The Sevier River Basin situated in south central Utah is characterized by its semiarid climate, snowmelt-driven runoff, and high dependency on agricultural economy. High evapotranspiration and low precipitation make agricultural production challenging, but naturally stored water in the snowpack in the mountains alleviates water stresses during high water demand seasons. The snowmelt-driven river flow along the main channel is highly exploited for irrigation for farms near the Sevier River. Reservoir operations and river diversions result in heavily regulated flows from the upper to the lower basins. The return flows of over-irrigated water in the upper basin increase salinity of surface water. Long-term applications of salinity water in agriculture eventually produce high soil salinity in the agricultural areas near Delta in the lower basin, which deteriorated farmers’ crop productivity. Farmers cropping near Delta struggle with both water and salinity stresses. Indeed, crop prices and yields are always their concerns. For them, efficient water management can be achieved with consideration of hydrologic, agronomic, and economic aspects of water resources. The overall goal of this research was to develop a decision supporting framework for efficient water and land allocations that considered hydrologic processes, crop response to water in salinity-affected farms, and farmers’ profit and financial risk. This research introduces a methodology for predicting water availability in a given cropping year from the snowpack in the mountains, and agronomic simulations with satellite images follow for quantifying crop response to water. The hydrologic predictions and the agronomic simulations are finally incorporated into an economic analysis that provides efficient water and land allocations with multiple crop selections. In a rural river basin, data limitation is a common concern for water resources engineers; thus simple but robust methodologies are proposed for hydrologic prediction. In the same context, satellite images are used for the estimation of crop yields in individual farms near Delta with no prior crop experimental plots. Historical records of crop prices are used for the economic analysis. The methodologies developed in this research provide a comprehensive decision analysis framework for efficient water management where water is scare and available from snowmelt only, the economy depends on agriculture only, and salinity is present in both soil and water due to long-term irrigation. The case study is for the agricultural area near Delta in the Sevier River Basin, but its applicability is not limited and is flexibly applicable to other agricultural regions.

Regulated rivers provide opportunities to improve habitat quality by managing the times, locations, and magnitudes of reservoir releases and diversions across the watershed. To identify these opportunities, managers select priority species and determine when, where, and how to allocate water between competing human and environmental users in the basin. Systems models have been used to recommend allocation of water between species. However, many models consider species’ water needs as constraints on instream flow that is managed to maximize human beneficial uses. Many models also incorporate uncertainty in the system and report an overwhelmingly large number of management alternatives. This dissertation presents three new novel models to recommend the allocation of water and money to improve habitat quality. The new models also facilitate communicating model results to managers and to the public. First, a new measurable and observable habitat metric quantifies habitat area and quality for priority aquatic, floodplain, and wetland habitat species. The metric is embedded in a systems model as an ecological objective to maximize. The systems model helps managers to identify times and locations at which to apply scarce water to most improve habitat area and quality for multiple competing species. Second, a cluster analysis approach is introduced to reduce large dimensional uncertainty problems in habitat models and focus management efforts on the important parameters to measure and monitor more carefully. The approach includes manager preferences in the search for clusters. It identifies a few, easy-to-interpret management options from a large multivariate space of possible alternatives. Third, an open-access web tool helps water resources modelers display model outputs on an interactive web map. The tool allows modelers to construct node-link networks on a web map and facilitates sharing and visualizing spatial and temporal model outputs. The dissertation applies all three studies to the Lower Bear River, Utah, to guide ongoing habitat conservation efforts, recommend water allocation strategies, and provide important insights on ways to improve overall habitat quality and area.

April 1st Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) reconstructions were generated using tree-ring chronologies for the Upper North Platte River Basin (UNPRB), located in north-central Colorado and south-eastern Wyoming. To regionalize April 1st snowpack data from 11 SNOw TELemetry stations (SNOTEL stations), Varimax Rotated Principal Components Analysis (PCA) was used. For the 11 station regionalization, the reconstruction explained 42% of the variance in the instrumental record and extended the record to 1378 (632 years). Retained tree-ring chronologies included those that were stable and positively correlated at 99% confidence levels or higher with the regional snowpack data for a 60–year overlapping period of record from 1940 to 1999. Stepwise Linear Regression was performed for the overlapping (calibration) period to develop regression models for the reconstructions. Eleven stations were individually reconstructed of which three stations (Dry Lake, Old Battle, and Lake Irene) explained variances greater than 40%. A contour plot of the R2 values for all 11 stations revealed that the more statistically skillful reconstructions were for stations spatially adjacent to the tree-ring chronologies used in the regression models. When the two individual stations with the lowest explained variance were removed from the 11 station snowpack regionalization, the new nine station regionalization reconstruction explained 45% of the variance over the same 632 year period.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of North Carolina at Wilmington, 2006. / Includes Appendixes. Includes bibliographical references (leaves: [54]-56)

A road in operation along with its traffic can pose aserious pollutant threat to groundwater and surface water inits vicinity. Examples of pollutants are metals from thecorrosion of vehicles, rails and poles and the wear of roadsurfaces and tyres; hydrocarbons from the wear of roadsurfaces, tyres, exhausts, oils; sodium chloride from roadsalt; and hazardous goods discharged in accidents. Eventuallypollutants that are not degraded or retarded in soil will reachgroundwater and surface water. The chloride ion in deicing saltis a good tracer. It is conservative and highly soluble and notsubject to retardation or degradation. If the chlorideconcentration has increased in groundwater or surface water inthe vicinity of a deiced road, other road-related pollutantsmight also be present in the water. Increased chloride concentrations have been observed inseveral water supplies, in groundwater as well as in surfacewater, since the 1970s. The number of affected water supplieshas also increased. The increase in chloride concentration inwaters is concurrent with the increase in deicing saltapplication and it is clear that most of the increase is due tothe application of deicing salt. The thesis presents a simple tool that quantified theincrease in chloride concentration for water in a catchmentarea, based on a steady-state water balance. The data wereefficiently processed and presented as maps with GIS. At aregional catchment area scale, substantially increased chlorideconcentrations were calculated. The variation between catchmentareas was verified by a national monitoring programme of lakes.Deicing salt application was estimated to account for more thanhalf of the total chloride load for a catchment area in the midsouth of Sweden. A distributed dynamic method was used to evaluate thetemporal and spatial variation of the chloride concentration inan aquifer. The distributed dynamic approach integrated thespreading of deicing salt from the road with the infiltrationin the unsaturated zone in the soil, which in turn wasintegrated with the groundwater flow. The simulation was runfor a 40-year period and showed a potential to describe aspecific system. <b>Keywords:</b>road, deicing salt, monitoring, chloride,catchment area, river basin, simulation, GIS, groundwater,surface water

The Devils Lake defection of 2005 demands a re-evaluation of the venerable Boundary Waters Treaty (BWT) between Canada and the United States. Why was the long-successful water agreement unable to solve this relatively minor dispute? More importantly, given irregularities between theoretical assertions and institutional history, what theory of international relations best explains a cooperative agreement that spans a near-century? Due to the complexities of shared river systems, any theory that seeks to explain international cooperation must adequately encompass three separate sources of state motivation. First, it must explain the technical, basin-position-driven realities that affect state attitudes towards negotiations. Second, it must explain the longer-term strategic factors that can inspire states to accept immediate losses for subsequent gains. Finally, it must acknowledge domestic sources of influence and understand how these forces constrain the state vis-à-vis others. This paper argues that liberalism, as defined by Andrew Moravcsik, is the best theoretical candidate. This is proven by comparing interpretations of the BWT history through realist, neoliberal, constructivist, and liberal lenses. After identifying and examining each theory's strengths and weaknesses, liberalism emerges as the most holistic view and should be favoured as a primary explanatory theory. Liberalism's theoretical underpinnings – interest group politics – best handles the technical, strategic, and domestic influences that affect Canada-US water relations. Whether examining what prompted efforts to initiate a water-sharing agreement, explaining the agreement's final structure, determining the impetus for continued cooperation, or identifying the incentives to finally break from treaty obligations, liberalism provides the most satisfying solutions. Though derived from the Canada-US border relationship, liberalism's superiority is not limited to the North American watershed. Because the factors examined are common to all shared international river systems and the paper's results are scalable, this suggests that liberalism will continue to be the appropriate primary IR theory to employ when examining state decision-making regarding water-sharing agreements.

Potato ground cover and spectral data were measured in the Columbia Basin during the 1990 growing season. Three spectral were correlated with ground cover; normalized difference, near infrared-red ratio, and the first derivative of the spectral curve at 750 nm. All models were statistically significant at the 99% level. Normalized was most correlated followed by the near infrared-red ratio, and the first derivative of the spectral curve at 750 nm. / Graduation date: 1992

The research described in this thesis examines how the hydrologic cycle is affected by climate changes in the Mackenzie River Basin (MRB) in northern Canada. The study focuses on five hydro-meteorological variables; runoff, evapotranspiration, storage, temperature and precipitation. Two different climate input data sets were used: Environment Canada gridded observed data and the European Center for Medium range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) Re-Analysis climate data (ERA-40). In both data sets, runoff and evapotranspiration were modelled using the WATFLOOD hydrological model for the period of 1961 to 2002 on a 20 by 20 km grid. Trends were assessed on a monthly and annual basis using the Mann-Kendall non-parametric trend test. The hydrologic cycle in the MRB appears to be strongly influenced by climate change. The results reveal a general pattern of warming temperatures, and increasing precipitation and evapotranspiration. Overall decreases in runoff and in storage were detected from the Environment Canada data set while increases in runoff and in storage were detected from the ECMWF data set. The trends in runoff and evapotranspiration reflected changes in both precipitation and temperature. The spatial pattern of changes in runoff followed the pattern of change in precipitation very closely in most of the months, with the exception of March and October. The effect of changes in temperature is much more noticeable than that of changes in precipitation in March and October. The change in spatial distribution of evapotranspiration, on the other hand, matched the pattern of changes in temperature better; yet its seasonal pattern follows more closely to that of precipitation. The sensitivity of annual runoff to changes in climate was also estimated using a nonparametric estimator. Among the most important findings are: 1) runoff was more sensitive to precipitation and less sensitive to temperature; 2) runoff was positively correlated with precipitation and evapotranspiration; 3) runoff was negatively correlated with temperature, implying any increase in melt runoff from glaciers caused by increases in temperature were offset by losses due to evapotranspiration within the basin; 4) soil moisture storage may play an important role in the runoff and evapotranspiration processes; and 5) the sensitivity of mean annual runoff to changes in precipitation and evapotranspiration is typically lower along the Rocky Mountain chain, higher in the central zone of the Interior Plain, and highly varied in the Canadian Shield region in the basin. Correlation analysis suggested that the agreement between the two data sets is very weak at the grid-cell level. However, there was broad degree of consistencies in the seasonal and spatial patterns of trends between the two data sets, suggesting that the data are more reliable for identifying hydrological changes on a regional scale than at grid-cell level.

The research described in this thesis examines how the hydrologic cycle is affected by climate changes in the Mackenzie River Basin (MRB) in northern Canada. The study focuses on five hydro-meteorological variables; runoff, evapotranspiration, storage, temperature and precipitation. Two different climate input data sets were used: Environment Canada gridded observed data and the European Center for Medium range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) Re-Analysis climate data (ERA-40). In both data sets, runoff and evapotranspiration were modelled using the WATFLOOD hydrological model for the period of 1961 to 2002 on a 20 by 20 km grid. Trends were assessed on a monthly and annual basis using the Mann-Kendall non-parametric trend test. The hydrologic cycle in the MRB appears to be strongly influenced by climate change. The results reveal a general pattern of warming temperatures, and increasing precipitation and evapotranspiration. Overall decreases in runoff and in storage were detected from the Environment Canada data set while increases in runoff and in storage were detected from the ECMWF data set. The trends in runoff and evapotranspiration reflected changes in both precipitation and temperature. The spatial pattern of changes in runoff followed the pattern of change in precipitation very closely in most of the months, with the exception of March and October. The effect of changes in temperature is much more noticeable than that of changes in precipitation in March and October. The change in spatial distribution of evapotranspiration, on the other hand, matched the pattern of changes in temperature better; yet its seasonal pattern follows more closely to that of precipitation. The sensitivity of annual runoff to changes in climate was also estimated using a nonparametric estimator. Among the most important findings are: 1) runoff was more sensitive to precipitation and less sensitive to temperature; 2) runoff was positively correlated with precipitation and evapotranspiration; 3) runoff was negatively correlated with temperature, implying any increase in melt runoff from glaciers caused by increases in temperature were offset by losses due to evapotranspiration within the basin; 4) soil moisture storage may play an important role in the runoff and evapotranspiration processes; and 5) the sensitivity of mean annual runoff to changes in precipitation and evapotranspiration is typically lower along the Rocky Mountain chain, higher in the central zone of the Interior Plain, and highly varied in the Canadian Shield region in the basin. Correlation analysis suggested that the agreement between the two data sets is very weak at the grid-cell level. However, there was broad degree of consistencies in the seasonal and spatial patterns of trends between the two data sets, suggesting that the data are more reliable for identifying hydrological changes on a regional scale than at grid-cell level.

<p>A road in operation along with its traffic can pose aserious pollutant threat to groundwater and surface water inits vicinity. Examples of pollutants are metals from thecorrosion of vehicles, rails and poles and the wear of roadsurfaces and tyres; hydrocarbons from the wear of roadsurfaces, tyres, exhausts, oils; sodium chloride from roadsalt; and hazardous goods discharged in accidents. Eventuallypollutants that are not degraded or retarded in soil will reachgroundwater and surface water. The chloride ion in deicing saltis a good tracer. It is conservative and highly soluble and notsubject to retardation or degradation. If the chlorideconcentration has increased in groundwater or surface water inthe vicinity of a deiced road, other road-related pollutantsmight also be present in the water.</p><p>Increased chloride concentrations have been observed inseveral water supplies, in groundwater as well as in surfacewater, since the 1970s. The number of affected water supplieshas also increased. The increase in chloride concentration inwaters is concurrent with the increase in deicing saltapplication and it is clear that most of the increase is due tothe application of deicing salt.</p><p>The thesis presents a simple tool that quantified theincrease in chloride concentration for water in a catchmentarea, based on a steady-state water balance. The data wereefficiently processed and presented as maps with GIS. At aregional catchment area scale, substantially increased chlorideconcentrations were calculated. The variation between catchmentareas was verified by a national monitoring programme of lakes.Deicing salt application was estimated to account for more thanhalf of the total chloride load for a catchment area in the midsouth of Sweden.</p><p>A distributed dynamic method was used to evaluate thetemporal and spatial variation of the chloride concentration inan aquifer. The distributed dynamic approach integrated thespreading of deicing salt from the road with the infiltrationin the unsaturated zone in the soil, which in turn wasintegrated with the groundwater flow. The simulation was runfor a 40-year period and showed a potential to describe aspecific system.</p><p><b>Keywords:</b>road, deicing salt, monitoring, chloride,catchment area, river basin, simulation, GIS, groundwater,surface water</p>