Water Resource Management Commons^™

U.S. Drought Monitor, September 23, 2014, Richard R. Heim Jr.

United States Agricultural Commodities in Drought Archive

Drought map of the United States for September 23, 2014 (9/23/14) plus: United States crop areas experiencing drought (map), an approximate percentage of crop located in drought by state (bar graph), and the percentage of crop area located in drought during the past 52 weeks (line graph) for corn, soybeans, hay, cattle, and winter wheat.

Damming Brazil, Thyra Brody

e-Research: A Journal of Undergraduate Work

Hydroelectric power is often considered a safe and clean alternative to the combustion of fossil fuels. Although the consequences to the air and atmosphere are lower, damming large rivers in the jungles of Brazil have a significant impact on indigenous populations and environmental ecosystems. This article examines such fallout and calls out for equity, and social and environmental justice. As the fuel of the last century burns out the hectic scramble for a tenable alternative is becoming an increasingly serious question mark. We would do well for ourselves, and future generations, to try and solve the environmental issues associated with …

U.S. Drought Monitor, September 16, 2014, Michael J. Brewer

United States Agricultural Commodities in Drought Archive

Drought map of U.S. for September 16, 2014 (9/16/14) plus: U.S. crop areas experiencing drought (map), Approximate percentage of crop located in drought, by state (bar graph), Percent of crop area located in drought, past 52 weeks (line graph) for: Corn, Soybeans, Hay, Cattle, Winter wheat.

U.S. Drought Monitor, September 9, 2014, Brian Fuchs

United States Agricultural Commodities in Drought Archive

Drought map of U.S. for September 9, 2014 (9/9/14) plus: U.S. crop areas experiencing drought (map), Approximate percentage of crop located in drought, by state (bar graph), Percent of crop area located in drought, past 52 weeks (line graph) for: Corn, Soybeans, Hay, Cattle, Winter wheat.

Agenda: Celebrating The Great Law: The Wilderness Act At 50, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment, The Wilderness Society

Celebrating the Great Law: The Wilderness Act at 50 (September 4-5)

"A conference sponsored by the Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy, and the Environment and The Wilderness Society."

On September 3, 2014, the National Wilderness Preservation System—established and protected by the Wilderness Act of 1964—celebrates its 50th anniversary. We are gathering on September 4th and 5th to celebrate Wilderness—“ornery old wilderness, scratchy, sweaty, and distant, but sacred every step of the way”—and to commemorate the great law so central to its protection.

This is not an ordinary conference, full of dry presentations or heated policy debates. Instead, this will be a full-throated love song to wild country. We have brought …

The Effect Of A Small Ruminant Farm Operation And Sustainable Farm Practices: Soil Quality And Run-Off At The University Hickory Hill Farm, Delaware, Gulnihal Ozbay Dr., Akida J. Ferguson, Raju Khatiwada, Lathadevi K. Chintapenta

Professional Agricultural Workers Journal

This project was designed to evaluate the effect of ruminant grazing practices at Hickory Hill Farm on the surrounding environment by measuring soil nutrients and runoff chemistry. Three pastures on the farm (Goat, Cattle and Control) were selected for soil sampling and nutrient analyses were recorded. Physical water quality parameters were conducted on the runoff collected from the farm after Hurricane Sandy. The sites with animal activity had higher levels of sulfate, phosphate, nitrate, Mehlich 3 phosphorus and conductivity when compared to control site. However, the control site had slightly higher pH and chloride levels. Nitrogen and phosphorous levels were …

U.S. Drought Monitor, September 2, 2014, David Simeral

United States Agricultural Commodities in Drought Archive

Drought map of U.S. for September 2, 2014 (9/2/14) plus: U.S. crop areas experiencing drought (map), Approximate percentage of crop located in drought, by state (bar graph), Percent of crop area located in drought, past 52 weeks (line graph) for: Corn, Soybeans, Hay, Cattle, Winter wheat.

Umphlett Qci Sept 2014, Natalie Umphlett

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

Highlights for the Basin

Temperature and Precipitation Anomalies

􏰞􏰥􏰬􏰨􏰤􏰵􏰶􏰫Streamflow

Long-term Impacts of Drought

Cool, Wet Summer Benefits

Heavy Precipitation Impacts the Missouri River and its Tributaries

3-Month Precipitation and Temperature Outlooks

Soil Moisture Conditions

U.S. Drought Monitor, August 26, 2014, David Simeral

United States Agricultural Commodities in Drought Archive

Drought map of U.S. for August 26, 2014 (8/26/14) plus: U.S. crop areas experiencing drought (map), Approximate percentage of crop located in drought, by state (bar graph), Percent of crop area located in drought, past 52 weeks (line graph) for: Corn, Soybeans, Hay, Cattle, Winter wheat.

U.S. Drought Monitor, August 19, 2014, Richard Tinker

United States Agricultural Commodities in Drought Archive

Drought map of U.S. for August 19, 2014 (8/19/14) plus: U.S. crop areas experiencing drought (map), Approximate percentage of crop located in drought, by state (bar graph), Percent of crop area located in drought, past 52 weeks (line graph) for: Corn, Soybeans, Hay, Cattle, Winter wheat.

Crop Advisors As Climate Information Brokers: Building The Capacity Of Us Farmers To Adapt To Climate Change, Maria Carmen Lemos, Yun-Jia Lo, Christine Kirchhoff, Tonya Haigh

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

This paper examines the role of crop advisors as brokers of climate information to support US corn farmers to adapt to climatic change. It uses quantitative data collected from a broad survey of crop advisors in the US Corn Belt to examine the factors that shape advisors’ use of (and willingness to provide) climate information to their clients. Building upon a general model of climate information usability we argue that advisors’ willingness to provide climate advice to farmers is influenced by three main factors: their information seeking habits and behavior, their experience with innovation in the past, and how climate …

Investigating The Link Between Surface Water And Groundwater In The Tule Lake Subbasin, Oregon And California, Esther Maria Pischel

Dissertations and Theses

Water allocation in the upper Klamath Basin of Oregon and California has been challenging. Irrigators have increasingly turned to groundwater to make up for surface water shortages because of shifts in allocation toward in-stream flows for Endangered Species Act listed fishes. The largest increase in groundwater pumping has been in and around the Bureau of Reclamation's Klamath Irrigation Project, which includes the Tule Lake subbasin in the southern part of the upper Klamath Basin. Previous groundwater flow model simulations indicate that water level declines from pumping may result in decreased flow to agricultural drains in the Tule Lake subbasin. Agricultural …

U.S. Drought Monitor, August 12, 2014, Richard Tinker

United States Agricultural Commodities in Drought Archive

Drought map of U.S. for August 12, 2014 (8/12/14) plus: U.S. crop areas experiencing drought (map), Approximate percentage of crop located in drought, by state (bar graph), Percent of crop area located in drought, past 52 weeks (line graph) for: Corn, Soybeans, Hay, Cattle, Winter wheat.

U.S. Drought Monitor, August 5, 2014, Brad Rippey

United States Agricultural Commodities in Drought Archive

Drought map of U.S. for August 5, 2014 (8/5/14) plus: U.S. crop areas experiencing drought (map), Approximate percentage of crop located in drought, by state (bar graph), Percent of crop area located in drought, past 52 weeks (line graph) for: Corn, Soybeans, Hay, Cattle, Winter wheat.

Optimizing Bio-Retention Locations For Stormwater Management Using Genetic Algorithm, Dieu Huong Trinh, Ting Fong May Chui

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

To minimize the change of hydrological regime due to urbanization, stormwater best management practices have been enforced in the past few decades in certain urban areas. One approach is to implement small-scale hydrologic controls, such as bio-retention systems, throughout a catchment. Optimization techniques have also been applied to determine the locations that give the most hydrological benefits. However, optimization tools are commonly built in together with specific hydrological models. Thus, the choices and components of hydrological models are usually restricted. Furthermore, it is redundant to build another hydrological model that has a built-in optimization tool if a hydrological model, and …

Developing A High Performance Computing (Hpc) Based Hydrological Modelling Framework To Support Extreme Weather Impact Studies, Dehua Zhu, Yunqing Xuan, Mike Webster, Ian Cluckie

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

Computer based modelling has long been an established norm in hydrological studies. The demand of computing power in hydrological modelling domain, although keep steadily growing over past decades, it has never been higher as we now look into many impact studies due to climate change. While HPC has long been a major player in the neighbouring field of climate sciences, its role has yet to be defined when the resources become increasingly accessible to hydrological modellers attempting to address the impact of climate change in terms of extreme weather events. In this paper, we present a framework of HPC based …

Linked Data Approach For Automated Failure Detection In Pressure Sewers Using Real-Time Sensor Data, Jonathan Yu, Paul Davis, Kerry Taylor, Scott Gould

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

The increased availability of sensor data presents opportunities for machine-assisted analytics, reporting and exploration of the sensed environment. Sensor networks provide the ability to observe physical phenomena in real-time and provide useful information to help conservation and management of environmental resources. Thus, exploring these real-time datasets can provide valuable insights for informing policy and decision support in domains such as water quality monitoring, early warning disaster detection, and physical asset degradation monitoring. However, the semantic meaning, format and interface heterogeneity of the sensors and sensor observations are barriers to effective discovery and analysis of events. We propose ontology-driven approaches for …

On The External And Iterative Coupling Of Multiple Open Channel Flow Models With Openmi, Bernhard P.J. Becker, Jan Talsma

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

For water management questions on the national scale, cross-border studies or for water authorities it can be necessary to couple models of the same type, i. e. models that represent the same flow processes, but different modelling areas, at shared boundaries. With the help of a simple test case how two open channel flow models (Sobek) can be coupled externally or iteratively according to the OpenMI standard. We discuss the simulation results from external coupling and iterative coupling against the simultaneous solution in one equation system. Conclusions on the choice of a coupling method for practical applications are made and …

The Provision Of Data From The Cosmos-Uk Soil Moisture Monitoring Network, Matthew J. Fry, Jonathan Evans, Helen Ward, James Blake, Lucy Ball, Louisa Doughty

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

This paper describes the data available from COSMOS-UK, a new soil moisture monitoring network for the UK based on passive cosmic-ray moisture probes which are capable of measuring average soil water content over a circular footprint of around 350m in radius and depths of up to 0.5 m. Around 35 probes, with an associated array of meteorological and point soil moisture sensors, will be deployed across the UK in a network designed to best represent a range of soil and land cover types, complement existing scientific monitoring over a wide range of subject areas, and capture the variability in soil …

Using Smart Water Meters In (Near) Real-Time On The Iwidget System, Michael G. Barry, Mark E. Purcell, Bradley J. Eck

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

Devices and technologies to measure and report water consumption at sub-daily intervals are growing in popularity. Data from these devices are creating new opportunities to manage the supply and demand of water in near real-time. To this end, The EU FP7 iWidget project is developing a state-of-the art analytics platform for the integrated management of urban water. Key challenges include extracting useful insights from high-resolution consumption data and exploring a range of decision-support tools for water utilities and consumers. To overcome these challenge iWIDGET is developing a distributed, open, robust, collaborative architecture that allows partners and utilities to collect and …

"Smart Pebble" Design For Environmental Monitoring Applications, Manousos Valyrakis, Edgars Pavlovskis

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

Sediment transport, due to primarily the action of water, wind and ice, is one of the most significant geomorphic processes responsible for shaping Earth’s surface. It involves entrainment of sediment grains in rivers and estuaries due to the violently fluctuating hydrodynamic forces near the bed. Here an instrumented particle, namely a “smart pebble", is developed to investigate the exact flow conditions under which individual grains may be entrained from the surface of a gravel bed. This could lead in developing a better understanding of the processes involved, while focusing on the response of the particle during a variety of flow …

Flood Risk From Extreme Events In Mexico, Adrián Pedrozo-Acuña, Pamela Iskra Mejía-Estrada, Juan Pablo Rodríguez-Rincón, Ramón Domínguez Mora, Fernando Jorge González-Villareal

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

Flooding is the most common and damaging natural hazard faced by civilization, and flooding threats are likely to increase given current climate change predictions that suggest more intense hurricanes and precipitation. The latter has been recently experienced in the Mexican state of Guerrero, during the severe flood of September 2013. During this event, the heavy rainfall registered in 2 days (~700 mm) produced extreme river discharges that produced significant fluvial impacts and flooding in large areas of the city of Acapulco, causing severe damages and social disruption. In order to study the causes of this disaster, an integrated methodology to …

Uncertainties In Future Projections Of Extreme Rainfall: The Role Of Climate Model, Emission Scenario And Randomness, Alireza Nazemi, Md. Shahabul Alam, Amin Elshorbagy

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

Climate change has resulted in substantial variations in annual extreme rainfall quantiles in different durations and return periods. Predicting the future changes in extreme rainfall quantiles is essential for various water resources design, assessment, and decision making purposes. Current Predictions of future rainfall extremes, however, exhibit large uncertainties. According to extreme value theory, rainfall extremes are rather random variables, with changing distributions around different return periods; therefore there are uncertainties even under current climate conditions. Regarding future condition, our large-scale knowledge is obtained using global climate models, forced with certain emission scenarios. There are widely known deficiencies with climate models, …

Modflow: An Insight Into Thirty Years Development Of A Standard Numerical Code For Groundwater Simulations, Dalila Loudyi, Roger Falconer, Binliang Lin

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

Of all of the groundwater flow models widely available, the U.S. Geological Survey three-dimensional modular finite-difference, groundwater flow model, MODFLOW, is regarded by many as the most widely used by government agencies and consultancy firms. The Model was first developed in 1984 and since then many changes, updates and corrections have been introduced to the programme, simultaneously with its growing use. Since its establishment as a world-wide standard for groundwater flow modelling, many programmes have been developed to link MODFLOW to other codes that use groundwater flow information in porous saturated media. Processes such as solute transport, variable density flow, …

Analysis Of Semi-Distributed And Global Hydrological Models In The Central Tropical Basins Of The Gulf Of Mexico To The Effects Of Extreme Hydrometeorological Phenomena, Sara Patricia Ibarra Zavaleta, Mariana Castañeda González, Rabindranarth Romero López, Eduardo Castillog Onzalez, Alberto Brando Báez Camarena, Annie Poulin, Mathias Glaus, Robert Hausler

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

In the last years extreme hydrometeorological phenomena have increased in number and intensity affecting the inhabitants of various regions, an example of these effects are the central basins of the Gulf of Mexico (CBGM) that they have been affected by 55.2% with floods and especially the state of Veracruz (1999-2013), leaving economic, social and environmental losses. Mexico currently lacks sufficient hydrological studies for the measurement of volumes in rivers, since is convenient to create a hydrological model (HM) suited to the quality and quantity of the geographic and climatic information that is reliable and affordable. Therefore this research compares the …

Compromise Programming Based Scenario Analysis Of Urban Water Systems Management Options: Case Study Of Kerman City, Saeed Nazari, S. Jamshid Mousavi, Koroush Behzadian, Zoran Kapelan

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

Supplying adequate water for urban water systems (UWSs) suffering from lack of water resources has always been a major concern in urban water management. Integrated simulation models are useful tools for sustainable planning and management of UWSs. This paper presents an integrated, conceptual modeling approach for simulation and analysis of an UWS by which different envisaged scenarios of water demand and resources are assessed. Other than water flow, the simulation model quantifies flows of energy, GHG emissions and cost in UWS. The performance of the developed model is demonstrated through its application to the UWS of Kerman City located in …

Development And Application Of A Shallow Water Flow Model Hdm-2d, Chang Geun Song, Il Won Seo, Jae Hyun Shin, In Hwan Park

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

In this study, an unsteady 2D depth-averaged flow model, HDM-2D was developed by employing the finite element algorithm. The shallow water equations were weighted by SU/PG test function of which the shape is deformed by the current direction to introduce balancing diffusion only in the flow direction. The nonlinearity of the discretized momentum equations was linearized by Newton-Raphson method. Triangular or rectangular element with C0 interpolation function can be mixed together in the construction of geometry and the linear set of equations was solved by frontal method. The HDM-2D features (1) the incorporation of secondary current effect by dispersion stresses; …

Software Tools For Large Scale Interactive Hydrodynamic Modeling, Gennadii Donchyts, Fedor Baart, Arthur Van Dam, Bert Jagers, Sander Van Der Pijl

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

Running hydrodynamic models interactively allows both visual exploration and change of model state during simulation. One of the main characteristics of an interactive model is that it should provide immediate feedback to the user, for example respond to changes in model state or view settings. For this reason, such features are usually only available for models with a relatively small number of computational cells, which are used mainly for demonstration and educational purposes. It would be useful if interactive modeling would also work for models typically used in consultancy projects involving large scale simulations. This results in a number of …

Minimum Data Requirements For Integrating Urban Development And Urban Water Infrastructure Models, Christian Mikovits, Michael Mair, Wolfgang Rauch, Manfred Kleidorfer

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

Data quality and availability is a common problem in many modelling studies dealing with regional, spatially distributed case studies. This is true for both, urban development models and urban water management models. As current research in urban water management more and more tries to benefit from an integrated view of the performance of water networks in the context of dynamically growing and shrinking cities, this problem of data scarcity increases. Having different applications with different levels of details available, the question arises which data (and which temporal and spatial resolution) is really necessary to be collected in a modeling study …

Modeling Of District Metered Areas With Relatively High Leakage Rate. The Case Study Of Kalipoli’S Dma, Antonios Bakogiannis, Athanasios Tzamtzis

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

The article reviews the modelling of District Metered Areas (DMAs) with relatively high leakage rate. As a generally recognised approach in modelling of leakage does not exist, modelling of leakage by enginners and other researchers usually takes place by dividing the whole leakage rate evenly to all available nodes of the model. In this article, a new methodology is proposed to determine the nodal leakage by using a hydraulic model. The proposed methodology takes into consideration the IWA water balance methodology, the Minimum Night Flow (MNF) analysis, the number of connections related to each node and the marerial of pipes. …