Abstract: The weights of the drought risk index (DRI), which linearly combines the reliability, resiliency, and vulnerability, are difficult to obtain due to complexities in water security during drought periods. Therefore, drought entropy was used to determine the weights of the three critical indices. Conventional simulation results regarding the risk load of water security during drought periods were often regarded as precise. However, neither the simulation process nor the DRI gives any consideration to uncertainties in drought events. Therefore, the Dempster-Shafer (D-S) evidence theory and the evidential reasoning algorithm were introduced, and the DRI values were calculated with consideration of uncertainties of the three indices. The drought entropy and evidential reasoning algorithm were used in a case study of the Haihe River Basin to assess water security risks during drought periods. The results of the new DRI values in two scenarios were compared and analyzed. It is shown that the values of the DRI in the D-S evidence algorithm increase slightly from the original results of Zhang et al. (2005), and the results of risk assessment of water security during drought periods are reasonable according to the situation in the study area. This study can serve as a reference for further practical application and planning in the Haihe River Basin, and other relevant or similar studies.
Abstract: Increasing frequency and severity of flooding have caused tremendous damage in China, requiring more essential countermeasures to alleviate the damage. In this study, the dynamic simulation property of a cellular automaton was used to make further progress in flood routing. In consideration of terrain’s influence on flood routing, we regarded the terrain elevation as an auxiliary attribute of a two-dimensional cellular automaton in path selection for flood routing and developed a mathematical model based on a cellular automaton. A numerical case of propagation of an outburst flood in an area of the lower Yangtze River was analyzed with both the fixed-step and variable-step models. The results show that the flood does not spread simultaneously in all directions, but flows into the lower place first, and that the submerged area grows quickly at the beginning, but slowly later on. The final submerged areas obtained from the two different models are consistent, and the flood volume balance test shows that the flood volume meets the requirement of the total volume balance. The analysis of the case shows that the proposed model can be a valuable tool for flood routing.
Abstract: Urbanization causes hydrological change and increases stormwater runoff volumes, leading to flooding, erosion, and the degradation of instream ecosystem health. Best management practices (BMPs), like detention ponds and infiltration trenches, have been widely used to control flood runoff events for the past decade. However, low impact development (LID) options have been proposed as an alternative approach to better mimic the natural flow regime by using decentralized designs to control stormwater runoff at the source, rather than at a centralized location in the watershed. For highly urbanized areas, LID stormwater management practices such as bioretention cells and porous pavements can be used to retrofit existing infrastructure and reduce runoff volumes and peak flows. This paper describes a modeling approach to incorporate these LID practices and the two BMPs of detention ponds and infiltration trenches in an existing hydrological model to estimate the impacts of BMPs and LID practices on the surface runoff. The modeling approach has been used in a parking lot located in Lenexa, Kansas, USA, to predict hydrological performance of BMPs and LID practices. A performance indicator system including the flow duration curve, peak flow frequency exceedance curve, and runoff coefficient have been developed in an attempt to represent impacts of BMPs and LID practices on the entire spectrum of the runoff regime. Results demonstrate that use of these BMPs and LID practices leads to significant stormwater control for small rainfall events and less control for flood events.
Abstract: Flood control detention basins (DBs) can act as water quality control structures or best management practices (BMPs). A key pollutant that DBs serve to settle out is particulate phosphorus, which adsorbs onto sediment. This study examines the sediment phosphorus concentration and its relationship with the particle size of sediment microcosms from pre- and post-rain event samples obtained from six DBs located in Clark County, Nevada. DBs were allotted a land use classification to determine if there was a correlation between the sediment phosphorus concentration and surrounding land use. The curve number method was used to calculate the runoff and subsequent phosphorus carried into the DB by the runoff. Our data show sediment phosphorus concentrations to be highest in soils from undeveloped areas. Runoff amount also plays a substantial role in determining the amount of phosphorus brought into the DB by sediment. This research has implications for improvement of water quality in arid regions.
Abstract: With rural population expansion and improvement of the socio-economic standard of living, treatment of rural domestic wastewater has rapidly become a major aspect of environmental concern. Selection of a suitable method for treatment of rural domestic wastewater depends on its efficiency, simplicity, and cost-effectiveness. This study investigated the effects of hydraulic retention time (HRT), temperature, and effluent recycling on the treatment efficiency of an anaerobic filter (AF) reactor. The first round of experimental operations was run for three months with HRTs of one, two, and three days, temperatures of 18℃, 21℃, and 24℃, and no effluent recycling. The second round of experimental operations was conducted for another three months with HRTs of three and four days; temperatures of 30.67℃, 30.57℃, and 26.91℃; and three effluent recycling ratios of 1:1, 1:2, and 2:1. The first round of operations showed removal rates of 32% to 44% for COD, 30% to 35% for TN, 32% to 36% for , 19% to 23% for , and 12% to 22% for TP. In the second round of operations, the removal rates varied from 75% to 81% for COD, 35% to 41% for TN, 31% to 39% for , 30% to 34% for , and 41% to 48% for TP. The average gas production rates were 6.72 L/d and 7.26 L/d for the first and second rounds of operations, respectively. The gas production rate increased in the second round of operations as a result of applied effluent recycling. The best removal efficiency was obtained for an optimum HRT of three days, a temperature of 30℃, and an effluent recycling ratio of 2:1. The results show that the removal efficiency of the AF reactor was affected by HRT, temperature, and effluent recycling.
Abstract: The prediction of incipient motion has had great importance to the theory of sediment transport. The most commonly used methods are based on the concept of critical shear stress and employ an approach similar, or identical, to the Shields diagram. An alternative method that uses the movability number, defined as the ratio of the shear velocity to the particle’s settling velocity, was employed in this study. A large amount of experimental data were used to develop an empirical incipient motion criterion based on the movability number. It is shown that this approach can provide a simple and accurate method of computing the threshold condition for sediment motion.
Abstract: The upper reach of the Yellow River from Daliushu to Shapotou consists of five bends and has complex topography. A two-dimensional Re-Normalisation Group (RNG) k-ε model was developed to simulate the flow in the reach. In order to take the circulation currents in the bends into account, the momentum equations were improved by adding an additional source term. Comparison of the numerical simulation with field measurements indicates that the improved two-dimensional depth-averaged RNG k-ε model can improve the accuracy of the numerical simulation. A rapid adaptive algorithm was constructed, which can automatically adjust Manning’s roughness coefficient in different parts of the study river reach. As a result, not only can the trial computation time be significantly shortened, but the accuracy of the numerical simulation can also be greatly improved. Comparison of the simulated and measured water surface slopes for four typical cases shows that the longitudinal and transverse slopes of the water surface increase with the average velocity upstream. In addition, comparison was made between the positions of the talweg and the main streamline, which coincide for most of the study river reach. However, deviations between the positions of the talweg and the main streamline were found at the junction of two bends, at the position where the river width suddenly decreases or increases.
Abstract: The paper presents an investigation of injection effects on the bedload transport rate. According to dimensional analysis, two dimensionless groups, an Einstein’s parameter group and a modified densimetric Froude number group, were chosen to examine how injection affects the bedload transport rate. Experimental studies were conducted in an open-channel flume with an upward seepage zone. The sediment particles used for the test were 0.9 mm in diameter. The experimental results show that an increase in the injection velocity causes a reduction in the shear velocity excess, which is defined as the difference between the shear and critical shear velocities, leading to a reduction in the bedload transport rate. The equation for predicting the bedload transport rate in the presence of upward seepage was derived empirically. The proposed prediction method is suitable for engineering practice, since it only requires the undisturbed flow condition, properties of sediment particles, and the injection velocity.
Abstract: A method of obtaining the large strain consolidation parameters of dredged clays considering the influence of the initial water content is investigated in this study. According to the test results of remolded clays with high initial water contents reported by Hong et al. (2010), a relationship between the void ratio (e) and effective stress (σ') is established. Furthermore, based on the available permeability data from the literature, a new relationship between the permeability coefficient (k) and the ratio (e/eL) of the void ratio to the void ratio at the liquid limit (eL) is proposed. The new proposed expression considering the initial water content improves the e-k equation established by Nagaraj et al. (1994). Finally, the influence of the initial void ratio and effective stress on the large strain consolidation coefficient g(e) defined by Gibson et al. (1981) and k/(1+e) in large strain analysis is discussed. The results show that, under a constant effective stress, the value of k/(1+e) increases with the initial void ratio. The large strain consolidation coefficient shows the law of segmentation change, which decreases with the increase of the effective stress when the effective stress is less than the remolded yield stress, but increases rapidly with the effective stress when the effective stress is larger than the remolded yield stress.
Abstract: Pressure fluctuations, which are inevitable in the operation of pumps, have a strong non-stationary characteristic and contain a great deal of important information representing the operation conditions. With an axial-flow pump as an example, a new method for time-frequency analysis based on the ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) method is proposed for research on the characteristics of pressure fluctuations. First, the pressure fluctuation signals are preprocessed with the empirical mode decomposition (EMD) method, and intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) are extracted. Second, the EEMD method is used to extract more precise decomposition results, and the number of iterations is determined according to the number of IMFs produced by the EMD method. Third, correlation coefficients between IMFs produced by the EMD and EEMD methods and the original signal are calculated, and the most sensitive IMFs are chosen to analyze the frequency spectrum. Finally, the operation conditions of the pump are identified with the frequency features. The results show that, compared with the EMD method, the EEMD method can improve the time-frequency resolution and extract main vibration components from pressure fluctuation signals.
