Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Water Resource Management
A machine learning approach for prioritizing groundwater testing for per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)
Published: 2020-10-20
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 continental-scale assessment of density, size, distribution, and historical trends of Australian farm dams
Published: 2020-09-02
Subjects: Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Water Resource Management
Australia is the second driest continent on Earth and freshwater is, therefore, a critical policy concern. Farm dams are ubiquitous and drive AU$17.7 billion of agricultural value, yet there has never been a formal census of Australian dams. In this study, we present a continental-scale assessment on density, distribution, and historical trends of farm dams in each State and Territory of [...]
An Integrated Flood Risk Assessment and Mitigation Framework: Middle Cedar River Basin Case Study
Published: 2020-08-21
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Water Resource Management
Property buyout is one of the most frequently preferred flood mitigation applications by decision-makers for long-term risk reduction. Due to its high-level funding requirements as a mitigation solution, it requires extensive benefits and costs analysis for the selected region. Many communities in the State of Iowa experienced flood events (i.e. 1993, 2008, 2014, 2019) which resulted in a heavy [...]
A Comprehensive Flood Event Specification and Inventory: 1930-2020 Turkey Case Study
Published: 2020-08-17
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Water Resource Management
Flooding is one of the most frequent natural disasters that have significant impact on communities in terms of loss of life, direct and indirect economic losses, and disruption of daily life. Decision makers often consult flood data inventories to make more informed decisions on the development of flood mitigation plans to protect flood prone communities. A comprehensive inventory that covers [...]
Bridging the gap between geophysics and geology with Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs)
Published: 2020-08-17
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Computer Sciences, Databases and Information Systems, Earth Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Geophysics and Seismology, Natural Resource Economics, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Other Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology, Water Resource Management
Inverse mapping from geophysics to geology is a difficult problem due to the inherent uncertainty of geophysical data and the spatially heterogeneous patterns (structure) in geology. We describe GANSim, a type of generative adversarial networks (GANs) that discovers the mapping between remotely-sensed geophysical information and geology with realistic patterns, with a specially designed loss [...]
Serious Gaming for Water Resources Planning and Hazard Mitigation
Published: 2020-08-04
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 [...]
Potential environmental hazard due to tailings dam failure in Minnesota iron range and safety concern of the Dams in the US
Published: 2020-06-19
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Water Resource Management
An ongoing debate centered around mining operations and tailings dam usage near the Minnesota mining range led to an investigation of potential environmental hazards near the cities of Hoyt Lakes and Embarrass. Topographic data from Satellite observations made available by USGS and HEC-RAS developed by US Engineer Corp are used to simulate the extent of mud flow from a hypothetical tailings dam [...]
Methane concentrations in streams reveal gas leak discharges in regions of oil, gas, and coal development
Published: 2020-06-18
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Geochemistry, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Water Resource Management
As natural gas has grown in importance as a global energy source, leakage of methane (CH4) from wells has sometimes been noted. Leakage of this greenhouse gas is important because it affects groundwater quality and, when emitted to the atmosphere, climate. We hypothesized that streams might be most contaminated by CH4 in the northern Appalachian Basin in regions with the longest history of [...]
Integrating field work, large sample hydrology and modeling to inform (inter)national governance of karst water resources
Published: 2020-05-26
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Water Resource Management
Substantial changes of climate and land use are projected in many karst regions in the world for the next decades. Despite these projections, only few studies have been performed to quantify the impact of climate change and land use change on karst water resources. This is mainly due to a lack of observations of the karstic recharge and groundwater dynamics, which is prohibiting the development [...]
Sensitivity of evapotranspiration deficit index to its parameters and temporal scales
Published: 2020-05-25
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Water Resource Management
Sound estimates of drought characteristics are very important for planning intervention measures in drought-prone areas. Among many drought indices used in estimation of drought characteristics in many parts of the world, evapotranspiration deficit index (ETDI) is increasingly used to estimate agricultural drought. However, in most studies ETDI has been computed using the specific ETDI formula. [...]
Same but different: A framework to design and compare riverbank plastic monitoring strategies
Published: 2020-05-25
Subjects: Education, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Water Resource Management
Plastic pollution in rivers negatively impacts human livelihood and aquatic ecosystems. Monitoring data are crucial for a better understanding of sources, sinks and transport mechanisms of riverine macroplastics. In turn, such understanding is key to develop effective plastic pollution prevention, mitigation and removal strategies. Riverine plastic has been observed in all compartments, of which [...]
What is the hydrologically effective size of a catchment?
Published: 2020-05-14
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Water Resource Management
Linking human activities and climate change with their consequences for water availability is a prerequisite for sustainable water management, which is traditionally performed at topographically delineated catchments. However, inter-catchment groundwater flow results in effective catchment sizes other than sizes suggested by topography. Here, we introduce the notion of effective catchment size [...]
Danger of groundwater contamination widely underestimated because of shortcuts for aquifer recharge
Published: 2020-05-12
Subjects: Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sustainability, Water Resource Management
Groundwater pollution threatens human and ecosystem health in many areas around the globe. Shortcuts to the groundwater through concentrated recharge are known to transmit short-lived pollutants into carbonate aquifers endangering water quality of around a quarter of the world population. However, the large-scale impact of such concentrated recharge on water quality remains poorly understood. [...]
Unrealistic phytoplankton bloom trends in global lakes derived from Landsat measurements
Published: 2020-05-07
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Water Resource Management
Given its advantages for synoptic and large-scale observations, satellite remote sensing has been widely used to effectively monitor the water quality of inland and coastal environments. Using satellite-derived reflectance data from the Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (L5TM) as a proxy for algal bloom intensity, Ho et al. 1 showed an increase in peak summertime bloom intensity in 68% of the 71 large [...]
Streamflow depletion from groundwater pumping in contrasting hydrogeological landscapes: Evaluation and sensitivity of a new management tool
Published: 2020-04-30
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sustainability, Water Resource Management
Groundwater pumping can reduce streamflow by reducing groundwater discharge and/or inducing streamflow infiltration, which together are referred to as streamflow depletion. Recently, analytical depletion functions (ADFs) have been suggested as rapid and accurate tools for streamflow depletion assessment, but their performance has only been tested in a few hydrogeological settings. To evaluate [...]