Surface mining is a commonly used method for extracting coal in the Appalachian Coalfields of the U.S. This mining practice produces excess spoil or overburden, which is often placed in adjacent valleys resulting in the creation of valley fills. These valley fills bury headwater streams, which in turn can negatively impact downstream ecosystems. In 2008, the University of Kentucky designed and constructed 1,020 m of ephemeral, intermittent and headwater streams on an existing valley fill (Guy Cove) as a proof-of-concept. The goal of the project was to evaluate whether or not a stream recreation could occur on mined lands, particularly a valley fill. The hydrograph characteristics discharge volume, peak discharge, discharge duration, peak time, lag time, and response time were evaluated from three watersheds: (1) unmined, forested watershed (control), (2) partially restored watershed with the intermittent stream (Guy Cove), and (3) a mined watershed with an unrestored stream (valley fill with traditional mined land reclamation practices). Results from four years of monitoring indicate that the created intermittent stream at Guy Cove is hydrologically similar to the control during storm events; however, differences were noted for base flow. A new stream restoration design technique, which combines natural channel design and furrow irrigation design protocols, was investigated.

abstract: Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD) is a growing and expanding trenchless method utilized to install pipelines from 2 to 60 inch diameters for lengths over 10,000 foot. To date, there are not many public documents where direct costs and bid prices incurred by HDD installations are available and analyzed. The objective is to provide a better understanding of the factors affecting the bid prices of these projects. The first section of the thesis analyzes how project parameters such as product diameter, bore length and soil conditions affect the bid price of water and wastewater pipeline installations using HDD. Through multiple linear regressions, the effect of project parameters on bid prices of small, medium and large rigs projects is extracted. The results were further investigated to gain a better understanding of bid factors that influence the relationship between total cost and the project parameters. The second section uses unit cost, based on bid prices, to compare the costs incurred by defined categories. Parameters such as community type, product type, soil conditions, and geographical region were used in the analysis. Furthermore, using average unit cost from 2001 to 2009, HDD project cost trends are briefly analyzed against the main variations of the US economy from the same time horizon by using economic indicators. It was determined that project geometric factors influence more the bid price of small rig projects than large rig projects because external factors including market rates and economic situation have an increasing impact on bid prices when rig size increases. It was observed that bid price variation of HDD projects over years followed the same trend as the US economic variation described by economic indicators. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Construction 2010

Climate change is a global concern as it may affect many aspects of life, including water supply. A tool used to model climate change’s impacts is called a General Circulation Model (GCM). GCMs project future scenarios including temperature and precipitation, but these are designed at a coarse resolution and require downscaling for employment for regional hydrologic modeling. There is a vast amount of research on downscaling and bias-correcting GCMs data, but it is unknown whether these techniques alter precipitation signals embedded in these models or reproduce climate states that are viable for water resource planning and management. Using the Tampa, Florida region for the case study, the first part of the research investigated 1) whether GCM and the downscaled, bias-corrected data were able to replicate important historical climate states; and 2) if climate state and/or transition probabilities in raw GCMs were preserved or lost in translation in the corrected downscaled data. This has an important implication in understanding the limitations of bias-correction methods and shortcomings of future projection scenarios. Results showed that the GCM, and downscaled and bias-corrected data did a poor job in capturing historical climate states for wet or dry states as well as the variability in precipitation including some extremes associated with El Niño events. Additionally, the corrected products ended up creating different cycles compared to the original GCMs. Since the corrected products did not preserve GCMs historical transition probabilities, more than likely similar types of deviations will occur for “future” predictions and therefore another correction could be applied if desired to reproduce the degree of spatial persistence of atmospheric features and climatic states that are hydrologically important. Furthermore, understanding the sustainability of water supply systems in a changing climate is required for undertaking adaptation measures. Many water suppliers employ GCMs to examine climate change’s effect on hydrologic variables such as precipitation, but little is known on the propagation of mismatch errors in downscaled products through cascade of hydrologic and systems models. The second study examined how deviations in downscaled GCMs precipitation propagated into streamflow and reservoir simulation models by using key performance metrics. Findings exhibited that simulations better reproduced the resilience metric, but failed to capture reliability, vulnerability and sustainability metrics. Discrepancies were attributed to multiple factors including variances in GCMs precipitation and streamflow cumulative distribution functions, and divergences in serial correlation and system memory. Finally, the last study examined multiple models, emission scenarios and an ensemble to obtain a range of possible implications on reservation operations for time periods 2030-2053, 2054-2077 and 2077-2100 since the future emission trajectory is uncertain. Currently there are four Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) as defined by the IPCC’s fifth Assessment Report which provides time-dependent projections based on different forecasted greenhouse gas emission and land use changes. For this research Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) 4.0, 6.0 and 8.5 were examined. Scenarios were evaluated utilizing reliability, resilience, vulnerability and sustainability performance metrics and compared to a historical baseline. Findings exhibited that RCP 4.5, the lower end of emission scenario, improved reservoir reliability and resilience over time. Conversely, RCP 8.5, highest emissions, resulted in a steady decline of all metrics by 2100. Although vulnerability increased by 2100 for all emission scenarios, on average RCP 4.5 was less vulnerable. Investigation of permits and adjustments to capture extreme flows might be necessary to combat climate changes and precipitation inputs along with improvements to atmospheric emissions, which correlated with system recuperation with time.

Diploma work that deals with topic of "Anti - flood measures on chosen parts of the Novohradka river" is divided into theoretical and practical treatise. Theoretical treatise contains specific section that deals with laws relating to flood solutions and general part that explains flood as such and everything it involves. Practical part sums up concrete proposed anti - flood measures but it also mentions personal suggestions and evaluations of so far executed measures. This work should especially attract attention of general public and representatives of interested parties.

The Florida Everglades is a massive and highly managed subtropical wetland ecosystem, strongly influenced by anthropogenic control of freshwater distribution and highly susceptible to a changing climate, including rising sea-level and changes in temperature and rainfall. Shifting hydrologic regimes impact ecosystem function and biogeochemistry, which in turn control the sources, fate, and transport of organic matter. As a master environmental variable, it is essential to understand how organic matter dynamics will respond to changes in the balance between freshwater and saltwater associated with landscape-scale Everglades restoration efforts and climate change. The research comprising this dissertation improves current understanding of the linkages between organic matter and hydrology in the Everglades across a broad range of temporal and spatial scales. A range of research tools, including stable molecular biomarkers, water quality sensors, data synthesis and multivariate statistics were utilized. Biomarkers were used to track particulate organic matter mobilization in response to experimentally manipulated flows and provided initial evidence that sheet flow restoration can re-engineer landscape microtopography, influencing both ecosystem structure and organic matter inputs to Everglades National Park (ENP). Short-term and long-term temporal studies indicated the quantity and quality of dissolved organic carbon responds to changes in freshwater flow to marshes and mangrove forests in ENP, and that spatial patterns and trends are driven by a complex mixture of managed and natural surface water inputs (i.e., rainfall and water management inflows) as well as groundwater discharge. Application of climate scenario forecasting to relationships established between organic matter and hydrologic drivers predicted reductions in dissolved organic carbon export from ENP and changes in organic matter molecular composition. Furthermore, high-frequency measurements showed hydrologic connectivity of freshwater and estuarine organic matter pools at sub-monthly time-scales. In summary, the work presented here clearly indicates strong yet spatiotemporally complex relationships between changes in water and the sources and transport of organic carbon through the Everglades.

Master of Science / Biological & Agricultural Engineering / Stacy L. Hutchinson / Increasing attentiveness to climate change and the dependence of human life on natural resources has spurred awareness about the detrimental impacts of human activity on the environment. Ecosystem services, or the benefits that humans derive from ecosystems, have changed more in the past 50 years than in any other comparable period in human history (Carpenter et al., 2009).The dilemma of managing the trade-off between immediate human needs and maintaining the ability of the Earth to provide ecosystem services is considered to be one of the largest challenges of this century (Foley et al., 2005). The ecosystem service concept aims maximize the provision of services across an entire ecosystem to achieve overall ecosystem health through land management, policy, and economic decisions. The intent of this research was to improve such decisions by increasing the understanding about the relationship between urban best management practices and freshwater provision, erosion regulation, and flood regulation ecosystem services. Fifty-six land management scenarios with varying densities of BMP application were simulated using the Stormwater Management Model (SWMM). The ecosystem services resulting from these land management scenarios were quantified using indices developed by Logsdon and Chaubey (2013). Results demonstrate that the application of bioretention cells improve both freshwater provision and erosion regulation services immediately downstream from the implementation site, and an increase in erosion regulation services was observed at the greater watershed scale. There was no change in the provision of freshwater, erosion regulation, or flood regulation services observed by the application of green roofs or rain barrels at either scale of analysis.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T19:31:48Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2887.pdf: 12223893 bytes, checksum: 0d6c09be0f47222ee4a1691802f86c83 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-03-09 / Universidade Federal de Sao Carlos / Evaluation of quality and quantity of water contributes to the strategic decisionmaking policies and techniques to ensure the potential use of this resource for agriculture, industry, animal watering and for human consumption. In order to assist the governing of the Rico stream watershed to create mechanisms and effective action to combat pollution from this resource this study was conducted. In 2006 the treatment sewage plant in the city of Monte Alto was established in this basin. The city of Jaboticabal, that uses the water of the stream Rico for human consumption, is located dowstream of this plant. Chemical, physical and microbiological analysis, were carried out in various parts of this basin. There was a significant variation in the water quality in this watershed between the dry and wet stations. It is concluded that the tributary that drains the area of the town of Monte Alto and its treatment sewage plant impairs the quality of water in this basin. / A avaliação da qualidade e quantidade hídrica contribui para a tomada de decisões estratégicas políticas e técnicas que garantam o uso potencial deste recurso tanto para agricultura, indústria, dessedentação animal e para o consumo humano. Com o objetivo de auxiliar os órgãos gestores da bacia hidrográfica do córrego Rico, município de Jaboticabal, SP, a criar mecanismos e ações eficazes no combate à poluição deste manancial, este estudo foi realizado. Foram realizadas análises de 35 variáveis limnológicas (químicas, físicas e microbiológicas) em 10 pontos de coleta desta bacia hidrográfica em dois períodos (agosto de 2008 e março de 2009). Os resultados das análises das variáveis limnológicas foram comparados com o uso e ocupação do solo desta bacia hidrográfica. Observou-se uma variação significativa na qualidade da água desta bacia entre os períodos de seca e precipitação. Concluiu-se que o afluente que drena a área urbana do município de Monte Alto e de sua estação de tratamento de esgoto interferem negativamente na qualidade da água desta bacia hidrográfica. De todas as variáveis analisadas somente as concentrações de fósforo total e mercúrio estiveram acima dos valores máximos permitidos pela resolução CONAMA, 357 de 2005 para rios classe 2. As águas dos córrego Rico e Tijuco são impróprias para consumo humano sem tratamento prévio.

Orientador: Teresa Cristina Tarlé Pissarra / Banca: Miguel Luiz Menezes Freitas / Banca: Sergio Campos / Resumo: Este trabalho teve como objetivo realizar análise morfométrica e diferenciar áreas de manejo no que tange à qualidade do solo e da água de bacias hidrográficas no Município de Batatais, Estado de São Paulo. A área de estudo é a microbacia hidrográfica do Córrego da Cachoeira, situada entre as coordenadas geográficas 20°53'35" a 20°57'54" de Latitude S, e 47°31'45" a 47°33'21" de Longitude WGr, abrangendo desde a foz do Córrego da Barata até às cabeceiras dos córregos da Prata e da Estiva. As formas das bacias hidrográficas podem ser consideradas como fontes de dados relevantes para a obtenção de informações sobre a evolução do modelado da superfície da Terra no que tange ao canal de drenagem principal e seus tributários. As variáveis estudadas foram as dimensionais, do padrão de drenagem e do relevo. As bases cartográficas do IBGE e do IGC foram usadas para a hierarquização da rede de drenagem e para a análise morfométrica. A microbacia se caracteriza por ser uma drenagem fluvial exorreica, com rios consequentes e drenagem dendrítica. O baixo valor do fator de forma indica uma bacia mais alongada e com menor risco de enchentes sazonais. Os valores de densidade de drenagem, freqüência de rios e razão de bifurcação, são considerados baixos e indicam a formação de solo sobre rocha permeável. Os valores da razão de relevo e razão de relevo relativo sugerem uma microbacia com relevo relativamente suave. Todas as características físico-químicas da água diferiram estatisticamente ao longo do período analisado. Os valores de pH e de oxigênio dissolvido foram mais uniformes que a temperatura. A condutividade elétrica, os sólidos totais e a turbidez foram as características que mais variaram durante o ano de coleta e as melhores para a diferenciação dos manejos. As microbacias B8 (cana) e B17 (pinus) apresentaram as maiores ... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: This study aimed to conduct morphometric analysis and differentiate management areas with respect to soil quality and water basins in the City of Batatais, State of Sao Paulo. The study area is the watershed of the Waterfall Creek, located between the geographic coordinates 20°53'35" to 20°57'54" Latitude S, 47°31'45" to 47°33'21" Longitude WGr, ranging from the mouth of the stream Cheap until headwaters of streams of Silver and Stowage. The morphometric analysis was performed to characterize the morphology of the terrain. The shapes of the basins can be considered as relevant data sources to obtain information on developments in the modeling of the Earth's surface with respect to the main drainage channel and its tributaries. The variables studied were the dimensional, pattern of drainage and relief. The cartographic IBGE and IGC were used for the ranking of the drainage network and for morphometric analysis. The watershed is characterized as a fluvial drainage exorreica, with consequent streams, and dendritica drainage. The low value of the form factor indicates a more elongated basin and with less risk of seasonal floods. The values of drainage density, frequency of rivers and bifurcation ratio, are considered low and indicate the formation of soil over rock permeable. The values of the relief ratio suggest a watershed with relatively mild relief. All physico-chemical properties of water differ statistically over the period analyzed. The values of pH and dissolved oxygen were more uniform than temperature. The electrical conductivity, total solids and turbidity were the more characteristics ranged during the year of collection. Turbidity, electrical conductivity and total solids were the best water features to differentiate the management. On the basin B8 (sugar cane) and basin B17 (pine) the properties of water behave with the largest changes, probably due to the scarce ... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre

Orientador: Marcos Franke Pinto / Coorientador: Danielle de Bem Luiz / Coorientador: Elisa Helena Giglio Ponsano / Resumo: O crescimento sustentável da indústria de processamento de tilápia está diretamente relacionado com o uso eficiente de água e com a gestão da qualidade da água devolvida ao meio ambiente. Foi avaliado o uso global de água um uma planta de produção de filé de tilápia, bem como o uso de água em diferentes etapas do processamento. Para isso, foram instalados hidrômetros em 13 pontos do estabelecimento. Em seguida, foram sugeridas ações de minimização visando diminuir o uso de água. O uso global de água foi de 432 m³.dia-1, sendo a etapa de depuração responsável por 40,7% desse volume, seguida das atividades relacionadas com a limpeza (32,3%). As ações de minimização implantadas reduziram 29% do uso de água referente à área limpa do processamento da empresa. Em seguida, foi realizada a caracterização físico-química e microbiológica dos efluentes gerados na indústria para a determinação das suas cargas de poluentes. A indústria, como um todo, gerou um efluente com alta carga de matéria orgânica, sendo as etapas onde há maior contato da água com o pescado e seus resíduos (cabeça, carcaça, carne, pele, sangue e vísceras) as maiores fontes poluidoras. Os parâmetros de DBO, DQO e óleos e graxas apresentaram os valores acima dos limites estabelecidos pela legislação para lançamento em sistemas de esgotamento sanitário ou em corpos hídricos receptores. Isso evidenciou a necessidade de um tratamento prévio do efluente antes do seu descarte. Além disso, foi avaliado o potencial do efluent... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: The sustainable growing of the tilapia processing industry is directly related to the efficient use of water and to the management of the quality of water returned to the environment. The global use of water in a tilapia fillet processing plant and the use of water in different processing stages were evaluated. For this, hydrometers were installed at 13 points within the premisses. Additionally, minimization actions were suggested aiming at reducing the water use. It was used 432 m3 .d-1 of water, being the depuration stage responsible for 40.7% of this volume, followed by the general cleaning process of the plant (32.3%). The applied minimization actions reduced in 29% the use of water in the clean area of the processing flow. After this, the physical-chemical and microbiological characterization of the effluents generated by the industry was performed in order to evaluate the pollutant load. The industry, as a whole, produced an effluent with high organic matter load, being the stages in which the water contacts the fish and the solid residues (head, carcass, meat trimmings, skin, blood and viscera) the main pollutant sources. The parameters BOD, COD, oils and greases presented values above the legal limits to dispose in the effluent treatment systems or in the hydric spring. This demonstrated the necessity of a previous treatment of the effluent before it is discarded. Besides that, the potential of the effluent from the depuration stage to be reused for urban purposes and... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Doutor

A regionalização hidrológica é uma técnica que permite transferir informação de regiões hidrologicamente monitoradas, para regiões com pouco ou sem monitoramento. Sendo assim, é uma ferramenta útil, a qual permite uma avaliação dinâmica dos recursos hídricos. No Brasil e no Estado de Santa Catarina as leis que são as principais referências para a gestão de recursos hídricos utilizam critérios anuais de disponibilidade hídrica, impossibilitando um maior uso em épocas onde a disponibilidade é maior e, assim, afetando o desenvolvimento econômico. As previsões sazonais servem de base para uma gestão e utilização sustentável dos recursos hídricos. A justificativa de não se usar critérios sazonais, talvez seja pelo fato de não existir trabalhos ou ferramentas que contemplam o estado da arte da regionalização hidrológica. O objetivo deste trabalho é fazer a regionalização hidrológica do Estado de Santa Catarina, mediante uma abordagem geoestatística baseada em modelos e na sazonalidade. Foram utilizados estações pluviométricas e fluviométricas disponibilizadas, respectivamente, pela Companhia de Pesquisa de Recursos Minerais (CPRM) e Agência Nacional das Águas (ANA). As estações são distribuídas regularmente e em alta densidade sobre o Estado. Para a modelagem geoestatística, inicialmente foi verificada algumas suposições a serem consideradas, entre elas, a normalidade e a estacionaridade espacial dos dados. Após as suposições terem sido aceitas foi verificado, por meio de testes estatísticos em função da verossimilhança, se a estrutura de dependência espacial do modelo geoestatístico aumentava o desempenho do mesmo, justificando o uso dessa estrutura para a espacialização das variáveis pluviométricas e fluviométricas. Para verificar os pressupostos de uma boa predição, foi avaliada a dispersão dos resíduos das interpolações espaciais, mediante uma validação cruzada. Os resultados mostraram um melhor desempenho para os modelos geoestatísticos com a estrutura de dependência espacial, para todas as variáveis; assim, esses modelos foram utilizados para a interpolação espacial, no qual foi observado pela dispersão dos resíduos uma boa predição. Este trabalho contribui para uma melhor representação espacial de variáveis sazonais no Estado de Santa Catarina e permite um avanço no estado da arte, uma vez que está embasado em critérios de verossimilhança para escolha de modelos que representam melhor o fenômeno estudado no espaço. / Hydrologic regionalization is a technique that allows the transfer of information from regions hydrologically monitored, for regions with little or no monitoring. Therefore, this technique allows a dynamic evaluation of water resources being a useful tool. In Brazil and in Santa Catarina state, the laws that are the main references for the management of water resources use annual criteria of water availability. Thus, using a greater amount of resources when availability is greater is infeasible and affects economic development. Seasonal forecasts provide the basis for sustainable management and use of water resources. The justification for not using seasonal criteria may be because there are no works or tools that contemplate the state of the art of hydrologic regionalization. The aim of this work is to make the hydrologic regionalization of Santa Catarina state, using a geostatistical approach based on models and in seasonality. Data from rain gauge and streamflow stations made available by the Mineral Resources Research Company (CPRM) and National Water Agency (ANA), respectively, were used. These stations have regular distribution and high density within the state. For the geostatistical modeling, some basic assumptions such as data normality and spatial stationarity were verified. After accepting the assumptions it was verified through statistical tests regarding its likelihood, if the structure of spatial dependence of the geostatistical model increase its performance, justifying the use of this structure for the precipitation and streamflow spatialization. To check the assumptions of good prediction, the residue dispersion of the spatial interpolations was evaluated through cross-validation. The results showed a better performance for the geostatiscal models with the spatial dependence structure, both for precipitation and streamflow. Thus, these models were used to the spatial interpolation, observing a good prediction through the residue dispersion. This work contributes to a better spatial representation of seasonal variables in Santa Catarina state and allows an advance in the state of the art, since it is based on likelihood criteria to choose models that better represent the phenomenon studied in space.