Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Other Civil and Environmental Engineering
Evaluating single and multi-date Landsat classifications of land-cover in a seasonally dry tropical forest
Published: 2020-05-29
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Other Civil and Environmental Engineering, Other Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Accurate information on the land cover is crucial for efficient monitoring and development of environmental studies in the Brazilian Caatinga forest. It is the largest tropical seasonal forest in South America, presenting high biodiversity and is under intense anthropogenic disturbance. Caatingas land cover is heterogeneous, and rainfall is its primary phenological regulator, presenting mainly [...]
Identification of Hydrologic Landscapes in Brazilian basins and its application as indicator of water yield and storage
Published: 2020-04-09
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Studies, Life Sciences, Other Civil and Environmental Engineering, Other Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
This study aimed to use the Hydrologic Landscapes as environmental classification method in the Piracicaba, Capivari and Jundiaí river basins, validate and use it as an indicator of water yield and storage areas. The method comprises in the same Information Plan (IP) factors that interact with the hydrological cycle in its terrestrial phase. The state of São Paulo, where most of the area is [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
On the automatic and a priori design of unstructured mesh resolution for coastal ocean circulation models
Published: 2019-05-10
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Civil and Environmental Engineering, Other Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
This study investigates the design of unstructured mesh resolution and its impact on the modeling of barotropic tides along the United States East Coast and Gulf Coast (ECGC). A discrete representation of a computational ocean domain (mesh design) is necessary due to finite computational resources and an incomplete knowledge of the physical system (e.g., shoreline and seabed topography). The [...]
Comparison of estimation methods for a nonstationary index-flood model in flood frequency analysis using peaks over threshold
Published: 2019-04-05
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Engineering, Other Civil and Environmental Engineering
Accurate estimation of flood frequency is crucial for designing safe infrastructures. To reduce model uncertainty, threshold modeling techniques are often useful in bringing more valuable flood information into the analysis than traditional models based on annual maximum discharges. Due to climatic or anthropogenic causes, changes in flood magnitudes in many parts of the world have been observed [...]
The vulnerability of tidal flats and multi-channel estuaries to dredging and disposal
Published: 2019-04-05
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Geomorphology, Other Civil and Environmental Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Shipping fairways in estuaries are continuously dredged to maintain access for large vessels to major ports. However, several estuaries worldwide show adverse side effects to dredging activities, including a shift from multi-channel systems to single-channel systems and the loss of ecologically valuable intertidal flats. We used a time series of bathymetry of the Western Scheldt estuary (the [...]
Flow-Substrate Interactions in Aggrading and Degrading Submarine Channels
Published: 2018-10-24
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Geology, Geomorphology, Other Civil and Environmental Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy
Connecting real time measurements of current-bed interactions to the temporal evolution of submarine channels can be extremely challenging in natural settings. We present a suite of physical experiments that offer insight into the spectrum of interactions between turbidity currents and their channels, from (i) detachment-limited erosion to (ii) transport-limited erosion to (iii) pure deposition. [...]
Quantifying natural delta variability using a multiple-point geostatistics prior uncertainty model
Published: 2018-09-30
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Geology, Geomorphology, Other Civil and Environmental Engineering, Other Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy, Theory and Algorithms
We address the question of quantifying uncertainty associated with autogenic pattern variability in a channelized transport system by means of a modern geostatistical method. This question has considerable relevance for practical subsurface applications as well, particularly those related to uncertainty quantification relying on Bayesian approaches. Specifically, we show how the autogenic [...]
Estimating flood quantiles at ungauged sites using nonparametric regression methods with spatial components
Published: 2018-09-26
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Engineering, Other Civil and Environmental Engineering
Prediction of flood quantiles at ungauged sites has been investigated using several nonparametric regression methods including: local regression based on regions of influence, neural networks and generalized additive models (GAM). These methods were used to describe the relationship between run-off variables and catchment descriptors to predict flood quantiles. Previous work reported the presence [...]
A nationwide regional flood frequency analysis at ungauged sites using ROI/GLS with copulas and super regions
Published: 2018-09-26
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Engineering, Other Civil and Environmental Engineering
Region of influence is a common approach to estimate runoff information at ungauged locations. To estimate flood quantiles from annual maximum discharges, the Generalized Least Squares (GLS) framework has been recommended to account for unequal sampling variance and intersite correlation, which requires a proper evaluation of the sampling covariance structure. Since some jurisdictions do not [...]
A comparison of GPS, VLBI and model estimates of ocean tide loading displacements
Published: 2017-11-13
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Other Civil and Environmental Engineering, Other Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
In recent years, Ocean Tide Loading Displacements (OTLD) have been measured using the Global Positioning System (GPS) and Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI). This study assesses the accuracy of GPS measurements of OTLD by comparison with VLBI measurements and estimates derived from numerical ocean tide models. A daily precise point positioning (PPP) analysis was carried out on ~11 years of [...]
GPS sidereal filtering: coordinate- and carrier-phase-level strategies
Published: 2017-11-13
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Other Civil and Environmental Engineering, Other Earth Sciences, Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Multipath error is considered one of the major errors affecting GPS observations. One can benefit from the repetition of satellite geometry approximately every sidereal day, and apply filtering to help minimize this error. For GPS data at 1 second interval processed using a double-difference strategy, using the day-to-day coordinate or phase residual autocorrelation determined with a 10 hour [...]
Using filtered and semi-continuous high rate GPS for monitoring deformations
Published: 2017-11-13
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Construction Engineering and Management, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Geotechnical Engineering, Other Civil and Environmental Engineering, Other Earth Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences, Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Structural Engineering
Multipath is a major sidereally-repeating error affecting precise GPS positioning and deformation monitoring. Because satellite-receiver geometry repeats almost exactly every sidereal day, filtering can reduce multipath in near-static situations. Here, we investigate how sidereal filtering can be used in a switched multi-antenna array system providing semi-continuous GPS data, which may be [...]
An examination of network RTK GPS services in Great Britain
Published: 2017-11-13
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Construction Engineering and Management, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Other Civil and Environmental Engineering, Other Earth Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences, Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
As of March 2009, network real-time kinematic (RTK) GPS surveying is available in Great Britain with the aid of two commercial service providers, Leica’s “SmartNet” and Trimble’s “VRS Now”, both of which rely largely on the Ordnance Survey’s “OS Net” network of around 120 continuously operating reference stations. With the aim of testing the performance of Network RTK under both ideal and [...]