Hydrology Commons^™

The Flow Of Power: Addressing Asymmetric Flood Risk In The Upper Valley, Eric Vr Hryniewicz

Geography Undergraduate Senior Theses

Floods are the most damaging natural disasters in America. Land use change in upland watersheds can increase the probability and severity of floods (Bronstert, Niehoff, & Burger, 2002). When watersheds are divided by political and private property boundaries it leads to a misalignment of incentives in which downstream users lack recourse for upstream land use decisions contributing to flood risk. In this thesis, researchers interrogate the attributes of town officials and towns that determine what motivates town governments to act on flooding and what motivates and enables town officials to collaborate on planning and how do they collaborate in practice. …

4d Flow Pattern Of The Longest Cave In The Eastern Alps (Schönberg-Höhlensystem, Totes Gebirge), Lukas Plan, Eva Kaminsky, Pauline Oberender, Clemens Tenreiter, Maximilian Wimmer

International Journal of Speleology

The Schönberg-Höhlensystem (SBH) is not only the longest cave system in the Eastern Alps (length 156 km, depth 1061 m), but a significant proportion of the passages have developed on or just below two surfaces that dip 1.7° to the NE. These so-called "speleogenetic phases" are rarely developed in caves of the Northern Calcareous Alps and have not yet been confirmed by detailed morphological mapping. Furthermore, the deep parts of the cave offer the possibility to study the active epiphreatic zone for a distance of 1.6 km. Detailed morphological mapping shows that the main level at about 1500 m a.s.l. …

Impact Of The Macrophyte Nymphaea Odorata (Lily Pads) On Dissolved Organic Matter (Dom) In A Lake, Kyle Juetten, Warren J. De Bruyn, Zachary Landram, Aaron Harrison, Angela Strecker, Catherine D. Clark

Chemistry Faculty and Staff Publications

(Files are available for download below.)

Macrophytes are a potential source of dissolved organic matter (DOM) in lakes. To probe the contribution of Nymphaea odorata (lily pads), dissolved organic carbon concentrations (DOC) and optical properties of chromophoric DOM were measured in a lake in the Pacific Northwest, United States over a year. Lily pads are prevalent around the shoreline during summer, dying back in fall. Indices of recent autochthonous contribution (BIX), fluorescence (FIX) and S_R showed the lake was dominated by terrestrially-derived material. DOC concentrations were not correlated with rainfall, but were positively correlated with absorption coefficients. Values were …

Evaluation Of Temperature-Index And Energy-Balance Snow Models For Hydrological Applications In Operational Water Supply Forecasts, Tian Gan, David G. Tarboton, Tseganeh Z. Gichamo

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

In the western United States, snow accumulation, storage, and ablation affect seasonal runoff. Thus, the prediction of snowmelt is essential to improve the reliability of water supply forecasts to guide water allocation and operational decisions. The current method used at the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center (CBRFC) couples the SNOW-17 temperature index snow model and the Sacramento Soil Moisture Accounting (SAC-SMA) runoff model in a lumped approach. Limitations in parameter transferability and calibration requirements for changing conditions with the temperature-index model motivated this research, in which new avenues were investigated to assess and prototype the application of an energy-balance snow …

Differentiating Biotic Vs. Abiotic Co2 In The Formation Of Pedogenic Carbonate In Agriculture And Natural Dryland Soils, Valeria Isabel Molina

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Drylands, characterized by low and sporadic precipitation, require irrigation for crop growth. However, irrigation practices can lead to salt accumulation in soil due to high evaporation rates and reduced leaching. In addition to loading salts to soil, irrigation promotes the accumulation of secondary calcite. In natural systems, the formation of pedogenic carbonate (secondary calcite, CaCO3) is critical, impacting the soil properties hydrologically and biogeochemically, and modifying the global carbon cycle over geological time, albeit at a lower rate. In agricultural sites, irrigation water supplies HCO3- and Ca2+, accelerating the rates of CaCO3 formation and releasing abiotic CO2. This study investigated …

The Last Drought Frontier: Building A Drought Index For The State Of Alaska, Olivia Campbell

Dissertations & Theses in Natural Resources

Drought is characterized by periods of below average precipitation. There are five major types of drought recognized in the literature: meteorological, hydrological, agricultural, socioeconomic, and ecological. A relatively new concept in the drought literature is “snow drought.” A key part of the definition of drought is that it is not always accompanied by extreme heat. This means drought can occur even in cold climates, cold seasons, and higher latitudes and altitudes, like Alaska. Drought is a natural part of climate variability, but Alaska’s climate is changing faster than any other state in the United States. Alaska is no stranger to …

Evaluating Snow And Ice Cover In Tierra Del Fuego, Argentina, Zoe Pitman

Geosciences Undergraduate Honors Theses

Evaluating changes in snow and ice cover is an important field for studying climate change and its impacts. This evaluation is commonly done using remote sensing because of its ability to evaluate large areas. The purpose of this study is to determine the reliability of one remote sensing technology, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), by comparing it to in-situ snow and climate data from the weather station at the Austral Center for Scientific Research (CADIC). Data was converted from daily to monthly averages and was sorted into a series of graphs to compare the two data sets. Correlations were …

Geochemical Analysis And Numerical Modeling Of Central And East Tennessee Mississippi Valley-Type Ore Districts: Constraints On Ore Genesis, Jackson Price Copeland

Geosciences Undergraduate Honors Theses

A simple two-way stochastic mixing model is presented for analysis of the lead (Pb) isotope compositions of the North American Mississippi Valley-Type (MVT) districts of East Tennessee, Central Tennessee, and Central Kentucky. Four distinct mixing scenarios were run to critically evaluate the stochastic model and examine different hypotheses regarding the genesis of Central Tennessee and Central Kentucky MVT deposits. Additionally, Pb isotope analysis was conducted on sphalerite samples from the Central and East Tennessee MVT districts. Model and sampling results suggest that Central Tennessee and Central Kentucky ores likely formed by mixing of three fluids. In contrast to conclusions from …

Spot1328 Meira Spit, Robert C. Mahon, Elizabeth J. Trower, Benjamin P. Smith, Tyler A. Lincoln, Juliana Olsen-Valdez, John S. Magyar, Cedric J. Hagen

2D Wave Spectral Data, South Arm, Great Salt Lake, Utah

Data in this folder are produced by a SoFarOcean Spotter wave buoy deployed along the south arm of the Great Salt Lake, near Antelope Island State Park from the period of July 13, 2021 through June 28, 2022, in relatively shallow water, approximately 1.6m.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Water depths for #1328 (Miera Spit) started at ~1.7 m, but dropped rapidly to 0.9 m on July 15, 2021 and dropped further to ~0.4 m on August 17, 2021. The timing of these rapid water depth changes matches the timing of buoy location changes when the anchor was dragged inshore by waves. When …

Spot1328 Meira Spit Derived Data, Robert C. Mahon, Elizabeth J. Trower, Benjamin P. Smith, Tyler A. Lincoln, Juliana Olsen-Valdez, John S. Magyar, Cedric J. Hagen

2D Wave Spectral Data, South Arm, Great Salt Lake, Utah

Data in this folder are produced by a SoFarOcean Spotter wave buoy deployed along the south arm of the Great Salt Lake, near Antelope Island State Park from the period of July 13, 2021 through June 28, 2022, in relatively shallow water, approximately 1.6m.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Water depths for #1328 (Miera Spit) started at ~1.7 m, but dropped rapidly to 0.9 m on July 15, 2021 and dropped further to ~0.4 m on August 17, 2021. The timing of these rapid water depth changes matches the timing of buoy location changes when the anchor was dragged inshore by waves. When …

Spot1356 Black Rock, Robert C. Mahon, Elizabeth J. Trower, Benjamin P. Smith, Tyler A. Lincoln, Juliana Olsen-Valdez, John S. Magyar, Cedric J. Hagen

2D Wave Spectral Data, South Arm, Great Salt Lake, Utah

Data in this folder are produced by a SoFarOcean Spotter wave buoy deployed along the south arm of the Great Salt Lake, near Antelope Island State Park from the period of July 13, 2021 through June 28, 2022, in relatively shallow water, approximately 1.6m.

Spot1356 Black Rock Derived Data, Robert C. Mahon, Elizabeth J. Trower, Benjamin P. Smith, Tyler A. Lincoln, Juliana Olsen-Valdez, John S. Magyar, Cedric J. Hagen

2D Wave Spectral Data, South Arm, Great Salt Lake, Utah

Data in this folder are produced by a SoFarOcean Spotter wave buoy deployed along the south arm of the Great Salt Lake, near Antelope Island State Park from the period of July 13, 2021 through June 28, 2022, in relatively shallow water, approximately 1.6m.

Evaluating The Impact Of Climate Variability And Landcover Changes On Hydrologic Responses, Marisol Dominguez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Projected climate and land cover changes in the 21st century profoundly impact the functioning of the earth’s water cycle. Identifying the components that contribute to the persistence and resilience of watersheds in light of climate change constitutes a research priority of global relevance, and will enable detect the areas most sensitive to climate variability and landcover changes. Global vulnerability of ecosystem services, particularly water service provision, needs to be urgently and continually assessed, given the unceasing human and climate-induced changes in land cover conditions worldwide. Given the increasing rate of extreme weather events, we present three interrelated research studies evaluating …

Evaluation Of Zero-Net-Rate Pumping Tests, Austin Smith-Jones

All Theses

Accurately estimating the distribution of aquifer properties is key to understanding contaminant movement in the subsurface. The distribution of aquifer properties is typically addressed using slug or constant-rate well tests, and the pros and cons of these tests are well known. Slug tests are appealing because they avoid removing contaminated water, but their results are affected by well skin and the small volume of displaced water limits the volume of aquifer that can be evaluated. Constant-rate well tests have the disadvantage of requiring disposal of potentially contaminated water, but they can generate properties that are more representative than slug tests, …

Modeling Spatial Distributions Of Tidal Marsh Blue Carbon Using Morphometric Parameters From Lidar, Bonnie Turek

Masters Theses

Tidal marshes serve as important “blue carbon” ecosystems that accrete large amounts of carbon with limited area. While much attention has been paid to the spatial variability of sedimentation within salt marshes, less work has been done to characterize spatial variability in marsh carbon density. Driven by tidal inundation, surface topography, and sediment supply, soil properties in marshes vary spatially with several parameters, including marsh platform elevation and proximity to the marsh edge and tidal creek network. We used lidar to extract these morphometric parameters from tidal marshes to map soil organic carbon (SOC) at the meter scale. Fixed volume …

Snow Distribution And Influence In Taylor Valley, Antarctica, Using Remote Sensing, Katherine Mcnulty, Peter Doran, Mark Salvatore, Suniti Karunatillake

LSU Master's Theses

The McMurdo Dry Valleys is the largest ice-free area in Antarctica, but seasonal snow covers the valley floors sporadically throughout the year. In this study, a model to estimate areal snow coverage from satellite imagery was created. An area-volume model was created to estimate the amount of snow water equivalent (SWE) from the snow area extracted from the imagery. Snow cover influences the total albedo, the hydrologic budget, and the soil moisture and soil temperature in Taylor Valley (TV). Quantifying snow precipitation in TV is challenging because snow redistributes with winds, sublimates, or melts within a short period. Previous estimates …

Grid Independence Studies Of Eddy-Resolving Models At The Scale Of A River Reach Along A Transect In Marble Canyon Of The Colorado River, Arizona, Rosa Elena España Urresty

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This study presented a novel approach for evaluating the impact of changes in spatial resolution on field-scale models to identify turbulent flow patterns in hydraulic features in canyon-bound rivers. The methodological framework incorporated seven different computational domain resolutions to analyze the sensitivity of field-scale models to spatial resolution changes by employing techniques such as turbulent kinetic energy spectrum, spatiotemporal analysis of eddy structures, divergent Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence, Nash-Sutcliffe (NS) model efficiency coefficient, wavelet power spectrum, and GCI calculation. Statistical and physical-based skill metrics are employed to quantifying information loss to evaluate a set of domain resolutions. Grid independence studies have …

Quantifying Oil And Gas Industry Related Geohazard Using Radar Interferometry And Hydro-Geomechanical Modeling, Weiyu Zheng

Earth Sciences Theses and Dissertations

The Permian Basin, containing a large amount of oil and gas, has been intensively developed for hydrocarbon production. However, the hazards related to the oil and gas industry including surface deformation and the underlying mechanisms in this region have not been well known. My PhD study aims to monitor the geohazards in the Permian Basin and better comprehend the subsurface mechanisms with the aid of high-resolution and high-accuracy Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) images. Generally, as the pore pressure is influenced by wastewater injection/hydrocarbon production, the pressure changes can propagate to other surrounding underground and overlying rock/soil layers, resulting in …

Factors Affecting Groundwater Nitrate Concentration In Madinah Area, Saudi Arabia, Majed M. Almutairi

Masters Theses

High levels of nitrate in groundwater are a serious problem in Madinah Area, Saudi Arabia. Identifying factors affecting groundwater nitrate contamination is important for managing groundwater quality. This study examined factors that have significant impacts on the high level of groundwater nitrate in Madinah Area. Factors examined included well-depth and land cover. Relationships between variables were explored using three statistical approaches: the Kruskal-Wallis test and two types of regression (ordinary least squares [OLS] and geographically weighted regression [GWR]).

Nitrate concentration data show that 73% of obtained groundwater samples exceeded the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) maximum contaminant level (MCL) …

Projected Long-Term Climate Trends Reveal The Critical Role Of Vapor Pressure Deficit For Soybean Yields In The Us Midwest, Wenguang Sun, David Fleisher, Dennis Timlin, Chittaranjan Ray, Zhuangji Wang, Sahila Beegum, Vangimalla Reddy

Faculty Publications from The Water Center

Extreme climate events including heat waves and droughts are projected to become more frequent under future climate change conditions. However, the mechanisms between soybean yields and climate factors, specifically involving variable rainfall and high heat episodes, are still unclear, particularly with respect to spatial trends in the United States (US) Midwest. A recently modified version of the model GLYCIM was used to evaluate rainfed soybean production across 12 states at a 10 km spatial resolution for three time periods (2011–2020, 2051–2060, 2091–2099) under Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) scenarios 4.5 and 8.5. Results showed that except for the northernmost Midwest counties, …