Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

How Much Water Can We Save By Achieving Renewable Portfolio Standards In The Southwest United States?, Yuzhen Feng, Sachiko Sueki, Dale Devitt, Kumud Acharya

Life Sciences Faculty Research

Electricity in the Southwestern United States is primarily generated with water intensive steam turbines. If energy demand continues to rise this will lead to a further rise in water demand. A comprehensive understanding of water consumption and withdrawal for utility scale generation of electricity is necessary before any improvements in the water efficiency of such systems in arid environments can be made. This study estimated and compared the water usage associated with thermoelectric generation (i.e., natural gas, coal), and solar energy, in the five driest Colorado River Basin states: Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, and California. This study also examined …

Integrating System Dynamics And Remote Sensing To Estimate Future Water Usage And Average Surface Runoff In Lagos, Nigeria, Gilles A. Kandissounon, Ajay Karla, Sajjad Ahmad

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

The goal of this study was twofold; first analyze the patterns of water consumption in Lagos, Nigeria and use them in a System Dynamics (SD) model to make projections about future demand. The second part used remote sensing to quantify the contribution of extensive land use/cover change to urban flooding. Land use/cover dynamics over the past decade was analyzed using satellite imagery provided by Landsat Thematic Mapping (TM). Unsupervised classification was performed with false color composite using the Iterative Self-Organizing Data Analysis (ISODATA) technique in a Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The study area was divided into four different land use …

Safe Drinking Water In The U.S.: A Prediction Of When The Entire U.S. Population Will Have Access To Safe Drinking Water, Blossom Hamika, Haley Merrill, Zoyla Orellana

Math 365 Class Projects

This research is to show when all of the U.S. will have access to safe drinking water.

Nevada Desert Dust With Heavy Metals Suppresses Igm Antibody Production, Deborah E. Keil, Brenda J. Buck, Dirk Goossens, Brett Mclaurin, Lacey Murphy, Mallory Leetham-Spencer, Yuanxin Teng, James E. Pollard, Russell Gerads, Jamie C. Dewitt

Geoscience Faculty Research

Systemic health effects from exposure to a complex natural dust containing heavy metals from the Nellis Dunes Recreation Area (NDRA) near Las Vegas, NV, were evaluated. Several toxicological parameters were examined following lung exposure to emissive dust from three geologic sediment types heavily used for recreational off-road activities: yellow sand very rich in arsenic (termed CBN 5); a shallow cover of loose dune sand overlying a gravelly subsoil bordering dune fields (termed CBN 6); and brown claystone and siltstone (termed CBN 7). Adult female B6C3F1 mice were exposed by oropharyngeal administration to these three types of geogenic dusts at 0.01–100 …

College Of Engineering Senior Design Competition Fall 2017, University Of Nevada, Las Vegas

Fred and Harriet Cox Senior Design Competition Projects

Part of every UNLV engineering student’s academic experience, the senior design project stimulates engineering innovation and entrepreneurship. Each student in their senior year chooses, plans, designs, and prototypes a product in this required element of the curriculum. A capstone to the student’s educational career, the senior design project encourages the student to use everything learned in the engineering program to create a practical, real world solution to an engineering challenge. The senior design competition helps focus the senior students in increasing the quality and potential for commercial application for their design projects. Judges from local industry evaluate the projects on …

Emerging Infectious Disease And The Imperiled Relict Leopard Frog, Anthony Wayne Waddle

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The disease chytridiomycosis, caused by the aquatic fungal pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), has emerged as a major contributing factor for worldwide amphibian declines. Although relatively recently described, the impacts from the disease this pathogen causes have been definitively tied to amphibian declines, including some that occurred decades ago. In some cases, declines of individual species occurred with little documentation and are thus poorly understood. The relict leopard frog (Rana onca = Lithobates onca) has experienced such a decline and by the latter part of the 20th century only occurred in two general areas in southern Nevada. Recent research has found …

Investigation Of Setting Time And Compressive Strength Of Ready-Mixed Concrete Blended With Returned Fresh Concrete, Negasi Niguse Gebremichael

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The Center for Sustainable Transportation Infrastructure (CSTI), in its 2012 study, estimated that out of all the concrete leaving the plant, between 2% and 7% of concrete returns to the plant unused as a returned fresh concrete (RFC). Disposal of both the truck wash water and RFC is a growing concern for the industry. Most industry personnel contacted during the investigation, agree that reusing is superior to recycling of this substantial RFC economically and environmentally. This study will determine if the reuse of RFC in subsequent batches compromises the quality of newly blended concrete.

The effect of RFC on fresh …

The Transformation Of American Federalism, 1848-1912, Lance Sorenson

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

United States expansion following the Mexican-American War served as the catalyst for a reinvention of American Federalism. While much of the historiography traces the accretion of sovereign power in the national government to events caused by the divisions between northern states and southern states, there is an important and understudied East to West component of the process by which sovereign boundaries changed. The American West is a legal space where the hazily defined and capacious concept of federalism received fuller form and clearer definition. During the late nineteenth century and first few years of the twentieth century, the United States …

Remote Sensing Of The Environmental Impacts Of Utility-Scale Solar Energy Plants, Mohammad Masih Edalat

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Solar energy has many environmental benefits compared with fossil fuels but solar farming can have environmental impacts especially during construction and development. Thus, in order to enhance environmental sustainability, it is imperative to understand the environmental impacts of utility-scale solar energy (USSE) plants. During recent decades, remote sensing techniques and geographic information systems have become standard techniques in environmental applications. In this study, the environmental impacts of USSE plants are investigated by analyzing changes to land surface characteristics using remote sensing. The surface characteristics studied include land cover, land surface temperature, and hydrological response whereas changes are mapped by comparing …

A Comparison Of Outdoor Bioaerosol And Particulate Measurements In Las Vegas, Tanviben Yogeshkumar Patel

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The urbanization of the Las Vegas Valley has turned the desert into a green oasis by introducing many non-native plant species, some of which are allergenic. Outdoor bioaerosols consist of microorganisms, pollen, spores, and other agents that could cause infections or affect the health of humans. Studies have suggested that exposure to bioaerosols through inhalation can lead to various human health risks. Typically, one monitoring station is established per city to obtain pollen and mold counts for an entire metropolitan area, and the site may not be representative of community exposures. The objective of this study was to measure and …

Sustainability Standards And Stakeholder Engagement: Lessons From Carbon Markets, Hans Rawhouser, Michael E. Cummings, Alfred Marcus

Management, Entrepreneurship and Technology Faculty Publications

Stakeholders play an increasingly active role in private governance, including development of standards for measuring sustainability. Building on prior studies focused on standards and stakeholder engagement, we use an innovation management theoretical lens to compare stakeholder engagement and standards developed in two carbon markets: the Climate Action Reserve and the U.N.’s Clean Development Mechanism. We develop and test hypotheses regarding how different processes of stakeholder engagement in standard development affect the number, identity, and age of stakeholders involved, as well as the variation and quality of the resulting standards. In doing so, we contribute to the growing literature on stakeholder …

Higher Education Capacity Building In Water Resources Engineering And Management To Support Achieving The Sustainable Development Goal For Water In Pakistan, Steven J. Burian, Mercedes Ward, Tariq Banuri, M. Aslam Chaudhry, Sajjad Ahmad, Bakhshal Lashari, Rasool Bux Mahar, Davey Stevenson, Jim Vanderslice, Kamran Ansari, Munir Babar, Abdul Latif Qureshi

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals requires a multi‐pronged approach, with a key element being the development of a trained Community of Practice to sustain the advances in the relevant sectors. The engagement of higher education as a catalyst in the development and capacity building of the next generation of professionals and citizens comprising the Community of Practice is essential to meet the challenges of poverty, climate change, and clean water and to sustain those advances past 2030. This paper describes a capacity building program funded by the United States Agency for International Development to partner the University of Utah, in …

Potential Of Rainwater Harvesting In Meeting The Domestic Outdoor Demand: A Study In Dry And Wet Regions Of The United States, Kazi Ali Tamaddun, Ajay Kalra, Sajjad Ahmad

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

Feasibility of meeting the outdoor water demand with rainwater harvesting (RWH) was evaluated for the states of Arizona and Florida as representatives of dry and wet regions, respectively, using a system dynamic model. The potential of RWH was found to be highly sensitive to the demand of water, desert landscaping potential, and the percentage of households with RWH systems. The percentage of demand met through RWH and the storage potential of a 50-gallon rainwater barrel was found to be significant even for arid regions. The model can be used to compare among various influencing parameters of RWH systems.

Study Of Potential Integrated Management Of Water Resources In Las Vegas Valley, Haroon Stephen, Yoohwan Kim, Sajjad Ahmad

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

Water resource management under short term system perturbations such as storms and longer-term systemic changes caused by climate change such as droughts is a challenge when multiple agencies are involved. To address this challenge this research focuses on water management under changing climate conditions and population growth through understanding the agency water jurisdictions, management strategies, and modes of operation in Las Vegas Valley. A framework for integrated management through sharing data and models is presented that combines drinking water supply, flood control, and waste water treatment. This framework can be adopted to improve coordination among different water management agencies.

Precipitation And Indian Ocean Climate Variability-Acase Study On Pakistan, Kazi Ali Tamaddun, Ajay Kalra, Waqas Ahmed, Ghulam Hussain Dars, Steve Burian, Sajjad Ahmad

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

The study evaluated the relationship between two climate variability indicators – sea- surface temperature (SST) and 500-mbar geopotential height (HGT/Z500) – and the monsoonal precipitation pattern of Pakistan. Data from 30 precipitation gauges were obtained and were analyzed over a period of 35 years from 1980 to 2014. Singular-valued decomposition (SVD) technique was used to determine the association of previous year’s SST and HGT with the current year’s monsoonal precipitation. The results indicated that the association of SST and HGT with precipitation varied depending on the lead-times selected. Multiple regions of the North Indian Ocean were identified that showed significant …

2d Unsteady Routing And Flood Inundation Mapping For Lower Region Of Brazos River Watershed, Manahari Bhandari, Narayan Nyaupane, Shekhar Raj Mote, Ajay Kalra, Sajjad Ahmad

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

Present study uses two dimensional flow routing capabilities of hydrologic engineering center's river analysis system (HEC-RAS) for flood inundation mapping in lower region of Brazo River watershed subjected to frequent flooding. For analysis, river reach length of 20 km located at Richmond, Texas, was considered. Detailed underlying terrain information available from digital elevation model of 1/9-arc second resolution was used to generate the two-dimensional (2D) flow area and flow geometrics. Streamflow data available from gauging station USGS08114000 was used for the full unsteady flow hydraulic modeling along the reach. Developed hydraulic model was then calibrated based on the manning's roughness …

A Conceptualized Groundwater Flow Model Development For Integration With Surface Hydrology Model, Chao Chen, Ajay Kalra, Sajjad Ahmad

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

A groundwater system model was developed and calibrated in the study area of Lehman Creek watershed, eastern Nevada. The model development aims for integrating the surface hydrologic model - precipitation runoff modeling system (PRMS) model - with the three-dimensional (3D) finite-difference model MODFLOW. A two-layer groundwater model was developed with spatial discretization of 100 x 100 m grid. The water balance was estimated with inflows of gravity drainage and initial streamflow estimated from a calibrated PRMS model, and with outflows of spring discharges, boundary fluxes, and stream base flow. A steady-state model calibration was performed to estimate the hydraulic properties. …

Ice-Cover And Jamming Effects On Inline Structures And Upstream Water Levels, Addison Jobe, Swastik Bhandari, Ajay Kalra, Sajjad Ahmad

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

River ice cover is a reoccurring phenomenon in the Northern United States every year. Sheets and layers of ice result in a rise of water surface elevation and may lead to ice jams in a river. This research explains the modeling of a river reach through Northern Illinois containing a structural weir and how the water profile is effected during ice cover and ice jam events. The Hydraulic Engineering Center’s River Analysis System was used in conjunction with Esri ArcMap software to model a portion of the river for analysis. The study area of the Rock River flowing through Oregon, …

Multi-Scale Correlation Analyses Between California Streamflow And Enso/Pdo, Kazi Ali Tamaddun, Ajay Kalra, Sajjad Ahmad

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) are two of the most important climate indices that influence the western U.S. hydrology significantly. This study evaluated how these two indices have influenced California streamflow over the years and determined their correlation at multiple time-scales. Data were obtained from 14 unimpaired streamflow stations of California for a study period of 63 years (i.e., 1951 to 2013). The concept of continuous wavelet transform was applied to observe the variance in each time-series at multiple time-scale bands over the years. The correlation was found to be higher in the latter half …

Response Of Climate Change On Urban Watersheds: A Case Study For Las Vegas, Nv, Narayan Nyaupane, Ranjeet Thakali, Ajay Kalra, Lorenzo Mastino, Marco Velotta, Sajjad Ahmad

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

The current research is a partnering effort between Southern Illinois University Carbondale and City of Las Vegas to assess the vulnerability to drought, extreme heat, and extreme precipitation. This study focuses on precipitation and usesdifferent climate scenarios from the high-resolution North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program (NARCCAP) climate model data to evaluate the existing stormwater infrastructure of the Gowan watershed in the Las Vegas valley. Six NARCCAP modelsconsidered in the study have shown the Gamma distribution as the best fitted from Kolmogorov Smirnov best fit test. Delta change method is adopted to quantify the effect of climate change on …

Flood Risk Assessment Using The Updated Fema Floodplain Standard In The Ellicott City, Maryland, United States, Ranjeet Thakali, Ranjit Bhandari, Giles-Arnaud Arif-Deen Kandissounon, Ajay Kalra, Sajjad Ahmad

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

Every Year, flooding causes a calamitous impact on the people, economy, and environment all over the world. In recent years, the flood-related damages have been increasing in the United States regardless of several investments in the flood control measures. Floodplain mapping is an important tool for management that aids in the planning of infrastructures within the floodplain zone. With the magnifying effects of climate change on the hydrological cycle the study of floodplain is becoming a key tool in the water management. Federal Emergency Management Agency has recently updated their floodplain standard as per the presidential executive order 2015 on …

Coupling Hec-Ras And Hec-Hms In Precipitation Runoff Modelling And Evaluating Flood Plain Inundation Map, Balbhadra Thakur, Ranjan Parajuli, Ajay Kalra, Sajjad Ahmad, Ritu Gupta

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

The climate change and land use change have raised the challenges associated with increased runoff and flood management. The risks associated with flooding have been increasing with development in flood plain and changing climate resulting in increase in inundation of flood plain. The current study will help to evaluate the extent of flood plain in the study area – copper slough watershed (CSW) in Champaign, Illinois; utilizing the known precipitation and land use. The study of CSW is taken into account, as this is the largest watershed of Champaign City and had undergone major land use change increasing the flooding …

Using Wavelet To Analyze Periodicities In Hydrologic Variables, Balbhadra Thakur, Pratik Pathak, Ajay Kalra, Sajjad Ahmad, Miguel Bernardez

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

The trend and shift in the seasonal temperature, precipitation and streamflow time series across the Midwest have been analyzed, for the period 1960-2013, using the statistical analyses (Mann- Kendall test with and without considering short term persistence (MK2 and MK1, respectively) and Pettitt test). The paper also utilizes a relatively new approach, wavelet analysis, for testing the existence of trend and shift in the time series. The method has the ability to decompose a time series in to lower (trend) and higher frequency components (noise). Discrete wavelet transform (DWT) has been employed in the present study with an aim to …

Streamflow Pattern Variations Resulting From Future Climate Change In Middle Tianshan Mountains Region In China, Feiyun Zhang, Lanhai Li, Sajjad Ahmad

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

In arid and semi-arid regions of North West china, glacier-melt, seasonal snowmelt and rainfall are the primary sources of flow in the rivers that originate from alpine areas. Spring and summer peak flow resulting from snowmelt and rainfall, respectively, are the main characteristics of streamflow pattern. Because of the damages caused by the spring and summer peak flow, a better understanding of the streamflow pattern variation under future climate warming is crucial. To analyze the variation of streamflow pattern under climate warming, the Kaidu River and the Manasi River watersheds in northern and southern slopes of Middle Tianshan Mountains, located …

College Of Engineering Senior Design Competition Spring 2017, University Of Nevada, Las Vegas

Fred and Harriet Cox Senior Design Competition Projects

Part of every UNLV engineering student’s academic experience, the senior design project stimulates engineering innovation and entrepreneurship. Each student in their senior year chooses, plans, designs, and prototypes a product in this required element of the curriculum. A capstone to the student’s educational career, the senior design project encourages the student to use everything learned in the engineering program to create a practical, real world solution to an engineering challenge. The senior design competition helps focus the senior students in increasing the quality and potential for commercial application for their design projects. Judges from local industry evaluate the projects on …

Living On The Edge: Assessing The Effects Of Catastrophic Fire On Plants Utilized By Two Endemic Subspecies Of Spring Mountains Butterflies, Charles Ryan Herrmann

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In the past few decades there has been an increase in catastrophic, high-intensity, large-scale wildfires globally due to the combination of climate warming with more than a century of fire suppression policy. One region that has been drastically affected is the Western United States, as there has been an increase in ‘mega-fires’ in the past few decades. The 2013 Carpenter 1 Fire in the Spring Mountains, Nevada was the largest fire in recorded history in these mountains, spreading out over 11,137 hectares. Catastrophic fire like the Carpenter 1 Fire can have potentially devastating effects on endemic species inhabiting refugia on …

Characterization Of Dust On Solar Devices In Southern Nevada, Jason Sylva

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Dust can impact the efficiency of solar energy collection devices, and in some arid environments, dust can reduce solar energy efficiency up to 30%. Reducing the impact of dust is therefore critical in the expansion of solar technology throughout regions where solar energy is utilized. Characterization of suspended and settled particulate matter can assist in developing strategies for dust mitigation. With the characterization of suspended and settled particulate in remote, rural, and urban environments, more informed decisions can be made regarding the selection of coating material on solar panels as well as developing cleaning and maintenance procedures. Particulate matter that …

Cli-Fi Cinema: An Epideictic Rhetoric Of Blame, Chloe Louise Powell

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This thesis analyzes the symbolic mechanisms of guilt-redemption as developed by Kenneth Burke within two climate fiction (cli-fi) films: The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008), and Interstellar (2014). In doing so, this thesis offers an account of: (1) each film’s role in providing their audience temporary assuagement of climate change related guilt, and (2) each film’s role in transmitting values and “attitudes” to build and strengthen communities. Because cli-fi films begin from a dystopic vision of a possible future, it fulfills the "blame" function of epideictic discourse to provoke and inspire the "ecological imagination." Through this provocation, the audience …

Behavioral Paleoecology Of Lower Cambrian Deposit Foragers: Reinterpreting Looping And Meandering Traces Using Optimal Foraging Theory And Quantitative Analysis, Zachary Andrew Jensen

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The early Cambrian was a period of transition during which the seafloor environment was changing from a microbial-mat-dominated environment to a bioturbation-dominated environment. The result was a patchy landscape of variable food resources for foraging burrowers to exploit. Looping trace fossils, such Psammichnites gigas and Taphrhelminthopsis nelsoni, appear in strata worldwide during this transitional period, and the ecological niche they filled is a subject of debate among ichnologists. The objectives of this study are (1) to determine the foraging strategies preserved by looping traces through the application of optimal foraging theory and quantitative analysis, and (2) use those results to …

Thermal And Developmental Ecology Of Pupfish, Cyprinodon, Alexander Jones

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Pupfish from the genus Cyprinodon are among the most endangered groups of fishes on the planet, with nearly 40% of species being threatened with extinction. These pupfishes are often assumed to be the most temperature tolerant of all fish, coping with temperatures as low as 0 °C and as high as 44 °C. However, conflicting data exist and certain measures of thermal tolerance are not markedly higher in pupfish compared to common game fish. Pupfish egg production and growth has been known to be hampered at temperatures well below what they apparently experience in nature. I addressed why eggs fail …