Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Environmental Engineering
Numerical modeling of Earth's dynamic surface: a community approach
Published: 2021-02-14
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Glaciology, Hydrology, Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing, Other Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology, Soil Science, Stratigraphy
Computational modelling occupies a unique niche in Earth environmental sciences. Models serve not just as scientific technology and infrastructure, but also as digital containers of the scientific community's understanding of the natural world. As this understanding improves, so too must the associated software. This dual nature---models as both infrastructure and hypotheses---means that [...]
Socio-technical multi-criteria evaluation of long-term spent nuclear fuel management strategies: Supplementary method
Published: 2020-11-06
Subjects: Environmental Engineering, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Other Environmental Sciences, Risk Analysis, Sustainability
The paper presents supplementary information about the framework and method for the socio-technical multi-criteria evaluation (STMCE) of spent fuel management strategies (Sci Total Environ, In press; Available on EarthArXiv at DOI:10.31223/X5459S). The STMCE approach consists of (i) a multi-criteria evaluation that provides an ordinal ranking of alternatives based on a list of criterion [...]
Socio-technical multi-criteria evaluation of long-term spent nuclear fuel management strategies: A framework and method
Published: 2020-11-06
Subjects: Environmental Engineering, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Other Environmental Sciences, Sustainability
In the absence of a federal geologic repository or consolidated, interim storage in the United States, commercial spent fuel will remain stranded at some 75 sites across the country. Currently, these include 18 “orphaned sites” where spent fuel has been left at decommissioned reactor sites. In this context, local communities living close to decommissioned nuclear power plants are increasingly [...]
A Machine Learning Approach to Methane Emissions Mitigation in the Oil and Gas Industry
Published: 2020-11-05
Subjects: Environmental Engineering, Systems Engineering
Reducing methane emissions from the oil and gas sector is a key component of climate policy in the United States. Methane leaks across the supply chain are stochastic and intermittent, with a small number of sites (‘super-emitters’) responsible for a majority of emissions. Thus, cost-effective emissions reduction critically relies on effectively identifying the super-emitters from thousands [...]
Development of new Index based supervised algorithm for separation of Built-Up and River Sand pixels from Landsat7 imagery : Comparison of performance with SVM
Published: 2020-10-22
Subjects: Computational Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Engineering
While classifying “built-up” pixels from satel- lite imagery, both machine learning & index based algo- rithms often misclassify “river sand” pixels as “built-up” ones due to the similarity in their spectral profiles. With the help of the spectral reflectance information in BLUE & GREEN bands of Landsat satellite imagery, this study has introduced a new index BRSSI (Built-Up & River Sand [...]
Structure-from-Motion on shallow reefs and beaches: potential and limitations of consumer-grade drones to reconstruct topography and bathymetry
Published: 2020-10-21
Subjects: Civil Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Studies, Fluid Dynamics, Fresh Water Studies, Geographic Information Sciences, Hydraulic Engineering, Other Civil and Environmental Engineering, Other Environmental Sciences, Remote Sensing
Reconstructing the topography of shallow underwater environments using Structure-from-Motion – Multi View Stereo (SfM-MVS) techniques applied to aerial imagery from Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is a challenging problem, as it involves non-linear distortions caused by water refraction. This study presents an experiment with aerial photographs collected with a consumer-grade UAV on the [...]
A machine learning approach for prioritizing groundwater testing for per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)
Published: 2020-10-19
Subjects: Environmental Engineering, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Monitoring, Geochemistry, Hydrology, Risk Analysis, Water Resource Management
Regulatory agencies are beginning to recognize and regulate per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) as concerning environmental contaminants. In groundwater management, testing and mitigation strategies are desirable, but can be time and cost-intensive processes. As a result, only a fraction of all groundwater wells has been tested for PFAS levels, resulting in potentially extended drinking [...]
A data-driven approach for characterizing community scale air pollution exposure disparities in inland Southern California
Published: 2020-08-16
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Engineering
This study elucidates PM2.5 exposure disparities in a socioeconomically diverse air basin that is heavily burdened by air pollution. A novel spatial clustering approach is applied to classify the microenvironments of more than 900,000 high temporal resolution personal exposure data points. Results from the study indicate that participants from the lowest socioeconomic status community experienced [...]
Transportation Network Vulnerability and Accessibility for Critical Amenities during Flooding: A Case Study for Iowa
Published: 2020-08-16
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Hydraulic Engineering, Other Civil and Environmental Engineering, Risk Analysis, Transportation Engineering
Natural disasters, such as flooding, can cause severe social, environmental, and economic damage to a community. Transportation infrastructure plays an essential role in flood response and recovery efforts. However, flooding may disturb road functionality and generate direct and indirect adverse impacts, including the loss of access to essential services. This paper presents a comprehensive [...]
Web-based Data Analytics Framework for Well Forecasting and Groundwater Quality
Published: 2020-08-16
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Hydraulic Engineering
Groundwater supplies drinking water for over one-third of all Americans. However, with aquifers stressed by overdraft, contamination from land use, and the hydrologic impacts of climate change, identifying reliable sources for new wells is increasingly challenging. Well forecasting is a process in which potential groundwater resources are evaluated for a location of interest. While this process [...]
GeospatialVR: A Web-based Virtual Reality Framework for Collaborative Environmental Simulations
Published: 2020-08-08
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Computer Sciences, Databases and Information Systems, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Graphics and Human Computer Interfaces, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
This research introduces GeospatialVR, an open-source collaborative virtual reality framework to dynamically create 3D real-world environments that can be served on any web platform and accessed via desktop and mobile devices and virtual reality headsets. The framework can generate realistic simulations of desired locations entailing the terrain, elevation model, infrastructures, dynamic [...]
Serious Gaming for Water Resources Planning and Hazard Mitigation
Published: 2020-08-03
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Education, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sustainability, Water Resource Management
Hydrological hazards lead to a broad range of socio-economic and environmental risks. The development of a resilient community and risk reduction heavily rely on the adoption of holistic watershed master planning whereby the adaptation options consider the risk associated with individual or multiple hydrological hazards occurring simultaneously at a specific location. Such planning approaches [...]
Framework for consequential life cycle assessment of pyrolysis biorefineries: A case study for the conversion of primary forestry residues
Published: 2020-07-26
Subjects: Bioresource and Agricultural Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sustainability
The development of bioeconomy needs to accelerate in order to get rid of fossil fuels and products. The production of bio-based products and renewable energy sources from the thermochemical conversion of biomass can be a sustainable alternative. Pyrolysis is one of the thermochemical processes that can convert biomass into liquid (bio-oil), solid (biochar) and gaseous (non-condensable gases) [...]
An Ethical Decision-Making Framework with Serious Gaming: Smart Water Case Study on Flooding
Published: 2020-06-22
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Computer Sciences, Databases and Information Systems, Engineering, Engineering Education, Environmental Engineering, Hydraulic Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Theory and Algorithms
Sensors and control technologies are being deployed extensively in both urban water networks and rural river systems, leading to unprecedented ability to sense and control our water environment. Because these sensor networks and control systems allow for higher resolution monitoring and decision making in both time and space, greater discretization of control will allow for an unprecedented [...]
A Comprehensive Review of Deep Learning Applications in Hydrology and Water Resources
Published: 2020-06-19
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Computer Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Engineering
The global volume of digital data is expected to reach 175 zettabytes by 2025. The volume, variety, and velocity of water-related data are increasing due to large-scale sensor networks and increased attention to topics such as disaster response, water resources management, and climate change. Combined with the growing availability of computational resources and popularity of deep learning, these [...]