Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Engineering
Most Landfill Methane Emissions Escape Detection in EPA21 Surface Emission Monitoring Surveys
Published: 2025-02-05
Subjects: Engineering, Life Sciences
We measured emissions from ten landfills using mobile surveys and Surface Emission Monitoring (SEM) to determine what fraction of emissions that be identified by SEM surveys. Using mobile methane measurements and a back-trajectory attribution and rate estimation method, we measured overall site emissions and those of individual landfill components (active face, closed cells, leachate, etc). We [...]
Comprehensive Assessment of Flood Risk and Community Impact of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations in Iowa
Published: 2025-02-05
Subjects: Agriculture, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Hydraulic Engineering, Life Sciences
Flooding presents a significant risk to Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), especially in regions increasingly affected by extreme weather events. This study uses advanced geospatial analysis techniques to assess the environmental and economic vulnerabilities of 12,703 CAFOs across Iowa, United States. We focused on the exposure of CAFOS to 100-year and 500-year floodplains, [...]
The role of microscopic displacement dynamics for underground hydrogen versus natural gas storage in fractured reservoirs
Published: 2025-01-30
Subjects: Engineering
Repurposing natural gas (methane) storage facilities to hydrogen storage leverages existing infrastructure to address seasonal energy demand-supply fluctuations. However, the differences in the injection-withdrawal cycle between hydrogen and methane-brine systems remain poorly understood. Therefore, we investigate the pore-scale two-phase flow dynamics of hydrogen (H$_2$), methane (CH$_4$), and [...]
Wood gasification in catastrophes: Electricity production from light duty vehicles
Published: 2025-01-28
Subjects: Engineering, Mechanical Engineering
Following global catastrophic infrastructure loss (GCIL), traditional electricity networks would be unavailable, necessitating alternative solutions to sustain critical services, such as decentralized electricity generation from wood gas. This study explores the feasibility of using modified light duty vehicles to self-sustain electricity generation by producing wood chips for wood gasification. [...]
Controls on Runoff Efficiency and its Spatiotemporal Variability in South Asian River Basins
Published: 2025-01-22
Subjects: Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Runoff efficiency (RE) represents the potential of a basin to generate runoff in response to precipitation and it varies based on climatology and physiography. It is a key metric that enables hydrologists to compare the hydrologic responses of basins across diverse climates and landscapes. In the large river basins of South Asia, RE plays a key role in floods and drought dynamics but has not been [...]
Recent rise of water levels of Lake Nakuru, Kenya: Unraveling the Changing Precipitation Regime and its Climatic Drivers
Published: 2025-01-21
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Meteorology, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
The Kenyan Rift Valley has experienced an abrupt and significant rise in its lake levels since 2010, followed by a more rapid rise since 2020. This paper examines the dynamic changes in precipitation patterns and their climatic drivers in the Kenyan Rift Valley region from 1981 to 2021, focusing on Lake Nakuru. Notably, in 2010, a pivotal change point in precipitation aligns with the rising water [...]
On the Definition of an Independent Stochastic Model for InSAR Time Series
Published: 2025-01-16
Subjects: Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
InSAR enables the estimation of displacements of (objects on) the Earth’s surface. To provide reliable estimates, both an independent stochastic and functional model are re- quired. However, the intrinsic problem of InSAR is that both are unknown. Here we propose an independent definition of the stochastic model, via an approximation scheme for the variance- covariance matrix for [...]
AI-Driven Decision-Making for Water Resources Planning and Hazard Mitigation Using Automated Multi Agents
Published: 2024-12-27
Subjects: Civil Engineering, Computational Engineering, Computer and Systems Architecture, Computer Engineering, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Education, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Geotechnical Engineering, Higher Education, Hydraulic Engineering, Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering, Risk Analysis, Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Systems Engineering, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Transportation Engineering
This project simulates the Multi-Hazard Tournament (MHT) framework, a decision support system designed for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, using AI agents to enhance decisionmaking processes for flood mitigation and water resource management. The objective of the framework is to develop optimal strategies for protecting water resources, habitats, and communities within a defined budget. The [...]
Improved Streamflow Simulations in Hydrologically Diverse Basins using Physically Informed Deep Learning Models
Published: 2024-12-23
Subjects: Civil Engineering, Engineering, Hydrology
Physically informed deep learning models, especially Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks, have shown promise in large-scale streamflow simulations. However, an in-depth understanding of the relative contribution of physical information in deep learning models has been missing. Using a large-sample testbed of 220 catchments in hydrologically diverse regions of the Indian subcontinent, we [...]
Unlocking Geological Hydrogen Storage with Ammonia: An Effort for Net-Zero Future
Published: 2024-12-21
Subjects: Education, Engineering
Hydrogen gas (H2) generation systems, comprising carbon capture and storage technology (CCST) play a crucial role to achieve the U.N. Net Zero goal before 2050. However, a critical challenge in grid-scale H2 storage is the low volumetric energy density. One prospective approach is to use ammonia (NH3) as a chemical carrier for H2 and store it. This paper presents a state-of-the-art report on NH3 [...]
Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) for Longwall Coal Mines
Published: 2024-12-19
Subjects: Engineering
Seismic monitoring of underground longwall mines can provide valuable information for managing coal burst risks and understanding the ground response to extraction. However, the underground longwall mine environment poses major challenges for traditional in-mine microseismic sensors including the restricted use of electronics due to potentially explosive atmospheres, the need to frequently and [...]
Evolution of desalination research and water production in the Middle East: a five-decade perspective
Published: 2024-12-19
Subjects: Engineering, Life Sciences
Rapid urbanization and population growth, coupled with depleting groundwater reservoirs, have significantly increased reliance on desalination technologies in the arid Middle East, which accounts for nearly half (46%) of global desalination capacity. This large production volume has raised critical questions on the status of desalination research in this water-stressed region, and on whether it [...]
SC-PREC4SA: A serially complete daily precipitation dataset for South America
Published: 2024-12-18
Subjects: Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
This study introduces the serially complete precipitation dataset for South America (SC-PREC4SA), a daily precipitation dataset (1960-2015) designed to address observational gaps and ensure temporal consistency across diverse climates. The raw dataset underwent quality control, gap-filling, and homogenization procedures. Applied robust quality control highlighted common but also overlooked [...]
Development of a dynamic true triaxial electromagnetic Hopkinson bar system
Published: 2024-12-16
Subjects: Engineering
Subsurface rock masses and rock engineering are subjected to multiaxial static stresses and often also bear additional multi-directional dynamic disturbances generated by seismic activity, blast waves and vibration, etc. It is therefore of great importance to study and understand the dynamic mechanical behaviors and failure mechanisms of rocks under multiaxial and multidirectional dynamic [...]
Evaluation and prediction of the Effects of Planetary Orbital Variations to Earth’s Temperature Changes
Published: 2024-12-11
Subjects: Education, Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Existing climate studies mainly assessed the effect of greenhouse gases and aerosols, among other forcings on Earth’s temperature. None of them has not evaluated the effect of the planetary orbital changes on Earth’s temperature. Here, we deconvolved the effects of greenhouse gases and planetary orbital changes on Earth’s temperature and to forecast the latter at different time scales. Our [...]