Non-point pollution from stormwater runoff is one of the greatest threats to water quality in the United States today, particularly in urban karst settings. In these settings, the use of karst features and injection wells for stormwater management results in virtually untreated water being directed into the karst aquifer. Currently, no policies exist specifically to provide water quality protections to karst environments. This study utilized a combination of karst stormwater quality data, along with survey data collected from MS4 Phase II communities, and an analysis of current federal, local, and state water quality regulations, to assess the need for karst-specific water quality regulations. Water quality data indicate that significant levels of contamination are mobilized during storm events, and often are directed into the karst system via Class V injection wells. Survey data collected from MS4 stakeholders in the karst regions of Kentucky indicate stakeholders are generally unable to explain local karst regulations or the steps taken to develop them. This confusion comes in part from insufficient progress on evaluation criteria available for the MS4 Minimum Control Measures (MCMs). Karst waters are often placed into the legal “gray zone” due in part to differences in definitions of key terms in state and federal regulations. This study recommends the development of regulations specific to karst waters at the state and federal levels through either the adaptation of existing or creation of new policies, which place an emphasis on the integration of water quality monitoring and karst education.

The City of Auburn is faced with a number of problems relating to its dependency on two karst springs, Auburn and Summers Springs, to meet its water requirements. Besides being extremely vulnerable to contamination, the springs often discharge and insufficient volume of water needed for public consumption and dilution of the City’s treated wastewater. Thus the City wishes to find an additional source of water and views nearby Shakertown Spring as a possibility. The study has three main objectives: 1) delineation of the Auburn, Summers, and Shakertown Springs ground water basins, 2) determination of the volume of available water at each spring, and 3) investigation of additional potential water supplies as alternatives to the use of Shakertown Spring. A well survey and karst hydrogeological inventory, supplemented by dye tracing, were conducted to reveal water table information necessary for ground water basin delineation and construction of a potentiometric map. Water monitoring stations were constructed at the three springs, discharge measurements performed and stage monitored over a fifteen month period. The Auburn, Summers, and SHakertown Springs Karst Ground Water Basins are estimated to possess areas of 9.74, 3.49 and 19.02 square miles (25.23, 9.04, and 49.26 square kilometers) respectively. Summers Spring was found to have an estimated base flow discharge of 1 – 2 cubic feet per second (cfs) (0.03 – 0.06 cubic meters per second (cms)) and Shakertown Spring an estimated base flow discharge of 8 – 9 cfs (0.2-0.3 cms). Estimation of base flow discharge at Auburn Spring was not possible due to the location of the City’s water intake pipe at the spring head. However, a minimum discharge of .22 cfs (0.01 cms) was recorded on thirteen separate occasions during the period monitored. Five alternatives for the City of Auburn, including Shakertown Spring and two additional, though smaller, water sources are presented. The best source of water for the City must be decided with consideration of cost and need. A potentiometric map depicting ground water basins, water table contours and subsurface flow routes is presented as a tool for the City of Auburn to aid in decisions regarding its water resources.

Numerous studies have analyzed isotopic variation of meteoric and dripwater in karst environments for paleoclimate reconstructions or aquifer recharge capacity. What is poorly understood is how the isotopic signal of δ18O and δ2H is transferred through the hydrologic cycle based upon storm type, frequency, intensity, and teleconnection activity in the tropical karst areas. At Harrison’s Cave, Barbados, a Hobo Onset event data logger was attached to a tipping bucket rain gauge to count the tips and record the total rainfall every 10 minutes. In the cave a Hobo data logger was used to record relative humidity and temperature at 10-minute intervals. Rainwater, dripwater, and stream water samples were collected at a weekly resolution and refrigerated before sample analysis. The study period was from July, 2012 to October, 2013, with data from the data loggers only until June, 2013 due to inability to reach the study site. The samples were analyzed using the Picarro Cavity Ring Down Spectroscopy Unit-Water L1102-I through laboratories at the University of Kentucky and the University of Utah. The samples were reported in per mil and calibrated. The teleconnection (NAO, AMO, and ENSO) and other atmospheric data were obtained from the Climate Prediction Center or the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory-Physical Sciences Division. The weekly isotope signatures were linearly regressed against total rainfall for Harrison’s Cave and surface temperature with no statistically significant correlation, indicating the amount effect was not present at a weekly resolution. The amountweighted precipitation δ18O values were calculated on a monthly basis and compared to TRMM monthly rainfall and island-wide monthly rainfall, and a statistically significant negative correlation was found between both datasets. This confirmed that the amount effect dominates the island’s rainfall isotopic signature at a monthly resolution, and that specific atmospheric influences represented in weekly rainfall were less influential on a weekly basis. It is hypothesized that the variation in weekly rainfall is due to quick initiating, rain-out, and dissipation of convective storm systems over the island. In terms of evaporative influences, the samples do not deviate much from the Global Meteoric Water Line (GMWL), indicating minimal evaporation, which is typical for tropical locations. When the d-excess parameters were calculated, there were distinct variations with minimal evaporation occurring in the 2013 calendar year. This is attributed to coastal storm formation in the tropics.

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.

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.

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.

This dissertation works to create a clearer understanding of sustainability in water policy. Current water policy in four US cities was compared to a matrix of recommended sustainability themes that have been presented in the literature to determine the extent of which these themes have been implemented into water policy. To best analyze policy for sustainability it is necessary to look at the policy of cities that are considered sustainable. This was determined by a city’s inclusion in “Most Sustainable US Cities” lists. The two cities that best represented sustainability were Austin, TX and San Francisco, CA. The research also included cities that are not considered leaders in sustainability but are similar in demographics, population, and state; these two cities are Fort Worth, TX and San Jose, CA. Finally, the same matrix was applied to the state policy to establish how state policy influences city sustainability. The results of this study add to the current knowledge in this field as it contributes a current analysis of sustainable water policy. The final findings compile the themes into a sustainability pyramid framework of common, uncommon, and rare sustainability. It appears that the ‘sustainable’ cities have included more uncommon and rare themes than the traditional cities, while common themes are implemented across the board. Common themes are those that are traditionally associated with sustainability – themes like conservation, reuse, and reducing pollutant impact on water sources. In order increase sustainability, cities should apply more of the themes from the top of the pyramid.