<p>Light rainfall is the baseline input to the annual water budget in mountainous landscapes through the tropics and at mid-latitudes. In the Southern Appalachians, the contribution from light rainfall ranges from 50-60% during wet years to 80-90% during dry years, with convective activity and tropical cyclone input providing most of the interannual variability. The Southern Appalachians is a region characterized by rich biodiversity that is vulnerable to land use/land cover changes due to its proximity to a rapidly growing population. Persistent near surface moisture and associated microclimates observed in this region has been well documented since the colonization of the area in terms of species health, fire frequency, and overall biodiversity. The overarching objective of this research is to elucidate the microphysics of light rainfall and the dynamics of low level moisture in the inner region of the Southern Appalachians during the warm season, with a focus on orographically mediated processes. The overarching research hypothesis is that physical processes leading to and governing the life cycle of orographic fog, low level clouds, and precipitation, and their interactions, are strongly tied to landform, land cover, and the diurnal cycles of flow patterns, radiative forcing, and surface fluxes at the ridge-valley scale. The following science questions will be addressed specifically: 1) How do orographic clouds and fog affect the hydrometeorological regime from event to annual scale and as a function of terrain characteristics and land cover?; 2) What are the source areas, governing processes, and relevant time-scales of near surface moisture convergence patterns in the region?; and 3) What are the four dimensional microphysical and dynamical characteristics, including variability and controlling factors and processes, of fog and light rainfall? The research was conducted with two major components: 1) ground-based high-quality observations using multi-sensor platforms and 2) interpretive numerical modeling guided by the analysis of the in situ data collection. Findings illuminate a high level of spatial – down to the ridge scale - and temporal – from event to annual scale - heterogeneity in observations, and a significant impact on the hydrological regime as a result of seeder-feeder interactions among fog, low level clouds, and stratiform rainfall that enhance coalescence efficiency and lead to significantly higher rainfall rates at the land surface. Specifically, results show that enhancement of an event up to one order of magnitude in short-term accumulation can occur as a result of concurrent fog presence. Results also show that events are modulated strongly by terrain characteristics including elevation, slope, geometry, and land cover. These factors produce interactions between highly localized flows and gradients of temperature and moisture with larger scale circulations. Resulting observations of DSD and rainfall patterns are stratified by region and altitude and exhibit clear diurnal and seasonal cycles.</p> / Dissertation

<p> The Lake Titlow watershed (approximately 35,000 acres) in south-central Minnesota is part of the Minnesota River Basin. The lake is listed in the draft 2010 Clean Water Act Section 303d for nutrient pollution, eutrophication, and biological indicators for impairment of aquatic life and recreational use. Over 90 percent of pre-settlement wetlands are currently drained for agricultural land use. The Lake Titlow watershed is over 80 percent row crops and land use is implicated as a primary cause of impairment in the lake. </p><p> Water samples were collected from the Lake Titlow tributaries McLeod-Sibley Judicial Ditch Number 18 (JD18), Sibley County Ditch Number 18 (CD18), and Ditch 250 (D250) during 2009 and 2010 and were analyzed for total suspended solids (TSS), total phosphorus (TP), and nitrate-nitrite nitrogen (NOx). Investigative methods included continuous recording stream stage and through the use of rating curves, discharge. Runoff, sediment loads, and nutrient loads were then determined from the field data. Four rain gauges collected precipitation each year and were used to assess the impact of precipitation on runoff and loading. Four characteristic precipitation events were selected for each of the calendar years 2009 and 2010 to estimate the loads of sediment and nutrients to the lake and more fully understand the specific roles that land use, hydrologic soil group, slope, and precipitation play with regard to causing sediment and nutrient loading in the lake. </p><p> Results indicate runoff and loads are significant and highly variable by position within the watershed, areas referred to herein as subsheds. The row crop land use, soils characteristics, and precipitation do contribute to overall runoff and loads; however, they do not control subshed variability. Although the low-sloping land surfaces of the watershed should not contribute to overall runoff and loads, results indicate that subtle slope changes in the JD18Lo and CD18Lo subsheds could contribute to the variability of loads seen in these portions of the watershed. </p><p> The location and type of best management practices to implement is debatable because the results of this study indicate that large runoffs and loads could originate within any given subshed during any given rainstorm event. This study was unable to precisely identify the root cause of the variability in subshed runoff and loading. Therefore, it is suggested to look at other factors (e.g., antecedent soil moisture, rainfall intensity, mass wasting, etc.) to explain the subshed variability in the sediment and nutrient loading in future studies of this lakeshed.</p>

Master of Science / Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering / Stacy Hutchinson / Military land management is vital to the future health and usability of maneuver training areas. As land disturbance increases, runoff from the area also increases and may create significant erosion potential. Determining the relationship between what is safe training versus what is harmful to the environment can be done by determining runoff potential at different disturbance percentages given different training intensities. Various studies have shown that soil density, soil structure, plant biodiversity, animal biodiversity, and many other essential ecosystem factors are greatly damaged by continuous training. These ecosystem factors influence runoff amounts and likewise erosion potential in that area. The primary factor examined in this study was the Curve Number (CN). Since military procedures do not have predefined CNs, representative CNs were created based off of CNs for agricultural use and supplemental research about training impacts on the land. Training intensity was broken into four classes: undisturbed, light use, moderate use, and heavy use. Five sample watersheds on Fort Riley were used as replications for the study. Disturbance intensity indexes were broken into 10% increments, and changes in runoff amount and peak rate modeled with TR-55. Statistical analysis was done comparing watersheds, training intensities and disturbance percentages for different storm magnitudes to assess statistically significance of changes in runoff amount and peak rate. This analysis showed that runoff amount and rate were both significantly impacted at every 10% increase on disturbance percentage. Results also showed that at the lower disturbance percentage (less than 30%), runoff amount and rate were not significantly impacted by training use classes. From this it can be seen that even with very little training done to the land increased erosion can be expected.

O desenvolvimento urbano altera significativamente o ciclo natural das bacias hidrográficas. Com o surgimento da drenagem urbana sustentável, o rápido escoamento das águas pluviais deu lugar à restituição das características naturais da bacia hidrográfica através do planejamento do desenvolvimento urbano aliado ao uso de técnicas compensatórias que promovem a infiltração e detenção de águas pluviais. Entretanto, em bacias urbanizadas, o uso das técnicas compensatórias tem alcance limitado, principalmente pelo alto grau de impermeabilização das bacias, pela falta de preocupação com a drenagem durante a expansão urbana, pela baixa disponibilidade de espaço e pelos altos custos de aplicação de medidas estruturais de drenagem urbana. Assim, os princípios de drenagem urbana sustentável são muitas vezes considerados inadequados a ambientes de urbanização consolidada. Desta forma, este trabalho teve por objetivo avaliar o desempenho do uso em conjunto de diversas técnicas compensatórias definidas através do desenvolvimento de mapas de adequabilidade de uma bacia hidrográfica urbana à aplicação das técnicas compensatórias e de simulação hidrológica. Foram avaliadas bacias de detenção, pavimentos permeáveis, jardins de chuva, telhados verdes, trincheiras de infiltração e microreservatórios individuais. O desempenho das técnicas compensatórias foi avaliado individualmente e trabalhando em conjunto. Mapas de adequabilidade foram criados para locação e quantificação das técnicas compensatórias na bacia hidrográfica. Os resultados mostraram que a aplicação extensiva de técnicas compensatórias em ambiente urbano pode provocar melhoras significativas na redução de vazão de pico e controle do volume de hidrogramas de cheia, com melhores desempenhos individuais de até 35,5% de redução de pico e 32,48% de redução de volume de hidrogramas (TR 2 anos) com o uso de trincheiras de infiltração e 12,77% de redução de vazão de pico e 9,57% de redução de volume (TR 100 anos) com o uso de telhados verdes. Simulando as técnicas compensatórias mais eficientes funcionando em conjunto, foram obtidas reduções de 59,00% de vazão de pico e 46,37% de redução de volume para precipitações de tempo de retorno de 2 anos e 25,66% de vazão de pico e 26,45% de redução de volume em precipitações de 100 anos de tempo de retorno. Assim, concluiu-se que a adaptação de regiões urbanizadas aos princípios da drenagem urbana sustentável é possível e eficiente, e bons resultados podem ser obtidos mesmo nos ambientes mais densamente ocupados. Entretanto, a falta de planejamento durante o desenvolvimento urbano e a pouca disponibilidade de espaço impede a otimização do arranjo espacial dos dispositivos e limita a eficiência de algumas técnicas compensatórias, principalmente aquelas de grande porte. / Urban development significantly alters the natural cycle of river basins. With the emergence of sustainable urban drainage, rapid stormwater runoff gave way to recovering the natural characteristics of the river basin through the urban development planning coupled with the use of compensatory techniques that promote the infiltration and detention of stormwater. However, in already urbanized basins, the use of compensatory techniques have limited reach, especially by the high impermeabilization of the basins, the lack of concern with drainage during urban sprawl, low space availability and high implementation costs of structural measures of urban drainage. Thus, the principles of sustainable urban drainage are often considered inadequate to consolidated urban environments. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the performance of the conjunction use of several compensatory techniques defined after developing suitability maps for the urban basin and hydrologic simulation. We evaluated detention basins, permeable pavements, rain gardens, green roofs, infiltration trenches and individuals cisterns. We assessed the performance of compensatory techniques working individually and working together. Suitability maps were created for positioning and quantification of compensatory techniques in the watershed. The results showed that extensive application of compensatory techniques in an urban environment could lead to significant improvements in peak flow reduction and control of hydrograms volume, with best individual performance up to 35.5% peak reduction and 32.48% hydrograms volume reduction (TR 2 years) using infiltration trenches and 12.77% peak flow reduction and 9 57% volume reduction (TR 100 years) using green roofs. Simulating the most efficient compensatory techniques working together, the results shown 59.00% of peak flow reductions and 46.37% of volume reduction to 2-years rainfalls and 25.66% peak flow reduction and 26.45% of volume reduction in 100-years rainfalls. Thus, we concluded that the adaptation of urbanized areas to sustainable urban drainage principles is possible and efficient, and good results can be obtained even in the more densely occupied environments. However, the lack of planning for urban development and the limited space availability prevents the optimization of devices spatial arrangement and limits the effectiveness of certain compensatory techniques, especially those large as detention basins.

Thesis. 1977. M.S.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Civil Engineering. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ENGINEERING. / Bibliography: leaves 125-129. / by Kathleen Ann Hurley. / M.S.

Our ability to predict precipitation on climate time-scales (months–decades) is limited by our ability to separate signals in the climate system (cyclical and secular) from noise — that is, variability due to processes that are inherently unpredictable on climate time-scales. This dissertation describes methods for characterizing “weather” noise — variability that arises from daily-scale processes — as well as the potential predictability of precipitation on climate time-scales. In each method, we make use of a climate-stationary null model for precipitation and determine which characteristics of the true, non-stationary system cannot be captured by a stationary assumption. This un-captured climate variability is potentially predictable, meaning that it is due to climate time-scale processes, although those processes themselves may not be entirely predictable, either practically or theoretically. The three primary methods proposed in this dissertation are 1. A stochastic framework for modeling precipitation occurrence with proper daily-scale memory representation, using variable order Markov chains and information criteria for order selection. 2. A corresponding method for representing precipitation intensity, allowing for memory in intensity processes. 3. A semi-parametric stochastic framework for precipitation which represents intensity and occurrence without separating the processes, designed to handle the issues that arise from estimating likelihoods for zero-inflated processes. Using each of these methods, potential predictability is determined across the contiguous 48 United States. Additionally, the methods of Chapter 4 are used to determine the magnitude of weather and climate variability for the “historical runs” of five global climate models for comparison against observational data. It is found that while some areas of the contiguous 48 United States are potentially very predictable (up to ∼ 70% of interannual variability), many regions are so dominated by weather noise that climate signals are effectively masked. Broadly, perhaps 20–30% of interannual variability may be potentially predictable, but this ranges considerably with geography and the annual seasonal cycle, yielding “hot spots” and “cold spots” of potential predictability. The analyzed global climate models demonstrate a fairly robust representation of weather-scale processes, and properly represent the ratio of weather-to- climate induced variability, despite some regional errors in mean precipitation totals and corresponding variability.

Typescript. / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

Iowa first started seeing largescale changes to its landscape with the arrival of Europeans and ensuing conversion of forest and prairie to row crops and pasture and would see its landscape altered again in the early 1900s through the conversion of wetlands to row crops. Watersheds in Iowa, and the Midwest at large, have been drastically altered hydrologically—through land use change, tile drainage, digging of drainage ditches, and channelizing of meandering streams. Though drainage practices maximize arable land, they also induce higher flood peaks. Along with these practices, climate change also has the potential to increase flood peaks. Conservation practices —typically employed to reduce erosion and agricultural pollution—have been proposed to be used to reduce flood peaks, but little analysis has been done on their ability to do so at the watershed-scale. To quantify the impact implementing conservation practices at the watershed-scale has on flood peaks, a novel hydrologic model is run to simulate five conservation scenarios under both historic and increased precipitation continuously for seventeen years. The Generic Hydrologic Overland-Subsurface Toolkit (GHOST) is used to model the Boone River, an agriculturally dominated watershed in Iowa. The Boone River model is calibrated against the United States Geological Survey gaging station near the outlet of the watershed and achieves notable success. For the seventeen year study period from 2002 to 2018, calibration achieved a Nash Sutcliffe efficiency of 0.79, percent bias of -6.0 percent, and R2 of 0.80. To simulate the change from the baseline to a conservation practice, changes were made to the parameters of the baseline, calibrated model to reflect the effects of conservation practices. Scenarios run were the return of row crop acres to native vegetation, improved soil health via cover crops and no-till farming, distributed wetlands, conversion of river-adjacent row crop elements to native vegetation, and conversion of stream order one river-adjacent row crop elements to native vegetation. Results for the seventeen year study period show the average peak flow reductions simulated for the conservation scenarios are 82, 39, 9, 13, and 9 percent respectively for annual maximums and 75, 29, 10, 11, and 7.5 percent respectively for the peaks over the 2-year flood threshold. Of the five scenarios modeled, only native vegetation and cover crops were able to offset the increased precipitation anticipated from climate change.

On June 13, 2008, after many days of rain, the Cedar River flooded the city of Cedar Rapids. With a peak discharge of 139,987 cfs and at 19.12 feet above flood stage, the 2008 flood of Cedar Rapids was the largest flood in the city’s historic record. As rivers rose, the city had received forecasts of an incoming flood as early as June 8. Then, on June 12, it began to rain in Cedar Rapids. Finally, on June 13, 2008, the Middle Cedar crested at 31.12 feet. This thesis project modeled a variety of rainfall patterns on June 12, 2008, to determine the effect of varying rainfall intensity and location on the magnitude of the 2008 flood of Cedar Rapids. Using a method known as Stochastic Storm Transposition (SST), I overwrote precipitation data in a hydrologic model of the Middle Cedar Watershed with rainfall data extracted from specific storm events that occurred in the Upper Midwest. We used a physically-based, semi-distributed hydrologic model known as GHOST (Generic Hydrologic Overland-Subsurface Toolkit) developed by Marcela Politano at the University of Iowa. Traditionally, hydrologic modeling for watersheds has used design storms to create rainfall inputs in flood modeling. These design storms have uniform rainfall timing and accumulation patterns across a watershed and are determined by designated equations for a geographic region. In large watersheds such as the Middle Cedar (2,400 square miles), design storms are not physically realistic because of their uniformity. Additionally, design storms fail to capture unique storm patterns such as high intensity periods or the movement of a storm across a watershed. By implementing SST into GHOST, we used physically realistic storm events that have unique rainfall patterns and intensities within a designated return period. SST extracts rainfall data from real storm events and transposes the storm patterns onto watersheds to provide physically realistic rainfall data for hydrologic modeling. A tool called RainyDay, developed by Professor Daniel Wright at the University of Wisconsin, provided the storm transpositions used in this research. We assigned the storm transpositions return periods created by RainyDay, corresponding to their average transposed rainfall across the Middle Cedar Watershed. Replacing the June 12 rainfall with RainyDay’s two-year transposed storm events (average rain accumulation 1.8 inches) resulted in modeled flood peaks larger than the unaltered June 12 flood peak. Storm transpositions of 5-, 10-, and 2,000-year return periods showed even larger peaks, illustrating the potential for floods much larger than the 2008 flood. In addition to the analysis of flood magnitude in 2008, we modeled a set of storm transposition scenarios for a variety of soil-moisture conditions. The increased discharge levels in scenarios with high soil moisture emphasize the importance of initial conditions in flooding scenarios. Finally, we modeled the effect that two-year RainyDay storms would have had on the 2016 flood of Cedar Rapids had they occurred on the day before the peak. The two-year transpositions showed that with an impending flood crest smaller than the 2008 crest, several two-year RainyDay scenarios would have resulted in floods nearly equal in magnitude to the 2008 flood event. Our manipulation of the rainfall in the Middle Cedar Watershed on June 12, 2008, using the GHOST model provided the opportunity to re-examine the influence that a specific day of rainfall had on the 2008 flood of Cedar Rapids. The potential for higher flooding under conditions of repeated rainfall and high soil moisture illustrates the susceptibility of the Middle Cedar Watershed to future flood events under similar conditions. Applying SST in hydrologic modeling also provided an opportunity to model a variety of rainfall scenarios and to better understand watershed responses to nuanced and physically realistic rainfall patterns.

Stream flowline delineation from high-resolution digital elevation models (HRDEMs) can be problematic due to the fine representation of terrain features as well as anthropogenic drainage structures (e.g., bridges, culverts) within the grid surface. The anthropogenic drainage structures (ADS) may create digital dams while delineating stream flowlines from HRDEMs. The study assessed the effects of ADS locations, spatial resolution (ranged from 1m to 10m), depression processing methods, and flow direction algorithms (D8, D-Infinity, and MFD-md) on hydrologic connectivity through digital dams using HRDEMs in Nebraska. The assessment was conducted based on the offset distances between modeled stream flowlines and original ADS locations using kernel density estimation (KDE) and calculated frequency of ADS samples within offset distances. Three major depression processing techniques (i.e., depression filling, stream breaching, and stream burning) were considered for this study. Finally, an automated method, constrained burning was proposed for HRDEMs which utilizes ancillary datasets to create underneath stream crossings at possible ADS locations and perform DEM reconditioning. The results suggest that coarser resolution DEMs with depression filling and breaching can produce better hydrologic connectivity through ADS compared with finer resolution DEMs with different flow direction algorithms. It was also found that stream burning with known stream crossings at ADS locations outperformed depression filling and breaching techniques for HRDEMs in terms of hydrologic connectivity. The flow direction algorithms combining with depression filling and breaching techniques do not have significant effects on the hydrologic connectivity of modeled stream flowlines. However, for stream burning methods, D8 was found as the best performing flow direction algorithm in HRDEMs with statistical significance. The stream flowlines delineated using the proposed constrained burning method from the HRDEM was found better than depression filling and breaching techniques. This method has an overall accuracy of 78.82% in detecting possible ADS locations within the study area.