Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Environmental Engineering
Distributed long-term hourly streamflow predictions using deep learning – A case study for State of Iowa
Published: 2020-03-21
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Engineering
Accurate streamflow forecasting has always been a challenge. Although there were many novel approaches using deep learning models, accuracy of these models is often limited to a short lead time. This study proposes a new deep recurrent neural network approach, Neural Runoff Model (NRM), which has been applied on 125 USGS streamflow gages in the State of Iowa for predicting the next 120 hours. We [...]
A Serious Gaming Framework for Decision Support on Hydrological Hazards
Published: 2020-03-17
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Computer Sciences, Databases and Information Systems, Engineering, Environmental Education, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Software Engineering, Sustainability, Water Resource Management
In this study, a web-based decision support tool (DST) was developed for hydrological multi-hazard analysis while employing gamification techniques to introduce a competitive element. The serious gaming environment provides functionalities for intuitive management, visualization, and analysis of geospatial, hydrological, and economic data to help stakeholders in the decision-making process [...]
Power law scaling model predicts N2O emissions along the Upper Mississippi River basin
Published: 2020-03-03
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Engineering
Nitrous oxide, N2O, is widely recognized as one of the most important greenhouse gases, and responsible for stratospheric ozone destruction. A significant fraction of N2O emissions to the atmosphere is from rivers. Reliable catchment-scale estimates of these emissions require both high-resolution field data and suitable models able to capture the main processes controlling nitrogen transformation [...]
Tracking Flooding Phase Transitions and Establishing a Passive Hotline with AI-Enabled Social Media Data
Published: 2020-02-21
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Water Resource Management
Flooding management requires collecting real-time onsite information widely and rapidly. As an emerging data source, social media demonstrates an advantage of providing in-time, rich data in the format of texts and photos and can be used to improve flooding situation awareness. The present study shows that social media data, with additional information processed by Artificial Intelligence (AI) [...]
Realistic River Image Synthesis using Deep Generative Adversarial Networks
Published: 2020-02-20
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Computer Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
In this paper, we investigate an application of image generation for river satellite imagery. Specifically, we propose a generative adversarial network (GAN) model capable of generating high-resolution and realistic river images that can be used to support models in surface water estimation, river meandering, wetland loss and other hydrological research studies. First, we summarized an augmented, [...]
On the potential of linked-basin tidal power plants: an operational and coastal modelling assessment
Published: 2020-02-03
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Computational Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Hydraulic Engineering, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Single-basin tidal range power plants have the advantage of predictable energy outputs, but feature non-generation periods in every tidal cycle. Linked-basin tidal power systems can reduce this variability and consistently generate power. However, as a concept the latter are under-studied with limited information on their performance relative to single-basin designs. In addressing this, we [...]
Sensitivity Analysis of a Conceptual, Lumped Model Using VARS-TOOL Applied to Western Ghats Catchments of India
Published: 2020-01-30
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Other Civil and Environmental Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Water Resource Management
The present work considers the application of Variogram Analysis of Response Surfaces Toolbox (VARS-TOOL) to identify the sensitive parameters of a rainfall-runoff model in the Netravati river basin of Karnataka, India using the global sensitivity analysis method. The statistical bootstrapping method is used to obtain the confidence intervals around each of the sensitivity indices. The VARS-TOOL [...]
A Multivariate Outlier Detection Approach for Water Footprint Assessments in Shale Formations: Case Eagle Ford Play (Texas)
Published: 2020-01-17
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Engineering
The increasing trend on water use for hydraulic fracturing (HF) in multiple plays across the U.S. has raised the need to improve the HF water management model. Such approaches require good quality datasets, particularly in water stressed regions. In this work, we presented a QA/QC framework for HF data using a multivariate outlier detection methodology based on five univariate techniques: two [...]
Over 1000 rivers accountable for 80% of global riverine plastic emissions into the ocean
Published: 2019-10-24
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Engineering
Plastic waste increasingly accumulates in the marine environment, but data on the distribution and quantification of riverine sources, required for development of effective mitigation, are limited. Our new model approach includes geographical distributed data on plastic waste, landuse, wind, precipitation and rivers and calculates the probability for plastic waste to reach a river and [...]
Network topology and rainfall controls on the variability of combined sewer overflows and loads
Published: 2019-10-24
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Engineering
Water and pollutant fluxes from combined sewer overflows (CSO) have a significant impact on receiving waters. The random nature of rainfall forcing dominates the variability of sewer discharges, pollutant loads, and concentrations. An analytical model developed here, shows how sewer network topology and rainfall properties variously impact the stochasticity of CSO functioning. Probability [...]
Imbibition in porous media: correlations of displacement events with pore-throat geometry and the identification of a new type of pore snap-off
Published: 2019-08-23
Subjects: Chemical Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Complex Fluids, Dynamics and Dynamical Systems, Engineering, Engineering Science and Materials, Environmental Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, Mechanics of Materials, Petroleum Engineering, Transport Phenomena
The displacement of a non-wetting fluid by a wetting fluid in porous media, called imbibition, is important in many natural and industrial processes. During imbibition, the wetting fluid invades the pore space through a series of competitions between piston-like displacement, film and corner flow, snap-off, pore bypassing and trapping. Our understanding of these fundamental pore-scale [...]
Realistic and simplified models of plant and leaf area indices for a seasonally dry tropical forest
Published: 2019-08-07
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Desert Ecology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Forest Management, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences, Research Methods in Life Sciences
Leaf Area Index (LAI) models that consider all phenological stages have not been developed for the Caatinga, the largest seasonally dry tropical forest in South America. LAI models that are currently used show moderate to high covariance when compared to in situ data, but they often lack accuracy in the whole spectra of possible values and do not consider the impact that the stems and branches [...]
Can barrier islands survive sea-level rise? Quantifying the relative role of tidal deltas and overwash deposition
Published: 2019-07-18
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Geology, Geomorphology, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology
Accepted open-access publication available at: https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL085524 Barrier island response to sea-level rise depends on their ability to transgress and move sediment onto and behind the barrier, either through flood-tidal delta deposition, or via overwash. Our understanding of these processes over decadal or longer timescales, however, is limited. Here we [...]
Information-theoretic Portfolio Decision Model for Optimal Flood Management
Published: 2019-06-27
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Computational Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Sciences, Geomorphology, Hydraulic Engineering, Hydrology, Life Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering, Other Civil and Environmental Engineering, Other Engineering, Other Environmental Sciences, Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Probability, Risk Analysis, Statistics and Probability, Sustainability, Systems Engineering, Water Resource Management
The increasing impact of flooding urges more effective flood management strategies to guarantee sustainable ecosystem development. Recent catastrophes underline the importance of avoiding local flood management, but characterizing large scale basin wide approaches for systemic flood risk management. Here we introduce an information-theoretic Portfolio Decision Model (iPDM) for the optimization of [...]
Decentralized Flood Forecasting Using Deep Neural Networks
Published: 2019-06-22
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Life Sciences, Other Life Sciences
Predicting flood for any location at times of extreme storms is a longstanding problem that has utmost importance in emergency management. Conventional methods that aim to predict water levels in streams use advanced hydrological models still lack of giving accurate forecasts everywhere. This study aims to explore artificial deep neural networks performance on flood prediction. While providing [...]