World Environmental and Water Resources Congress 2018: International Perspectives, History and Heritage, Emerging Technologies, and Student Papers

The San Dimas Experimental Forest (SDEF) has been designated as a hydrologic research area by the United States Forest Service since 1933. This study focuses on Bell Canyon (895 acres) the upper most watershed contained in the Big Dalton watershed, a part of the SDEF. A scaled physical watershed model was developed for Bell Canyon at a 1:1,900,000,000 for the flow output. The model offers a comprehensive visualization of watershed processes such as rainfall intensity, peak discharge, and travel time. The preliminary results from the physical model demonstrated a peak discharge ranging from 0.00017 to 0.0012 cfs (4.8 to 34 mL/s) and travel times that ranges from 50 seconds to 1.5 minutes. Validation of the physical model will be done through comparison to a computer model in HEC-HMS and development of design storms. The completion of the models will provide educational instruction, community outreach, and continued research on Bell Canyon.

Providing engineering undergraduates opportunities to apply their classroom-based learning into real-world situations enhances their understanding of the disciplines they will soon practice, but also contributes to a multi-stakeholder perspective that highlights the human side of engineering. The authors designed a multi-disciplinary pilot senior design project that incorporated classroom and field-based experiences in an international setting. This project provides participating students the ability to attend to global challenges such as water scarcity, renewable energy, food security, and public health, but also opportunities to partner with government officials, university faculty, professional engineers, and civil society. As Russell, Hancock, and McCullough have argued, undergraduate participation in hands-on research is “widely believed to encourage students to pursue advanced degrees and careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematic fields.” A 2003 report by Treverton and Bikson concluded that “to effectively exercise leadership in the global workplace, employees must demonstrate…a multidimensional and well-integrated repertoire of skills that include professional or technical knowledge related to the organization’s core business; managerial ability that includes effective interpersonal and teamwork skills; a strategic understanding of their organization and industry in a global context; and…cross-cultural experience.” International engineering research experiences and learning by doing encourages and enhances the skill-building necessary for twenty-first century engineers. The goal of this project was simple, take undergraduate engineering and liberal arts students from the United States to Latin America for the expressed purpose of exposing them to cultural and practical experiences they could not have on their own campuses. Over three years (2011–2014), students traveled to Latin America and consulted with community members, interviewed professional engineers, and designed a complementary water system for a small rural community in Ecuador. The design had to be sustainable and environmentally and socially sound. They used these experiences as the basis for their senior design projects, capitalizing on the experiences they had to bring real-world applicability to their work. For those students who had the international experience (not all could travel, so some participated only in campus-based activities), they stated that it changed the way they “saw” engineering. It fostered a belief in engineering as a “helping” discipline. Projects like Sin el agua no hay vida “Without water there is no life” afford engineering students opportunities to work in multidisciplinary teams, experience engineering in practice, and expose them to global challenges.

The Karoonjhar mountainous area, situated at the southeast corner of Thar Desert, Pakistan, faces water scarcity most of the year due to erratic rainfall and limited groundwater resources. Though the area receives sufficient rainfall during the monsoon period, but water is not conserved in small dams and ponds for later use during the dry periods. One major challenge in implementing these runoffs harvesting techniques is the unavailability of data regarding runoff generation and lack of studies identifying suitable conservation sites. Looking at the gravity of the problem, the present study was conducted to delineate watersheds, quantify runoff, and identify potential runoff conservation sites in Karoonjhar mountainous area using remote sensing and GIS tools. Primary data was collected through ground trothing survey and soil sampling while secondary data about rainfall was obtained from Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD). The 30-m resolution digital elevation model (DEM) was acquired from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The data was processed in ArcGIS 10.3 and HEC-GeoHMS for the required objectives. The present study revealed that the probability of return period of a rainstorm of 52.5 mm was highest, i.e. 1.78 years. For a single rainstorm event of 52.5 mm, runoff generated at Karoonjhar mountainous area was about 7055 acre-ft (AF). Thirteen small watersheds with a total area of about 82314 acres were delineated for runoff harvesting. The curve number (CN) of the study area ranged from 54 to 100. Based on the historical rainfall data, runoff volume of about 21165 AF could be generated during the entire monsoon period. Results from the present study provide valuable information to water managers and decision makers that can be used to identify location and size of water harvesting structures such as small dams and ponds.

India is the second largest democracy with a population of about 1325 million. About 30% (around 400 million) population is living in cities, out of which around one-third is living in urban slums. The country has more than 65 million-plus cities, out of which 8 cities are mega-cities. Delhi (also known as the National Capital Territory of India) is a metropolitan region in India that includes the national capital city, New Delhi. It is the world’s second most populous city and the largest city in India in terms of area. Delhi has a population of around 19 million with the population growth rate of 2.1% per annum during the decade 2001–2011 with a population density of 11297 persons/sq. km area. Providing sustainable water supply to this capital city is a major challenge. The source of raw water for producing potable water in Delhi is Yamuna River, Upper Ganga Canal, and Satluj River through Bhakra Dam (Govind Sagar reservoir) as well as through local Ranney and tube wells. The Delhi Jal Board (DJB) is responsible for distributing clean and pure water in Delhi. However, it is a great challenge for managing drinking water to this National Capital Territory of Delhi in India due to various reasons such as heavy permanent and floating population, large expansion, environment deterioration, large competing demands, and depleting raw water sources under changing climatic conditions. At present, DJB is only able to distribute about 848 million gallons per day (MGD) which includes 100 MGD of groundwater. Further, there are only 4 to 6 hours of water supply in some of the important areas of South Delhi. The objective of this paper is to perform a quantitative assessment of water supply in Delhi using Water Evaluation and Planning System (WEAP) software under different climatic conditions.

Droughts detrimentally affect the agriculture, economy, environment, and water resources management. In the recent decades, droughts have been occurring more frequently in many areas in the world, and these are exacerbated by global warming. Also, several global climate models (GCMs) projected that drying trends in precipitation, streamflow, and soil moisture would happen in many parts of low- and mid-latitude countries because of increases in GHG and global warming. Thus, evaluation of future droughts is especially crucial for water resource management and planning.

Yellow starthistle is a winter annual plant native to the Mediterranean region. Its infestation in the northwestern United States is considered as a serious problem in rangelands, grasslands, and wildlands. Due to the plant’s high water usage, yellow starthistle increases water conservation costs and threatens native plant ecosystems, which necessitates control of starthistle. This study focuses on plant water use through direct quantification of surface water and groundwater responses to different vegetation treatments–with and without yellow starthistle–in small sub-watersheds located in Northern California. Four sub-watersheds that are heavily infested by the yellow starthistle and representative of the larger landscape (with varying sizes from 1.8 to 3.6 hectares) are identified. Meteorological stations, soil moisture sensors, piezometers, and flumes are installed in the watersheds. The monitoring system provides data via wireless communication technology which allows continuous monitoring from the remote project site, and makes data acquisition and analysis more efficient and cost effective. Data collection will be performed over the whole study period, starting from January 2018 and spanning a total of three years. The first year of the experimental study will be without treatment and the remaining two will include treatment. The monitored meteorological information, surface runoff, and changes in groundwater conditions and soil moisture conditions will be used to characterize baseline and after-treatment hydrologic functioning of the watersheds.

Providing safe and adequate drinking water to the growing city of Freetown in Sierra Leone under changing climatic conditions is a challenging task. Despite naturally available water, the freshwater availability is very much limited. The growing demand for water supply in the city is facing tough competition for various uses like food production, industrial requirements, and other domestic requirements. This has led to a mismatch between the supply and demand and has built up pressures on the freshwater sources like Guma, Charlotte, Kongo, and Takayama. Further, the poor water policy, weak public sectors, inadequate water management laws, and institutional framework have led to the degradation of water supply infrastructure in this capital city. In order to preserve the water ecosystems and biodiversity as well as to take up the challenges of climate change, it is desired to explore sustainable water supply sources and to check the resilience of the existing system. Keeping this in mind, the present study focuses on assessing the resilience of the existing system and identifies the factors that affect the same. In order to augment the resilience of the system, the study explores the issue of supply and demand management. It advocates the integrated water supply management (IWRM) for an efficient and effective resilient water supply system for the city of Freetown.

The history of civil engineering education and student chapters of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) in Minnesota are highlighted. Information covers programs at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, the University of Minnesota Duluth, and Minnesota State University, Mankato. For each school, contact information and associated engineering research centers are listed.

In the modern world of today, it is easy to overlook significant accomplishments of the past century, some of which continue to provide benefits even to this day. One such accomplishment is the initiation of wastewater collection and treatment for Minneapolis and Saint Paul during the period 1926–1938. The problem addressed was the pollution of the Mississippi River. Extensive planning was followed by engineering design, construction, and operation of facilities that started the ever-evolving process of water pollution control. Evidence that this seminal work was of high quality is the fact that so much of this initial accomplishment remains fully functional and vital today. Evidence of the longevity of good planning, engineering, and construction is the remarkable record of subsequent inspection findings and low level of necessary maintenance and repair, particularly for the extensive collection system. Problems that have occurred provide lessons learned about the design details of the original project. The century since 1914, when the Minnesota Section, ASCE began, has seen the completion of many significant civil engineering projects. Perhaps none have been more so than the initiation of wastewater collection and treatment for Minneapolis and Saint Paul. This project is significant because of the gravity of the problem, the extensive nature of the planning, design, and construction, and the number of prominent civil engineers who were involved.

This paper recounts the remarkable story of how the drainage of a lead mine by Cornelius Vermuyden was the driver to both legal changes and changes in mining practice which encouraged the establishment of water powered cotton spinning in the lower Derwent Valley in Derbyshire, England. It describes the development of the first three mills built by Sir Richard Arkwright including the early reliance on mine drainage water for power and Arkwright’s magnificent Masson Mill at Matlock Bath which provided a major step change in mill design. It will document the establishment of competition and developments of mill design further down the valley which greatly influenced high building design. It also recalls how the famous Samuel Slater became known locally as Slater the Traitor when he illegally travelled to the USA, to help with the technical problems being experienced by an existing mill owner, and later, to establish his own mills in the USA.

Frederick William Cappelen was born on October 21, 1857, in Drammen, Norway. Frederick graduated from Dresden Polytechnic Institute (Germany) as a civil engineer with the highest honors ever won at that time by a foreign student. At Brainerd, Minnesota, from 1881 to 1884, he served as assistant engineer (Missoula Division) of the Northern Pacific Railway Company. Then, he worked for the City of Minneapolis as bridge engineer, remaining in that position until 1892. During this time, he designed and built three highway bridges across the Mississippi River. On January 2, 1893, he was elected City Engineer of Minneapolis. During a latter term, he built the St. Anthony Bridge, which crossed the Mississippi at St. Anthony Falls. Cappelen was responsible for the design of water projects in Minneapolis, including the distinctive Prospect Park Water Tower and the Kenwood Park Water Tower and in 1895, he designed the Minneapolis Reservoir System which was the first step toward the purification of the city water supply. By the ASCE Minnesota Centennial (2014), Cappelen has been cited as the “Father” of Minneapolis water supply. The current Franklin Avenue bridge, later named the Cappelen Memorial Bridge (of reinforced concrete construction, 1030 ft. long with five spans), was designed and its construction started by Cappelen. In 1913–1921 he again became City Engineer. When the Northwest Section (later Minnesota Section) of ASCE began in 1914, Frederick W. Cappelen served as the first President. Frederick W. Cappelen passed away on October 16, 1921.

Leif J. Sverdrup (1898–1976), Honorary M.ASCE, was a Norwegian-born American civil engineer who became the highest ranking reserve officer in U.S. Army Corps of Engineers history. Leif and his family emigrated to Minnesota after 1914, and he served in the U.S. Army during World War I (1917–18). Leif returned to Minneapolis and accepted a reserve officer’s field artillery commission and enrolled in University of Minnesota civil engineering (bachelor’s degree in 1921). He worked for the Minnesota and Missouri State Highway Departments (becoming chief bridge engineer in Missouri). In 1928 he and his former civil engineering Professor John I. Parcel formed Sverdrup & Parcel Consulting Engineers, establishing their St. Louis office with the first job (Missouri River Highway Bridge) and designing many other bridges. In October 1941, the War Department selected Sverdrup & Parcel to develop airfields across the Central Pacific with access to American bases in the Philippines. Sverdrup was a Major General and Chief Engineer in charge of combat engineering in the Southwestern Pacific under MacArthur. After the war, the firm focused on transportation and defense, including construction of the world’s largest wind tunnels (Arnold Engineering Center). From 1947–58, Sverdrup became commander of the 102^nd Division of the Army Reserve, and achieved the 3-star rank of lieutenant general. The firms major projects include Arnold Engineering Development Center and 1964 Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, the latter being named an ASCE OCEA and Seven Engineering Wonder of the Modern World. Two sports venues by Sverdrup & Parcel include Busch Stadium, St. Louis, and the Louisiana Superdome, New Orleans. On 2 May 1975, Sverdrup attended the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ 200th Anniversary Dinner and presented MacArthur’s Gold Castles insignia to the Chief of Engineers, Lieutenant General William C. Gribble, Jr.

John Frank Stevens began his civil engineering career as a rodman on a survey crew in Maine in 1872. He soon moved to Minneapolis, where he apprenticed himself, eventually becoming Assistant City Engineer. In 1876 he began working for railroads in the western United States. In 1882 Stevens began working for a contractor laying tracks for the Canadian Pacific Railroad in Saskatchewan. The next spring he became assistant engineer of location for the Canadian Pacific, completing the first transcontinental line linking Montreal with Vancouver in 1888. In 1889 James Jerome Hill retained Stevens as chief pathfinder for the new Great Northern Railway between Minneapolis and Seattle. Shortly thereafter Stevens discovered the fabled Marias Pass. The following year he blazed a path across the Cascade Range that was named after him. This transcontinental line was completed in 1893, and Stevens became Chief Engineer of the Great Northern System. In 1903 he was named Vice President of the Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific Railroad in Chicago. In June 1905 Stevens was appointed Chief Engineer of the Panama Canal project. He reorganized the canal’s construction departments and spent millions on improving sanitation, which saved the project. In December 1905 Stevens began advocating for a locked canal with a massive earthen dam at Gatun. This plan was approved by Congress in June 1906 and eventually completed in 1914. In 1912 James Jerome Hill called upon Stevens to construct the Oregon Trunk Railway along the Deschutes River Gorge in Oregon. Following the collapse of Imperial Russia in 1917, President Woodrow Wilson asked Stevens to chair a board of prominent railroad experts dispatched to Eastern Russia to offer advice on how the Trans-Siberian Railway could be salvaged and put back into operation. Stevens remained in the Far East until 1923. From 1925–29 Stevens served as a consultant on the 8-mile New Cascade Tunnel under Stevens Pass, and served as President of ASCE in 1927. He died in June 1943, at the age of 90.

Unlike most national parks, main access to Voyageurs National Park is by boat. This remote system of interconnected waterways along the USA-Canada border was an important transportation route for thousands of years of American Indian occupation, leading up to and including the trade route of the voyageurs, or French-Canadian fur traders from around 1680 to 1870. The Ojibwe people collaborated with the voyageurs and the two cultures developed a trade network that continued to rely on these waterways. By the mid-1800s, European fashion changed, and the fur trade dwindled while the Ojibwe remained tied to the land and waters. The complexity of the waterways increased with the installation of dams on two of the natural lakes in the early 1900s. Modern water levels have affected—and in some cases destabilized—vulnerable landforms within the past century. The knowledge of these effects can be used by resource managers to weigh the consequences of hydrologic manipulation in Voyageurs National Park.

This is the first of three accounts documenting the history of the St. Anthony Falls Laboratory that was designed and built under the direction of a dedicated individual, Lorenz G. Straub. Straub had been a Freeman Fellow and visited and observed several laboratories in Germany during the two years of his fellowship. He came to the University in 1930 and promptly set to work to establish his own laboratory. His vision came to fruition through a WPA grant to the University of Minnesota and construction started in 1936. Straub came to be known as the “River Doctor” for his many studies at SAFL on several aspects of river engineering.

This second of three parts of the history of the St. Anthony Falls Laboratory (SAFL) at the University of Minnesota documents the transition to increased emphasis on environmental research. SAFL methodology includes laboratory experimentation and field observations, physical model studies and numerical simulations, and stochastic data analysis. Much of the research at SAFL has been connected to hydraulic structures, renewable energy, protection of the environment, and geophysical fluid dynamics. From its beginning in 1938, SAFL has been an interdisciplinary science and engineering research and educational facility with a strong grounding in fluid mechanics. Starting in the 1960s and 1970s, when awareness and legislation of environmental impacts of human activities grew dramatically, SAFL’s research expanded significantly into areas connecting fluid mechanics with the chemistry and biology of aquatic environments, and into geophysical (earth-surface) processes. Environmental research at SAFL began with water resources engineering and riverine sediment transport. After developing and applying techniques of physical model studies for hydraulic structures and high-speed marine propulsion, SAFL researchers developed numerical flow and water quality simulation models for the protection of aquatic environments. Studies on the influence of fluid flow on pollutant transport and the growth and behavior of organisms were initiated. Geophysical processes became a centerpiece of SAFL research with the creation of the National Center for Earthsurface Dynamics (NCED), which got a home at SAFL in 2002. Fluid flow in the human body has been studied in co-operation with medical professionals. Field-scale experimentation was added for environmental and geophysical studies. Sophisticated experimental facilities and data acquisition and simulation tools have been developed by SAFL researchers. Examples of environmental research and design studies that have been conducted at SAFL since its opening in 1938 will be presented in nine major research categories: urban storm water runoff and water quality; environmental transport and mixing; water quality dynamics and modeling; global climate change effects; protection of fish and fish habitat; eco- and bio-fluid mechanics; watershed eco-hydrology and the Outdoor Stream Lab; sediment transport, earth surface dynamics, and the NCED legacy; and innovations in instrumentation and data acquisition. Examples will showcase the evolution and significance of environmental research at SAFL. The outlook for environmental research at SAFL and its connection to renewable energy will be presented in Part 3 of the presentation.

Following dam installations in the remote Rainy Lake Basin during the early 1900s, water-level fluctuations were considered extreme (1914–1949) compared to more natural conditions. In 1949, the International Joint Commission (IJC), which sets rules governing dam operation on waters shared by the United States and Canada, established the first rule curves to regulate water levels on these waterbodies. However, rule curves established prior to 2000 were determined to be detrimental to the ecosystem. Therefore, the IJC implemented an order in 2000 to change rule curves and to restore a more natural water regime. After 2000, measured chlorophyll-a concentrations in the two most eutrophic water bodies decreased whereas concentrations in oligotrophic lakes did not show significant water-quality differences. Fish mercury data were inconclusive, due to the variation in water levels and fish mercury concentrations, but can be used by the IJC as part of a long term data set.

As the further development of market-oriented power system reform in southwest China, hydropower system in the regions where electricity market reform has not been developed must be prepared for the upcoming market environment. This study analyses the primary market environment of Wujiang hydropower system, which determine the year-end energy storage solutions, for long-term optimal scheduling. Scheduling of Wujiang cascade hydropower plants pursue two goals: one is to realize the coordinated and stable operation of hydro-thermal system, another is to maximize the revenue of hydropower system. In this paper, a long-term optimal scheduling model of cascade hydropower plants with generation rights trading is proposed. The model achieves maximum comprehensive revenue by optimizing the power generation revenue and the energy storage revenue at the end of the planning horizon. The proposed model is applied to the operations of Wujiang cascade hydropower plants, and the properties of the model are also discussed.

As we debate the challenges posed by nuclear proliferation or climate change, water and sanitation problems faced by the developing countries are quite likely to overwhelm other priorities if the situation isn’t addressed adequately by the world community soon. Lack of safe drinking water is also affecting the health and well-being of people and reducing their life spans. The author will focus on the water resources in Africa—protection or lack thereof watersheds. With encroachments on the fragile watersheds through unplanned development, the future of dwindling water supply resources is quite precarious, and poses grave danger not only to health but also threatens stability of political systems.

The study of the use of ceramic pot filters (CPFs) for drinking water disinfection in developing areas is relatively mature in terms of laboratory and field-measured efficacy, and there are a few publications characterizing consumers’ attitudes towards the technology. This paper addresses both issues by comparing measured disinfection and flowrates of CPFs in four Guatemalan villages to the results of user surveys. Performance data collection and user surveys were conducted by a combination of U.S. researchers, U.S. students, and trained staff from a local NGO in the coastal department of Izabal along the Gulf of Honduras over a two-year period. As expected, water quality testing indicated that the CPFs were effective at reducing coliforms in treated water, and consumer attitudes indicated that the majority of users perceived an increase in health benefits associated with CPF use. The collaboration of engineering and social science researchers described in this paper increases the overall understanding of using a sustainable technology to prevent water-borne disease in developing areas, but the uncertainty associated with the results highlights the need for the formal inclusion of another discipline, epidemiology, to more completely characterize CPF deployments.

Soil erosion from agricultural land affects the water quality and environment, as well as soil fertility and agricultural production. In many areas, the economy is centered on this production; therefore, loss of fertility greatly affects the economy of communities and regions as well. In tropical areas, like the eastern savannahs of Colombia, the extreme climate causes the soils to be susceptible to rapidly loose fertility following erosion. Agricultural fields growing soybean, corn, and rice on rotation under three different tillage practices (e.g. conventional tillage, reduced tillage, and direct planting) were studied at the Experimental Station La Libertad (CORPOICA) in Villavicencio, Colombia. Information regarding the climate, crop yield, runoff, sedimentation, and nutrients present in the runoff and eroded materials was collected and compared to the APEX (agricultural policy/environmental extender) model predictions. The overall ability of APEX to model runoff and soil erosion is evaluated in this study, with the nutrient enrichment of eroded material being of particular interest. Following the evaluation of soil erosion, environmental economic accounts will be evaluated to determine the economic impact of erosion and loose of soil fertility in the study area.

The phenomena of spilling water is an increasingly serious issue of reservoir operation in southwest China, such as Wujiang River Basin facing the risk of spilling water in long-term operation because of unpredictable characters of stream inflow. The risk is originally measured by two aspects-the probability of the event and the seriousness of the consequences, and only the probability is taken into account in this study. This paper established a practical method to measure spilling water probability. First, this study using spilling water ratio to describe spilling water probability. Second, a reduction method based on the constant of total amount of inflow is provided to simulate many stream inflow processes corresponding to one certain stream inflow scenario. At last, the number of processes encountered spilling water can be count through long-term optimal operation of reservoir. As a result, a risk analysis method is set up to quantify the spilling water risk by defining the ratio of the number of failure processes (encounter spilling water) to the total processes number. Case study indicated that this method can effectively describe the risk of spilling water and provide guidance for reservoir operation.

International exchanges and sponsorships allow female scholars opportunities for broader engagement in the scientific community. In 2016, Noshaba Hassan Malik, a Ph.D. student at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, Pakistan, conducted research with Dr. Heidi L. Gough, faculty at the University of Washington. The exchange allowed both scholars to expand their knowledge base and to better understand differences between the two academic institutions. Particularly, because women tend to be less engaged in international scientific exchanges, this model serves as an example of the power of long-term exchange in improving female engagement in global water research. During the exchange, Dr. Gough and Ms. Malik worked together to characterize the biotreatment potential of newly isolated bacteria that were capable of degrading dyes found in textile wastewater. The approach of using of bacteria capable of decoloring dyes has been proposed for development of biologic treatment options for wastewater produced during textile dyeing. Specialized bacteria have been reported that decolor textile wastes. However, knowledge of the kinetics of decolorization is needed to develop and model a treatment approach. This study documented the ability of newly-isolated bacteria to degrade a mixture of three dyes (reactive red, blue, and yellow) in batch reactors, and established their kinetic rates of degradation; this data is presented in the main text. An over-arching goal of the project is to apply kinetics knowledge for development of larger-scale reactor systems that can be used in developing nations where currently available treatment is often not an economically viable option.

Recent advances by the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) have made possible the ability to forecast streamflow at near global scales in fine scale spatial resolution. This new tool, the Streamflow Prediction Tool (SPT), takes 15-day European Center for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) runoff forecasts and calculates streamflow using the routing application for parallel computation of discharge (RAPID) hydrologic routing model. The SPT streamflow product is useful in calculating initial inundation at large spatial scales using the AutoRoute flood extent model. The SPT can also provide boundary conditions for nested hydrologic models, e.g., higher-fidelity models in specific areas of interest. This presentation provides an overview of how ERDC researchers link SPT outputs to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Hydrologic Engineering Center River Analysis System (HEC-RAS) Version 5. The linkage allows ERDC to perform high fidelity, two-dimensional hydraulic forecasting at nearly any location in the world. The linkage relies upon the availability of high-resolution, global digital elevation models (DEMs). Bathymetry is estimated using general concepts related to hydraulic geometry. The authors demonstrate this approach with a case-study example in a data sparse region of the world.

The aim of this presentation is to draw an overview of the existing regime of transboundary water governance in Mexico. The focus is given to the study case of the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo basin shared between Mexico and the United Sates, and of the Usumacinta River basin shared between Mexico and Guatemala. Both, transboundary river basins, share similar challenges and particular issues related to the borders they respectively define. However, both study cases show great differences concerning the ensemble of institutions and policy instruments of governance of water resources. How can best be framed each of the regimes of transboundary water governance? Some preliminary conclusions will be elaborated through a qualitative case study methodology.

The transboundary water issues are usually enshrined in regional and international political arena. In order to have a formative governance and political management, it is desired to have an all-out inclusiveness of various players in various international river basins. However in most of the international river basins, various riparian states find themselves in conflictual situations as they mantle to access and gain control of the fugitive water resources. The Nile River is a unique river system in the African continent which is of utmost importance to the socio-economic development of 11 riparian countries. The pressure for economic development of the basin’s riparian states is fissuring the political landscape on the development and utilization of the Nile waters casting a new era of hydropolitics in the region. This paper discusses the Nile basin hydropolitics currently conspicuously reddened with intrigue and mistrust threatening sustainable development and management of the Nile waters. It highlights the issues and opportunities to better utilize the available resources amicably with minimal conflicts.

Well managed water resources for urban environments are essential, but difficult to achieve, to ease the conflicts among environmental health, social equity, and economic viability for present and future generations. The systematic investigation of interactions among land use, adaption policy, and end water users is essential to advance the understanding of complexed urban hydrologic systems and optimize the water resources planning strategies. With majority of population resided in urban environments, the stability and full functionality of water and waste water system are integral in people’s day-to-day life and prosperity of human society. Designed framework for sustainable water resources management and discussions based on literatures were introduced in this paper, which established for further research activities and management strategies design.

This research is an endeavour to generate future physical susceptibility to erosion under SRES A1B business-as-usual scenario of future climate for the entire coastal area of Bangladesh. This study employed geographical information system (GIS) based spatial raster model namely, coastal erosion susceptibility for Bangladesh (CESB) by employing future projections of climate-induced drivers. The outputs are justified through integrating experts’ opinions by developing fuzzy cognitive maps (FCMs). This study identified a total 276.33 km² of land as high and very high susceptible to erosion for overall baseline condition (2015) that would be increased to 453.81 km², 648.63 km², and 1019.13 km² by 2020, 2050, and 2080 respectively. This study also addressed seasonal variations of future climate in the assessment. This research might be seminal for coastal managers, policy makers, and researchers in managing future coastal lands in the area studied.

Stormwater management is a challenging task in urban areas, particularly in relatively densely populated cities having weak water governance and a lack in the institutional arrangement. It is even more challenging when the natural drainage system experiences relatively high water levels in the peripheral rivers during the rainy season, or if the system capacity is compromised due to encroachment of the runoff detention areas. Having these problems, flooding during the monsoon season is a regular phenomenon in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. The situation of Eastern part of this city is more complex as it also faces external flood from the Balu River. Begunbari canal is the main canal that carries most of the stormwater of Eastern Dhaka as well as pumped discharge from Central Dhaka. But the canal section is inadequate to carry the river water and stormwater. The river water has to be prevented to enter into the canal to manage the stromwater efficiently. An embankment along the river would serve this purpose with pump regulation at the canal outlet. In this study, Begunbari canal catchment (47.67 square km) area of Eastern Dhaka has been modeled in GeoSWMM. The model was calibrated with the observed data and drainage study was carried out for keeping the flooding level in the area below 4.5 m PWD under design storm of 2 day 1:5 year return period draining within 2 days. It was found that 55 cumec capacity pumps with 1.5 square km retention area are required to keep the water level in desired limit.

Home to approximately four hundred thousand inhabitants and an important touristic center, the City of Santos is the largest seaport in South America. This coastal city is located in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. Since 1979, an ocean outfall has been in use for combined sewage disposal from the City of Santos and neighboring City of São Vicente. The existing pipeline is 4.4 km long and 1.7 m in diameter. It is laid out within a relatively shallow depth of 10 m and its discharge capacity is 5.3 m³/s. Enhance primary treatment and increase the length of the outfall are alternatives in the study in order to improve the outfall system and deal with population increase and new environmental requirements. The fate and transport of sewage effluent, in light of proposed improvements of primary treatment and the augmentation of outfall’s length are evaluated in this paper. Delft3D is used to simulate plume dispersion and other key variables. This is done while considering the non-steady nature of coastal hydrodynamics, tidal effects, wind, current speed, climate conditions, and other drivers. The modified dispersion processes for each alternative are presented and the results from a physical model of the Santos Bay and estuary are coupled to better represent the plume simulations. This research helps find that the proposed alternatives of enhanced primary treatment and a longer outfall give the answer to an improved disposal system that meets environmental requirements.

Stream water samples and stream flow characteristics from a section of the main channel of Catalpa Creek in Starkville, MS, were collected and measured weekly from ten different locations within the upper 4 miles along the main stream channel to quantify the change of sediment transport with respect to time and location. The suspended sediment concentration, stream flow, and the suspended sediment discharge were calculated and graphically analyzed. Results showed the suspended sediment transport and stream flow varied significantly at certain locations within the main channel, peaked to an immense level after a storm event, and remained at lower levels during base flow conditions. A few specific events and characteristics such as rainfall, road construction activity, a beaver dam, tributary inflow, culverts, and bridges are theorized to contribute suspended sediment, affect stream flow, and influence erosion/deposition processes within the stream. Rainfall seemed to be the largest driving influence of stream flow and sediment transport. The road construction appeared to contribute sediment to the stream. At the location of the transect 1.5 miles, a beaver dam reduced the stream’s flow significantly and seemed to support the collection of suspended sediment at that location within the stream. The trends reflecting the change of Catalpa Creek’s flow, suspended sediment concentration, and suspended sediment discharge with respect to time and location within the stream were analyzed in attempt to better understand how Catalpa Creek and the surrounding watershed function and interact.

As the intensity of hydrologic events and concerns of pollutants in stormwater runoff increase, it is critical to recognize the importance of stormwater management. Thus, best management practices (BMPs) have been developed as control measures against the potentially detrimental effects caused by excess runoff. BMPs, whether structural or institutional, have been proven to successfully manage stormwater runoff, improve runoff quality, and mitigate effects of erosion. Rain gardens or bioretention facilities have been used as a structural BMP to filter pollutants from runoff and mitigate erosion by slowing runoff volume and velocity. However, because of the great variability in soil type, vegetation, rainfall conditions, and many other parameters, it is difficult to assess the hydrologic efficiency of a given rain garden. Past research has quantified rain garden’s performance in terms of volume of the system’s inflow, outflow, and removal of nutrients and heavy metals. Because a good understanding of design configurations, climate conditions, and temporal relationships are crucial for the efficient performance of a rain garden, this paper aims to compare and contrast research on previous rain garden research in order to determine correlations between design configurations and their potential to both flow and pollutant loads. From these compiled studies it was found that hydraulic conductivity is a major design configuration to be considered, as high infiltration leads to greater hydraulic performance but poor nutrient removal and that inherent soil properties such as the P-index are indicative of how well the rain garden will perform in terms of water quality.