Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Hydraulic Engineering
A Conversational Intelligent Assistant for Enhanced Operational Support in Floodplain Management with Multimodal Data
Published: 2024-12-19
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Computer Sciences, Databases and Information Systems, Earth Sciences, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Hydraulic Engineering, Hydrology, Water Resource Management
Floodplain management is crucial for mitigating flood risks and enhancing community resilience, yet floodplain managers often face significant challenges, including the complexity of data analysis, regulatory compliance, and effective communication with diverse stakeholders. This study introduces Floodplain Manager AI, an innovative artificial intelligence (AI) based virtual assistant designed to [...]
A Simple Method for Designing Infiltration Low Impact Development Techniques Considering Effects of Urbanization and Climate Change
Published: 2024-10-12
Subjects: Civil Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Hydraulic Engineering
Infiltration low-impact development (LID) techniques allow the slow infiltration of surface water, reducing peak volumes and flows. Their design consists of specifying the surface area and a maximum ponding depth to guarantee the minimum volume required to combat the effect of excessive urbanization. Arbitrary specifications of the design height (i.e., the maximum ponding depth) of these LIDs can [...]
Uncertainty aware sample mass determination of coarse-grained soils for particle size analyses
Published: 2024-08-23
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Monitoring, Geology, Geomorphology, Geotechnical Engineering, Hydraulic Engineering, Hydrology, Other Civil and Environmental Engineering, Other Earth Sciences, Probability, Sedimentology, Soil Science, Statistical Models, Statistics and Probability, Stratigraphy
Determining particle size distributions (PSD) of soils is a basic first step in manygeotechnical analyses and guidance is given in different national standards. Forambiguous reasons, the recommended minimum sample mass (m_min) for the PSD-analyses of soils with a main component of gravel or greater is based on equationsincluding the soil's maximum grain diameter (D_max). We claim that the [...]
Exploring coastal climate adaptation through storylines: Insights from Cyclone Idai in Beira, Mozambique
Published: 2024-06-11
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Earth Sciences, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Hydraulic Engineering, Hydrology, Meteorology, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Water Resource Management
Coastal settlements, facing increasing flood risk from Tropical Cyclones (TCs) under climate change, need local and detailed climate information for effective adaptation. Analysis of historical events and their impacts provides such information. This study uses storylines to evaluate adaptation strategies, focusing on Cyclone Idai’s impact on Beira, Mozambique, under different climate [...]
Geo-WC: Custom Web Components for Earth Science Organizations and Agencies
Published: 2024-04-17
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Computer Engineering, Engineering Education, Hydraulic Engineering
The development of web technologies and their integration into various fields has allowed a new era in data-driven decision-making and public information accessibility, especially through their adoption of monitoring and quantification environmental data resources provided by governmental institutions. While the use of web technologies has given way to the creation of democratized applications, [...]
On the economic feasibility of tidal range power plants
Published: 2023-12-17
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Computational Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Hydraulic Engineering
The wave potential energy associated with tides presents a promising sustainable energy resource. Uncertainties on the economic case of tidal range power plants are a known bottleneck hindering the development of the industry. Significant costs depend on each design's general arrangement, which includes both mechanical components and the associated civil works. Research on tidal range structures [...]
MultiRS Flood Mapper: A Google Earth Engine Application for Water Extent Mapping with Multimodal Remote Sensing and Quantile-Based Postprocessing
Published: 2023-12-11
Subjects: Engineering, Geotechnical Engineering, Hydraulic Engineering
Remote Sensing (RS) imagery is an important data source in surface water mapping applications thanks to its high spatial and temporal consistency and scalability. The introduction of Google Earth Engine (GEE) has cleared some of the major barriers of fast and large-scale RS-based geospatial analyses by providing easy and open access to most of the commonly used RS image products as well as [...]
Advancing Regional Flood Mapping in a Changing Climate: A HAND-Based Approach for New Jersey with Innovations in Catchment Analysis
Published: 2023-11-03
Subjects: Civil Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Hydraulic Engineering, Hydrology
Regional flood mapping poses computational and spatial heterogeneity challenges, exacerbated by climate change-induced uncertainties. This study focuses on creating a state-wide flood mapping solution with enhanced accuracy and computational speed to support regional flooding hazard analysis and the assessment of climate change, using New Jersey as a case study. The Height Above Nearest Drainage [...]
Mapping the Landscape of Water and Society Research: Promising Combinations of Compatible and Complementary Disciplines
Published: 2023-10-14
Subjects: Environmental Education, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Studies, Geographic Information Sciences, Human Geography, Hydraulic Engineering, Hydrology, Natural Resource Economics, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Physical and Environmental Geography, Spatial Science, Sustainability, Water Resource Management
Coupled human-water systems (CHWS) are diverse and have been studied across a wide variety of disciplines. Integrating multiple disciplinary perspectives on CHWS provides a comprehensive and actionable understanding of these complex systems. While interdisciplinary integration has often remained elusive, specific combinations of disciplines might be comparably easier to integrate (compatible) [...]
Enhancing Hydrological Modeling with Transformers: A Case Study for 24-Hour Streamflow Prediction
Published: 2023-09-13
Subjects: Environmental Engineering, Hydraulic Engineering
In this paper, we address the critical task of 24-hour streamflow forecasting using advanced deep-learning models, with a primary focus on the Transformer architecture which has seen limited application in this specific task. We compare the performance of five different models, including Persistence, LSTM, Seq2Seq, GRU, and Transformer, across four distinct regions. The evaluation is based on [...]
FloodGame: An Interactive 3D Serious Game on Flood Mitigation for Disaster Awareness and Education
Published: 2023-09-09
Subjects: Environmental Engineering, Hydraulic Engineering, Risk Analysis, Science and Mathematics Education
The number and devastating impacts of natural disasters have grown significantly worldwide, and floods are one of the most dangerous and frequent natural disasters. Recent studies emphasize the importance of public awareness in disaster preparedness and response activities. FloodGame is designed as a web-based interactive serious game geared towards educating K-12 and college students and raising [...]
Flood sequence mapping with multimodal remote sensing under the influence of dense vegetation
Published: 2023-06-13
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Hydraulic Engineering
Remote sensing (RS) imagery is becoming increasingly popular in surface water extent extraction thanks to the increasing availability of RS data and advancements in image processing algorithms, software, and hardware. Many studies proved that RS imagery can work independently or along with other approaches to identify flood extent. However, due to the insufficiency in the number of images from [...]
Better Localized Predictions with Out-of-Scope Information and Explainable AI: One-Shot SAR Backscatter Nowcast Framework with Data from Neighboring Region
Published: 2023-06-10
Subjects: Civil Engineering, Engineering, Geotechnical Engineering, Hydraulic Engineering
Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) provides 10-m weather-independent global Earth surface observations for various tasks such as land cover land use mapping, water body delineation, and vegetation change monitoring. However, the application of SAR imagery has been limited to retrospective tasks by a “first event then observation” rule. Recent studies have proven the feasibility of a one-shot forecast [...]
The Asymmetric Distribution of Rainfall Frequency and Amounts in India
Published: 2022-09-29
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Hydraulic Engineering
Studies of rainfall usually focus on the total amount precipitating throughout a certain period. Compared to rain rates associated with extreme events, the rain rates associated with the most frequent events is understudied. In this study, the characteristics of daily precipitation in India are explored using two metrics - rain frequency peak (the most frequent non-zero rain rate) and rain amount [...]
A Simple Framework for Calibrating Hydraulic Flood Inundation Models using Crowd-sourced Water Levels
Published: 2022-08-24
Subjects: Civil Engineering, Fluid Dynamics, Hydraulic Engineering, Hydrology, Water Resource Management
Floods are the most commonly occurring natural disaster, with the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters 2021 report on “The Non-COVID Year in Disasters” estimating economic losses worth over USD 51 million and over 6000 fatalities in 2020. The hydrodynamic models which are used for flood forecasting need to be evaluated and constrained using observations of water depth and extent. [...]