wetland Studies and Solutions, Inc. provided the opportunity to study this process. The 630 ha park contains more than 364 ha of freshwater emergent and freshwater forested wetlands. The restoration and expansion project used a subsurface vinyl-piling dam that impedes groundwater flow leaving the wetland, thus expanding the existing pond and the surrounding wetland.

This study used a network of more than twenty monitoring instruments making observations …