Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Engineering
Flood Risk Assessment and Quantification at the Community and Property Level in the State of Iowa
Published: 2021-10-28
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Engineering, Risk Analysis
Flood risk assessment contributes to identifying at-risk communities and supports mitigation decisions to maximize benefits from the investments. Large-scale risk assessments generate invaluable inputs for prioritizing regions for the distribution of limited resources. High-resolution flood maps and accurate parcel information are critical for flood risk analysis to generate reliable outcomes for [...]
Flood Mitigation Data Analytics and Decision Support Framework: Iowa Middle Cedar Watershed Case Study
Published: 2021-10-23
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Studies, Geographic Information Sciences, Risk Analysis
Flooding is one of the most frequent natural disasters, causing billions of dollars in damage and threatening vulnerable communities worldwide. Although the impact of flooding can never be diminished, minimizing future losses is possible by taking structural or non-structural mitigation actions. Mitigation applications are often costly practices. However, they can be more feasible for long-term [...]
Linking technical geothermal potential from borehole heat exchangers and heating demand scenarios on a regional scale
Published: 2021-10-20
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Other Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Extracting shallow geothermal energy using borehole heat exchangers (BHEs) can help decarbonising the residential heating sector. To assist urban planers and policy makers in developing carbon-neutral heating plans the regional technical shallow geothermal potential must be analysed. Here, we propose a methodology to estimate the technical geothermal potential of BHE fields on a regional scale [...]
Human-in-the-Loop Segmentation of Earth Surface Imagery
Published: 2021-10-16
Subjects: Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Segmentation, or the classification of pixels (grid cells) in imagery, is ubiquitously applied in the natural sciences. Manual methods are often prohibitively time-consuming, especially those images consisting of small objects and/or significant spatial heterogeneity of colors or textures. Labeling complicated regions of transition that in Earth surface imagery are represented by collections of [...]
Desiccation of the Transboundary Hamun Lakes between Iran and Afghanistan in Response to Hyro-climatic Droughts and Anthropogenic Activities
Published: 2021-10-13
Subjects: Engineering, Life Sciences
This paper investigates the hydro-climatic reasons behind the desiccation of the Hamun Lakes in the Iran-Afghanistan border. We analyzed changes in the flow of the Hirmand River (90 percent of the total inflow to the lakes) at the international border, and precipitation over this river’s sub-basin during 1960-2016 by calculating standardized indices for precipitation (SPI) and discharge (SDI). We [...]
In-situ hydrogen wettability characterisation for Underground Hydrogen Storage
Published: 2021-10-12
Subjects: Engineering
Hydrogen storage in subsurface aquifers or depleted gas reservoirs represents a viable seasonal and/or long-term energy storage solution. However, currently, there is a scarcity of subsurface petrophysical data for the hydrogen system, limiting modelling work and industrial rollout. In this work, we address the knowledge gap by determining the wettability and Interfacial Tension (IFT) of the [...]
Bedform segregation and locking increase storage of natural and synthetic particles in rivers
Published: 2021-09-24
Subjects: Engineering
While the ecological significance of hyporheic exchange and fine particle transport in rivers is well established, these processes are generally considered irrelevant to riverbed morphodynamics. We show that coupling between hyporheic exchange, suspended sediment deposition, and sand bedform motion strongly modulates morphodynamics and sorts bed sediments. Hyporheic exchange focuses fine-particle [...]
Changes in deep groundwater flow patterns related to oil and gas
Published: 2021-09-17
Subjects: Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Large volumes of saline formation water are both produced from and injected into sedimentary basins as a by-product of oil and gas production. Despite this, the location of production and injection wells has not been studied in detail at the regional scale and the effects on deep groundwater flow patterns (i.e. below the base of groundwater protection) possibly driving fluid flow towards shallow [...]
Three-dimensional fluid-driven stable frictional ruptures
Published: 2021-09-14
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physics
We investigate the quasi-static growth of a fluid-driven frictional shear crack that propagates in mixed mode (II+III) on a planar fault interface that separates two identical half-spaces of a three-dimensional solid. The fault interface is characterized by a shear strength equal to the product of a constant friction coefficient and the local effective normal stress. Fluid is injected into the [...]
Streambed pollution: A comprehensive review of its sources, eco-hydro-geo-chemical impacts, assessment, and mitigation strategies
Published: 2021-09-10
Subjects: Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Streambeds are an integral component of the river ecosystems. It provides habitat for a vast array of benthic and aquatic organisms as well as facilitates the bio-degradation and transformation of organic matter and other nutrients. Increasing anthropogenic influence introduces multiple stressors to the stream networks resulting in pollution of streambeds, which in turn, could have detrimental [...]
Comprehensive aerial survey quantifies high methane emissions from the New Mexico Permian Basin
Published: 2021-08-21
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Limiting emissions of climate-warming methane from oil and gas (O&G) is a major opportunity for short-term climate benefits. We deploy a basin-wide airborne survey of the New Mexico Permian Basin, spanning 35,923 km^2, 26,292 active wells, and over 15,000 km of natural gas pipelines using an independently-validated hyperspectral methane point source detection and quantification system. The [...]
On the overlooked impact of river dams on beach erosion worldwide
Published: 2021-08-04
Subjects: Engineering
The current retreat of the world's coastline has a profound impact on human activities and ecosystems. The scientific community has primarily focused on the potential impact of sea level rise. At the global scale, the contribution of river sand loads to coastal erosion has been overlooked. Here we present the first global sand pathway model from land to sea. Our model reveals that sand tends to [...]
Combining shallow-water and analytical wake models for tidal array micro-siting
Published: 2021-07-30
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Engineering, Hydraulic Engineering, Oceanography
For tidal-stream energy to become a competitive renewable energy source, clustering multiple turbines into arrays is paramount. As a result, array optimisation is critical for achieving maximum power performance and reducing cost of energy. However, ascertaining an optimal array layout is a highly complex problem, subject to specific site hydrodynamics and multiple inter-disciplinary [...]
Rapid prediction of alongshore run-up distribution from near-field tsunamis
Published: 2021-07-28
Subjects: Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Rapid prediction of the spatial distribution of the run-up from near- field tsunamis is critically important for tsunami hazard characterization. Even though significant advances have been made over the last decade, physics- based numerical models are still computationally intensive. Here, we present a response surface methodology (RSM)-based model called the tsunami run-up response function [...]
Rapid prediction of peak storm surge from tropical cyclone track time series using machine learning
Published: 2021-07-27
Subjects: Engineering
Rapid and accurate prediction of peak storm surges across an extensive coastal region is necessary to inform assessments used to design the systems that protect coastal communities’ life and property. Significant advances in high-fidelity, physics-based numerical models have been made in recent years, but use of these models for probabilistic forecasting and probabilistic hazard assessment is [...]