Scholarly Works, Civil and Environmental Engineering

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3D Hybrid of Layered MoS2/Nitrogen-Doped Graphene Nanosheet Aerogels: An Effective Catalyst for Hydrogen Evolution in Microbial Electrolysis Cells
Hou, Yang; Zhang, Bo; Wen, Zhenhai; Cui, Shumao; Guo, Xiaoru; He, Zhen; Chen, Junhong (The Royal Society of Chemistry, 2014-06-18)
Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) have been conceived and intensively studied as a promising technology to achieve sustainable wastewater treatment. However, doubts and debates arose in recent years regarding the technical and economic viability of this technology on a larger scale and in a real-world applications. Hence, it is time to think about and examine how to recalibrate this technology's role in a future paradigm of sustainable wastewater treatment. In the past years, many good ideas/approaches have been proposed and investigated for MFC application, but information is scattered. Various review papers were published on MFC configuration, substrates, electrode materials, separators and microbiology but there is lack of critical thinking and systematic analysis of MFC application niche in wastewater treatment. To systematically formulate a strategy of (potentially) practical MFC application and provide information to guide MFC development, this perspective has critically examined and discussed the problems and challenges for developing MFC technology, and identified a possible application niche whereby MFCs can be rationally incorporated into the treatment process. We propose integration of MFCs with other treatment technologies to form an MFC-centered treatment scheme based on thoroughly analyzing the challenges and opportunities, and discuss future efforts to be made for realizing sustainable wastewater treatment.
Accelerated Corrosion Testing of ASTM A1010 Stainless Steel
Hebdon, Matthew H.; Groshek, Isaac (American Institute of Steel Construction, 2018-04-11)
ASTM A1010 (recently adopted as ASTM A709 Gr50CR) is a material which has advantageous corrosion properties. It is a low-grade stainless steel which forms a protective patina and has been marketed as an alternative to other bridge steels and corrosion protection methods due to its corrosion resistance in highly corrosive environments. However, the material is currently available in plate form only, and several of the applications in the United States were required to use alternative materials when constructing and connecting secondary members to the A1010 plate girders. This paper addresses the corrosion behavior of A1010 in several different details relating to recent applications in the US. An accelerated corrosion study was performed which simulated a highly corrosive environment typical of the environment justifying the use of A1010. The research investigated the resulting galvanic corrosion and its effect on the corrosion rate of A1010 plates, several different common bridge steels, and typical fastener materials. In addition, common surface preparation methods were evaluated for their aesthetic effect during patina formation.
Accumulation of di-2-ethylhexyl phthalate from polyvinyl chloride flooring into settled house dust and the effect on the bacterial community
Velazquez, Samantha; Bi, Chenyang; Kline, Jeff; Nunez, Susie; Corsi, Rich; Xu, Ying; Ishaq, Suzanne L. (2019-11-22)
Di-2-ethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP) is a plasticizer used in consumer products and building materials, including polyvinyl chloride flooring material. DEHP adsorbs from material and leaches into soil, water, or dust and presents an exposure risk to building occupants by inhalation, ingestion, or absorption. A number of bacterial isolates are demonstrated to degrade DEHP in culture, but bacteria may be susceptible to it as well, thus this study examined the relation of DEHP to bacterial communities in dust. Polyvinyl chloride flooring was seeded with homogenized house dust and incubated for up to 14 days, and bacterial communities in dust were identified at days 1, 7, and 14 using the V3-V4 regions of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene. DEHP concentration in dust increased over time, as expected, and bacterial richness and Shannon diversity were negatively correlated with DEHP concentration. Some sequence variants of Bacillus, Corynebacterium jeddahense, Streptococcus, and Peptoniphilus were relatively more abundant at low concentrations of DEHP, while some Sphingomonas, Chryseobacterium, and a member of the Enterobacteriaceae family were relatively more abundant at higher concentrations. The built environment is known to host lower microbial diversity and biomass than natural environments, and DEHP or other chemicals indoors may contribute to this paucity.
Acoustic Emission Wave Velocity Measurement of Asphalt Mixture by Arbitrary Wave Method
Li, Jianfeng; Liu, Huifang; Wang, Wentao; Zhao, Kang; Ye, Zhoujing; Wang, Linbing (MDPI, 2021-09-13)
The wave velocity of acoustic emission (AE) can reflect the properties of materials, the types of AE sources and the propagation characteristics of AE in materials. At the same time, the wave velocity of AE is also an important parameter in source location calculation by the time-difference method. In this paper, a new AE wave velocity measurement method, the arbitrary wave (AW) method, is proposed and designed to measure the AE wave velocity of an asphalt mixture. This method is compared with the pencil lead break (PLB) method and the automatic sensor test (AST) method. Through comparison and analysis, as a new wave velocity measurement method of AE, the AW method shows the following advantages: A continuous AE signal with small attenuation, no crosstalk and a fixed waveform can be obtained by the AW method, which is more advantageous to distinguish the first arrival time of the acoustic wave and calculate the wave velocity of AE more accurately; the AE signal measured by the AW method has the characteristics of a high frequency and large amplitude, which is easy to distinguish from the noise signal with the characteristics of a low frequency and small amplitude; and the dispersion of the AE wave velocity measured by the AW method is smaller, which is more suitable for the measurement of the AE wave velocity of an asphalt mixture.
Adaptive strategy biases in engineered ecosystems: Implications for plant community dynamics and the provisioning of ecosystem services to people
Krauss, Lauren; Rippy, Megan A. (2022-11-22)
1. Plant communities in green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) such as biofilters play an integral role in ecosystem services provisioning, such that many design manuals now feature plant lists that guide vegetation selection. 2. This study looks at the implications of those lists for biofilter plant communities and their services, focusing on (1) how plants are selected across US climate zones, (2) whether selected plants exhibit adaptive strategy biases (i.e. towards competitive, stress tolerant or ruderal strategies that might impact ecosystem services provisioning) and (3) whether human-induced selection or natural climatic processes underly any biases revealed. 3. Our results suggest that biofilter plant strategies are significantly biased towards stress tolerance or competitiveness (depending on the climate zone) and away from ruderalness relative to the broader pool of native and wetland-adapted native species. 4. Competitive bias was evident in humid-continental climates and stress-tolerant bias in hot coastal/arid climates, with some degree of anti-ruderal bias present across all zones. 5. These biases are correlated with human concerns related to water availability and climate (water conservation; p < 0.05, irrigation; p < 0.1, climate extremes; p < 0.1). They do not appear to reflect strict climatological limits (i.e. limits that are independent of preferences or design constraints imposed by people) because they are not also evident for native plants. 6. The benefits and costs of relaxing these biases are discussed, focusing on the implications for water quality, hydrologic, and cultural services provisioning and the dynamicity of GSI ecosystems, particularly their capacity to self-repair, a prerequisite for the development of self-sustaining GSI.
Adaptive Traffic Signal Control: Game-Theoretic Decentralized vs. Centralized Perimeter Control
Elouni, Maha; Abdelghaffar, Hossam M.; Rakha, Hesham A. (MDPI, 2021-01-03)
This paper compares the operation of a decentralized Nash bargaining traffic signal controller (DNB) to the operation of state-of-the-art adaptive and gating traffic signal control. Perimeter control (gating), based on the network fundamental diagram (NFD), was applied on the borders of a protected urban network (PN) to prevent and/or disperse traffic congestion. The operation of gating control and local adaptive controllers was compared to the operation of the developed DNB traffic signal controller. The controllers were implemented and their performance assessed on a grid network in the INTEGRATION microscopic simulation software. The results show that the DNB controller, although not designed to solve perimeter control problems, successfully prevents congestion from building inside the PN and improves the performance of the entire network. Specifically, the DNB controller outperforms both gating and non-gating controllers, with reductions in the average travel time ranging between 21% and 41%, total delay ranging between 40% and 55%, and emission levels/fuel consumption ranging between 12% and 20%. The results demonstrate statistically significant benefits of using the developed DNB controller over other state-of-the-art centralized and decentralized gating/adaptive traffic signal controllers.
Addressing the Contribution of Indirect Potable Reuse to Inland Freshwater Salinization
Bhide, Shantanu V.; Grant, Stanley B.; Parker, Emily A.; Rippy, Megan A.; Godrej, Adil N.; Kaushal, Sujay S.; Prelewicz, Gregory; Saji, Niffy; Curtis, Shannon; Vikesland, Peter J.; Maile-Moskowitz, Ayella; Edwards, Marc A.; Lopez, Kathryn; Birkland, Thomas A.; Schenk, Todd (2021-02-02)
Inland freshwater salinity is rising worldwide, a phenomenon called the freshwater salinization syndrome (FSS). We investigate a potential conflict between managing the FSS and indirect potable reuse, the practice of augmenting water supplies through the addition of reclaimed wastewater to surface waters and groundwaters. From time-series data collected over 25 years, we quantify the contributions of three salinity sources—a wastewater reclamation facility and two rapidly urbanizing watersheds—to the rising concentration of sodium (a major ion associated with the FSS) in a regionally important drinking water reservoir in the Mid-Atlantic United States. Sodium mass loading to the reservoir is primarily from watershed runoff during wet weather and reclaimed wastewater during dry weather. Across all timescales evaluated, sodium concentration in the reclaimed wastewater is higher than in outflow from the two watersheds. Sodium in reclaimed wastewater originates from chemicals added during wastewater treatment, industrial and commercial discharges, human excretion, and down-drain disposal of drinking water and sodium-rich household products. Thus, numerous opportunities exist to reduce the contribution of indirect potable reuse to sodium pollution at this site, and the FSS more generally. These efforts will require deliberative engagement with a diverse community of watershed stakeholders and careful consideration of the local political, social, and environmental context.
Advances in Morphodynamic Modeling of Coastal Barriers: A Review
Hoagland, Steven W. H.; Jeffries, Catherine R.; Irish, Jennifer L.; Weiss, Robert; Mandli, Kyle; Vitousek, Sean; Johnson, Catherine M.; Cialone, Mary A. (ASCE, 2023-05-30)
As scientific understanding of barrier morphodynamics has improved, so has the ability to reproduce observed phenomena and predict future barrier states using mathematical models. To use existing models effectively and improve them, it is important to understand the current state of morphodynamic modeling and the progress that has been made in the field. This manuscript offers a review of the literature regarding advancements in morphodynamic modeling of coastal barrier systems and summarizes current modeling abilities and limitations. Broadly, this review covers both event-scale and long-term morphodynamics. Each of these sections begins with an overview of commonly modeled phenomena and processes, followed by a review of modeling developments. After summarizing the advancements toward the stated modeling goals, we identify research gaps and suggestions for future research under the broad categories of improving our abilities to acquire and access data, furthering our scientific understanding of relevant processes, and advancing our modeling frameworks and approaches.
Aerosol microdroplets exhibit a stable pH gradient
Wei, Haoran; Vejerano, Eric P.; Leng, Weinan; Huang, Qishen; Willner, Marjorie R.; Marr, Linsey C.; Vikesland, Peter J. (2018-07-10)
Suspended aqueous aerosol droplets (< 50 mu m) are microreactors for many important atmospheric reactions. In droplets and other aquatic environments, pH is arguably the key parameter dictating chemical and biological processes. The nature of the droplet air/water interface has the potential to significantly alter droplet pH relative to bulk water. Historically, it has been challenging to measure the pH of individual droplets because of their inaccessibility to conventional pH probes. In this study, we scanned droplets containing 4-mercaptobenzoic acid-functionalized gold nanoparticle pH nanoprobes by 2D and 3D laser confocal Raman microscopy. Using surface-enhanced Raman scattering, we acquired the pH distribution inside approximately 20-mu m-diameter phosphate-buffered aerosol droplets and found that the pH in the core of a droplet is higher than that of bulk solution by up to 3.6 pH units. This finding suggests the accumulation of protons at the air/water interface and is consistent with recent thermodynamic model results. The existence of this pH shift was corroborated by the observation that a catalytic reaction that occurs only under basic conditions (i.e., dimerization of 4-aminothiophenol to produce dimercaptoazobenzene) occurs within the high pH core of a droplet, but not in bulk solution. Our nanoparticle probe enables pH quantification through the cross-section of an aerosol droplet, revealing a spatial gradient that has implications for acid-base-catalyzed atmospheric chemistry.
Aggregated responses of human mobility to severe winter storms: An empirical study
Wang, Yan; Wang, Qi; Taylor, John E. (PLOS, 2017-12-07)
Increasing frequency of extreme winter storms has resulted in costly damages and a disruptive impact on the northeastern United States. It is important to understand human mobility patterns during such storms for disaster preparation and relief operations. We investigated the effects of severe winter storms on human mobility during a 2015 blizzard using 2.69 million Twitter geolocations. We found that displacements of different trip distances and radii of gyration of individuals' mobility were perturbed significantly. We further explored the characteristics of perturbed mobility during the storm, and demonstrated that individuals' recurrent mobility does not have a higher degree of similarity with their perturbed mobility, when comparing with its similarity to non-perturbed mobility. These empirical findings on human mobility impacted by severe winter storms have potential long-term implications on emergency response planning and the development of strategies to improve resilience in severe winter storms.
Aggregation and sedimentation of magnetite nanoparticle clusters
Vikesland, Peter J.; Rebodos, R. L.; Bottero, J. Y.; Rose, J.; Masion, A. (Royal Society of Chemistry, 2016-03-24)
Magnetite nanoparticles are redox active constituents of subsurface and corrosive environments. In this study, we characterized the aggregation and sedimentation behavior of well characterized magnetite nanoparticle clusters using dynamic light scattering (DLS), UV-vis-NIR spectroscopy, and small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS). Both unfunctionalized (NaOH-magnetite) and tetramethylammonium hydroxide (TMAOH-magnetite) surface functionalized nanoparticle clusters were employed. TMAOH-magnetite has a slightly smaller primary nanoparticle radius as determined by TEM (4 ± 0.7 nm vs. 5 ± 0.8 for NaOH-magnetite) and a smaller initial DLS determined cluster radius (<30 nm vs. 100–200 nm for NaOH-magnetite). Interestingly, in spite of its smaller initial nanoparticle cluster size, TMAOH-magnetite undergoes sedimentation more rapidly than NaOH-magnetite. This behavior is consistent with the more rapid aggregation of the smaller TMAOH-magnetite clusters as well as their lower fractal dimension, as determined by SAXS. This study illustrates that both nanoparticle cluster size and fractal dimension should be carefully considered when considering the environmental transport and fate of highly aggregated nanoparticles.
Agreement between Electrical Cardiometry and Pulmonary Artery Thermodilution for Measuring Cardiac Output in Isoflurane-Anesthetized Dogs
Paranjape, Vaidehi V.; Henao-Guerrero, Natalia; Menciotti, Giulio; Saksena, Siddharth; Agostinho, Manuela (MDPI, 2023-04-21)
In animals, invasive pulmonary artery thermodilution (PATD) is a gold standard for cardiac output (CO) monitoring, but it is impractical in clinical settings. This study evaluates the agreement between PATD and noninvasive electrical cardiometry (EC) for measuring CO and analyzes the other EC-derived hemodynamic variables in six healthy anesthetized dogs subjected to four different hemodynamic events in a sequential order: (1) euvolemia (baseline); (2) hemorrhage (33% blood volume loss); (3) autologous blood transfusion; and (4) 20 mL/kg colloid bolus. The CO measurements obtained using PATD and EC are compared using Bland–Altman analysis, Lin’s concordance correlation (LCC), and polar plot analysis. Values of p < 0.05 are considered significant. The EC measurements consistently underpredict the CO values as compared with PATD, and the LCC is 0.65. The EC’s performance is better during hemorrhage, thus indicating its capability in detecting absolute hypovolemia in clinical settings. Even though the percentage error exhibited by EC is 49.4%, which is higher than the standard (<30%), EC displays a good trending ability. Additionally, the EC-derived variables display a significant correlation with the CO measured using PATD. Noninvasive EC may have a potential in monitoring trends in hemodynamics in clinical settings.
AgroSeek: a system for computational analysis of environmental metagenomic data and associated metadata
Liang, Xiao; Akers, Kyle; Keenum, Ishi M.; Wind, Lauren L.; Gupta, Suraj; Chen, Chaoqi; Aldaihani, Reem; Pruden, Amy; Zhang, Liqing; Knowlton, Katharine F.; Xia, Kang; Heath, Lenwood S. (2021-03-10)
Background Metagenomics is gaining attention as a powerful tool for identifying how agricultural management practices influence human and animal health, especially in terms of potential to contribute to the spread of antibiotic resistance. However, the ability to compare the distribution and prevalence of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) across multiple studies and environments is currently impossible without a complete re-analysis of published datasets. This challenge must be addressed for metagenomics to realize its potential for helping guide effective policy and practice measures relevant to agricultural ecosystems, for example, identifying critical control points for mitigating the spread of antibiotic resistance. Results Here we introduce AgroSeek, a centralized web-based system that provides computational tools for analysis and comparison of metagenomic data sets tailored specifically to researchers and other users in the agricultural sector interested in tracking and mitigating the spread of ARGs. AgroSeek draws from rich, user-provided metagenomic data and metadata to facilitate analysis, comparison, and prediction in a user-friendly fashion. Further, AgroSeek draws from publicly-contributed data sets to provide a point of comparison and context for data analysis. To incorporate metadata into our analysis and comparison procedures, we provide flexible metadata templates, including user-customized metadata attributes to facilitate data sharing, while maintaining the metadata in a comparable fashion for the broader user community and to support large-scale comparative and predictive analysis. Conclusion AgroSeek provides an easy-to-use tool for environmental metagenomic analysis and comparison, based on both gene annotations and associated metadata, with this initial demonstration focusing on control of antibiotic resistance in agricultural ecosystems. Agroseek creates a space for metagenomic data sharing and collaboration to assist policy makers, stakeholders, and the public in decision-making. AgroSeek is publicly-available at https://agroseek.cs.vt.edu/ .
Air pollution perception in ten countries during the COVID-19 pandemic
Lou, Baowen; Barbieri, Diego Maria; Passavanti, Marco; Hui, Cang; Gupta, Akshay; Hoff, Inge; Lessa, Daniela Antunes; Sikka, Gaurav; Chang, Kevin; Fang, Kevin; Lam, Louisa; Maharaj, Brij; Ghasemi, Navid; Qiao, Yaning; Adomako, Solomon; Mirhosseini, Ali Foroutan; Naik, Bhaven; Banerjee, Arunabha; Wang, Fusong; Tucker, Andrew; Liu, Zhuangzhuang; Wijayaratna, Kasun; Naseri, Sahra; Yu, Lei; Chen, Hao; Shu, Benan; Goswami, Shubham; Peprah, Prince; Hessami, Amir; Abbas, Montasir M.; Agarwal, Nithin (2021-06-21)
As largely documented in the literature, the stark restrictions enforced worldwide in 2020 to curb the COVID-19 pandemic also curtailed the production of air pollutants to some extent. This study investigates the perception of the air pollution as assessed by individuals located in ten countries: Australia, Brazil, China, Ghana, India, Iran, Italy, Norway, South Africa and the USA. The perceptions towards air quality were evaluated by employing an online survey administered in May 2020. Participants (N = 9394) in the ten countries expressed their opinions according to a Likert-scale response. A reduction in pollutant concentration was clearly perceived, albeit to a different extent, by all populations. The survey participants located in India and Italy perceived the largest drop in the air pollution concentration; conversely, the smallest variation was perceived among Chinese and Norwegian respondents. Among all the demographic indicators considered, only gender proved to be statistically significant.
Air Quality in Southeast Brazil during COVID-19 Lockdown: A Combined Satellite and Ground-Based Data Analysis
Brandao, Rayssa; Foroutan, Hosein (MDPI, 2021-05-01)
With the current COVID-19 pandemic being spread all over the world, lockdown measures are being implemented, making air pollution levels go down in several countries. In this context, the air quality changes in the highly populated and trafficked Brazilian states of São Paulo (SP) and Rio de Janeiro (RJ) were addressed using a combination of satellite and ground-based daily data analysis. We explored nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) daily levels for the month of May from 2015–2020. Daily measurements of NO2 column concentrations from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) aboard NASA’s Aura satellite were analyzed and decreases of 42% and 49.6% were found for SP and RJ, respectively, during the year 2020 compared to the 2015–2019 average. Besides NO2 column retrievals, ground-based data measured by the Brazilian States Environmental Institutions were analyzed and correlated with satellite retrievals. Correlation coefficients between year-to-year changes in satellite column and ground-based concentrations were 77% and 53% in SP and RJ, respectively. Ground-based data showed 13.3% and 18.8% decrease in NO2 levels for SP and RJ, respectively, in 2020 compared to 2019. In SP, no significant change in PM2.5 was observed in 2020 compared to 2019. To further isolate the effect of emissions reduction due to the lockdown, meteorological data and number of wildfire hotspots were analyzed. NO2 concentrations showed negative and positive correlations with wind speed and temperature, respectively. PM2.5 concentration distributions suggested an influence by the wildfires in the southeast region of the country. Synergistic analyses of satellite retrievals, surface level concentrations, and weather data provide a more complete picture of changes to pollutant levels.
Airport Scheduling and Operational Performance: A Clustering Analysis of Airport Response to COVID-19
Alsalous, Osama; Hotle, Susan (American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2023-06)
In early 2020, the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic started and forced air travel demand to decrease sharply in most parts of the world due to travel restrictions that were put in place to limit the spread of the virus. The pandemic also impacted capacity due to reasons such as workforce social distancing, days when Air Traffic Control (ATC) facilities were shut down due to COVID cases, and financial challenges due to the decreased demand. The reduced demand created a unique challenge in the system since capacity exceeded demand by very large margins in the NAS, however, delays in the system did not fall to zero despite the sharp drop in demand. This study analyzed operations at 77 United States (US) airports to compare and contrast their responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of capacity, throughput, and the resulting operational performance. We evaluate the response of airports to the initial shock event during 2020 in addition to the recovery period that followed in 2021. The data showed a 67% decline in total operations at the lowest point during the pandemic. The impact during the shock time period varied greatly across the airports, ranging from a reduction of 14.8% at MEM to 81.5% at LGA. We performed a clustering analysis to study airports’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic. There was a number of airport characteristics that were correlated to the changes in airport metrics. For example, the data showed that being located in a multi-airport city was significantly correlated to the decrease in operations during the shock, however, it was not significant in the recovery trends. Our analysis showed that delays in the system did not change proportionately to the change in operations. Similarly, there were only minor improvements in punctuality, on-time flights at the ASPM 77 airports increased by 9.5% while operations declined by 52% during the shock event time period compared to pre-COVID. Part of this phenomenon was a result of schedule peaking which caused delays due to creating busy hours at the airports. This analysis can inform airport management when responding to future disruptive events, it provides insight into airport operational resiliency, response to disruption, and demand recovery patterns based on airport characteristics.
Alkali-silica reaction (ASR) in concrete structures: Mechanisms, effects and evaluation test methods adopted in the United States
Fanijo, Ebenezer O.; Kolawole, John Temitope; Almakrab, Abdullah (2021-12)
Alkali-silica reaction (ASR) and its associated deformation are major durability problems in concrete structures and was reported as far back as the 1940s by Stanton (2008) [1]. This deleterious reaction causes excessive expansion and cracks that can lead to severe degradation of the concrete structures. Despite the age-long discovery and numerous ASR studies, understanding the ASR mechanism remains challenging due to complex processes and reactions. This paper presents a review of ASR in concrete structures and details the factors associated with ASR, the reaction mechanism and chemistry, and its adverse effect on concrete structures. The alkalis in the pore solution, the reactive amorphous silica present in aggregates, and the presence of moisture (with other external climatic inputs) are the key factors responsible for ASR. The study also provides a critical assessment of the various test methods for ASR evaluation in the United States. A case study correlating the results (from the literature) of three prominent test methods was also carried out. From this review, the new miniature concrete prism test (MCPT) method was concluded to be rapid, reliable, and capable of determining the influence of aggregate reactivity, alkali availability, and exposure conditions as compared to other methods.
Alleviating Water Scarcity by Optimizing Crop Mixes
Richter, Brian D.; Ao, Yufei; Lamsal, Gambhir; Wei, Dongyang; Amaya, Maria; Marston, Landon T.; Davis, Kyle F. (Nature Portfolio, 2023-11)
Irrigated agriculture dominates freshwater consumption globally, but crop production and farm revenues suffer when water supplies are insufficient to meet irrigation needs. In the United States, the mismatch between irrigation demand and freshwater availability has been exacerbated in recent decades due to recurrent droughts, climate change and over extraction that dries rivers and depletes aquifers. Yet, there has been no spatially detailed assessment of the potential for shifting to new crop mixes to reduce crop water demands and alleviate water shortage risks. In this study, we combined modelled crop water requirements and detailed agricultural statistics within a national hydrological model to quantify sub-basin-level river depletion, finding high-to-severe levels of irrigation scarcity in 30% of sub-basins in the western United States, with cattle-feed crops—alfalfa and other hay—being the largest water consumers in 57% of the region’s sub-basins. We also assessed recent trends in irrigation water consumption, crop production and revenue generation in six high-profile farming areas and found that in recent decades, water consumption has decreased in four of our study areas—a result of a reduction in the irrigated area and shifts in the production of the most water-consumptive crops—even while farm revenues increased. To examine the opportunities for crop shifting and fallowing to realize further reductions in water consumption, we performed optimizations on realistic scenarios for modifying crop mixes while sustaining or improving net farm profits, finding that additional water savings of 28–57% are possible across our study areas. These findings demonstrate strong opportunities for economic, food security and environmental co-benefits in irrigated agriculture and provide both hope and direction to regions struggling with water scarcity around the world.
An Alternative Approach for Improving Prediction of Integrated Hydrologic-Hydraulic Models by Assessing the Impact of Intrinsic Spatial Scales
Saksena, Siddharth; Merwade, Venkatesh; Singhofen, Peter J. (2021-10)
The effect of spatial scale and resolution has been quantified individually for different hydrologic and hydraulic processes. However, the model structure and intrinsic resolution are seldom modified to accurately capture scale-dependent physical processes. Although automated calibration methods exist for computationally expensive integrated models, an alternate approach reliant on improving the model structure is proposed here. This study advocates for a better representation of the intrinsic spatial scales of physical processes and their submodels by quantifying the impact of different types of spatial scaling on the overall watershed response. First, the effect of spatial extent scaling is quantified by evaluating the change in the basin response (e.g., streamflow and inundation extent) across a small and large subwatershed for the same region. Second, the effect of modifying the relative intrinsic spatial scales of surface-groundwater (SW-GW) submodels is quantified. Finally, the results are used to implement a better model structure for improving prediction across two watersheds with distinct physical characteristics. The findings suggest that the relative intrinsic scales of SW-GW submodels may be different for different hydrogeological systems depending on the ratio of the characteristic length scales of hydrologic-hydraulic processes. Conducting a scaling analysis can help identify how different physical processes can be best represented in integrated models for a range of climatological and physiographic conditions which can potentially serve as an alternative to extensive calibration in distributed models. Therefore, it is recommended that this analysis should be included as a prerequisite to extensive parameter calibration for large-scale-integrated models.
Analysis of Peak Flow Distribution for Bridge Collapse Sites
Ashraf, Fahmidah U.; Flint, Madeleine M. (MDPI, 2019-12-21)
Bridge collapse risk can be evaluated more rigorously if the hydrologic characteristics of bridge collapse sites are demystified, particularly for peak flows. In this study, forty-two bridge collapse sites were analyzed to find any trend in the peak flows. Flood frequency and other statistical analyses were used to derive peak flow distribution parameters, identify trends linked to flood magnitude and flood behavior (how extreme), quantify the return periods of peak flows, and compare different approaches of flood frequency in deriving the return periods. The results indicate that most of the bridge collapse sites exhibit heavy tail distribution and flood magnitudes that are well consistent when regressed over the drainage area. A comparison of different flood frequency analyses reveals that there is no single approach that is best generally for the dataset studied. These results indicate a commonality in flood behavior (outliers are expected, not random; heavy-tail property) for the collapse dataset studied and provides some basis for extending the findings obtained for the 42 collapsed bridges to other sites to assess the risk of future collapses.

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