Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Civil Engineering
Mapping Permafrost Variability and Degradation Using Seismic Surface Waves, Electrical Resistivity, and Temperature Sensing: A Case Study in Arctic Alaska
Published: 2023-07-19
Subjects: Civil Engineering, Geophysics and Seismology, Geotechnical Engineering, Hydrology
Subsurface processes significantly influence surface dynamics in permafrost regions, necessitating utilizing diverse geophysical methods to reliably constrain permafrost characteristics. This research uses multiple geophysical techniques to explore the spatial variability of permafrost in undisturbed tundra and its degradation in disturbed tundra in Utqiaġvik, Alaska. Here, we integrate multiple [...]
Integrating Climate Risk into Long-Term Energy Planning: A Critical Review
Published: 2023-07-15
Subjects: Civil Engineering, Earth Sciences, Power and Energy, Risk Analysis
Electricity systems face substantial and growing climate risks which are escalating due to electrification, renewable energy intermittency, population changes, and the intensifying impacts of climate change such as extreme temperatures and weather-induced infrastructure damage. This critical review investigates climate risks to the electricity sector and scrutinizes the methodologies used to [...]
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 [...]
Non-structural Flood Mitigation Optimization at Community Scale: Middle Cedar Case Study
Published: 2023-06-07
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Risk Analysis
Flooding is the leading natural hazard in Iowa and has resulted in billions of dollars of damage to properties and critical infrastructure over the past couple of decades. Land alterations, urbanization, and changing precipitation regimes increase the magnitude and frequency of flood events. Considering the increasing risk, flood mitigation efforts are significant to reduce future losses. In this [...]
Geo-Spatial Analysis of Built-Environment Exposure to Flooding: Iowa Case Study
Published: 2023-03-15
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Engineering, Risk Analysis
Flooding is the most frequent type of natural disaster, inducing devastating damages at large and small spatial scales. Flood exposure analysis is a critical part of flood risk assessment. While most studies analyze the exposure elements separately, it is crucial to perform a multi-parameter exposure analysis and consider different types of flood zones to gain a comprehensive understanding of the [...]
Time Series Analysis of terrain and climatic parameters data retrieved from Terraclimate dataset: A case study in Ranchi and Khunti district, Jharkhand, India
Published: 2023-03-13
Subjects: Civil Engineering, Engineering, Other Civil and Environmental Engineering
Climatic and Terrain parameters which include the soil moisture, precipitation, evapotranspiration, maximum and minimum temperature are the most crucial factors which drives the future of earth. Soil Moisture regulates the movement of water and heat energy between the land surface and the atmosphere through evaporationn and plant transpiration. Precipitation controls the entire operation of the [...]
Rapid seaward expansion of seaport footprints worldwide
Published: 2023-02-25
Subjects: Civil Engineering, Geographic Information Sciences, Geomorphology, Other Environmental Sciences, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing, Sustainability
As global maritime traffic increases, seaports grow to accommodate and compete for higher volumes of trade throughput. However, growth trajectories of seaport footprints around the world have gone unmeasured, likely because of a lack of readily available spatio-temporal data. Here, we use geospatial analysis of global satellite imagery from 1990–2020 to show that 65 seaports among the world's top [...]
A Web-based Analytical Urban Flood Damage and Loss Estimation Framework
Published: 2022-12-04
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Engineering, Risk Analysis, Systems and Communications
Information and communication technology serves a crucial role in communicating flood risk and consequences to a broad range of stakeholders and facilitating mitigation decisions. While studies extensively utilize flood inundation maps for communicating flood risks, there is a need to integrate a broad spectrum of physical vulnerability parameters into risk estimates at various spatial scales. [...]
A Simple Framework for Calibrating Hydraulic Flood Inundation Models using Crowd-sourced Water Levels
Published: 2022-08-23
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. [...]
Optimizing nature-based solutions by combining social equity, hydro-environmental performance, and economic costs through a novel Gini coefficient
Published: 2021-11-15
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Computational Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Studies, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Nature and Society Relations, Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering, Physical and Environmental Geography, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Systems Engineering
A robust multi-functional framework for widespread planning of nature-based solutions (NBS) must incorporate components of social equity and hydro-environmental performance in a cost-effective manner. NBS systems address stormwater mitigation by increasing on-site infiltration and evaporation through enhanced greenspace while also improving various components of societal well-being, such as [...]
Kathmandu Basin as a local modulator of seismic waves: 2D modelling of nonlinear site response under obliquely incident waves
Published: 2021-10-15
Subjects: Civil Engineering, Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Geotechnical Engineering
The 2015 Mw 7.8 Gorkha, Nepal earthquake is the largest event to have struck the capital city of Kathmandu in recent times. One of its surprising features was the frequency content of the recorded ground motion, exhibiting a notable amplification at low frequencies (< 2 Hz) and a contrasting depletion at higher frequencies. The latter has been partially attributed to the damper behaviour of the [...]
Combining shallow-water and analytical wake models for tidal array micro-siting
Published: 2021-07-30
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Engineering, Hydraulic Engineering, Oceanography
For tidal-stream energy to become a competitive renewable energy source, clustering multiple turbines into arrays is paramount. As a result, array optimisation is critical for achieving maximum power performance and reducing cost of energy. However, ascertaining an optimal array layout is a highly complex problem, subject to specific site hydrodynamics and multiple inter-disciplinary [...]
Toward automating post processing of aquatic sensor data
Published: 2021-07-23
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Civil Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Monitoring, Hydrology
Sensors measuring environmental phenomena at high frequency commonly report anomalies related to fouling, sensor drift and calibration, and datalogging and transmission issues. Suitability of data for analyses and decision making often depends on manual review and adjustment of data. Machine learning techniques have potential to automate identification and correction of anomalies, streamlining [...]
Microstructural differences between naturally-deposited and laboratory beach sands
Published: 2021-04-14
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Geophysics and Seismology, Geotechnical Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology
The orientation of and contacts between grains of sand reflect the processes that deposit the sands. Grain orientation and contact geometry also influence mechanical properties. Quantifying and understanding sand microstructure thus provide an opportunity to understand depositional processes better and connect microstructure and macroscopic properties. We compare naturally-deposited beach sands [...]