Water Resources Research Research Articles

Solute Dispersion From a Continuous Release Source in a Vegetated Flow: An Analytical Study

AbstractSteady dispersion of solute in flows with submerged vegetation due to a continuous release source is a focus in water resources research. This paper presents a fully analytical effort for a complete description of the steady‐state concentration field. The analytically predicted vertical concentration profiles agree well with both experimental measurements and numerical simulation results. Relations between the steady dispersion for a continuous release source and the transient dispersion due to an instantaneous release source are also discussed. Results show that the mean concentration in the canopy layer is higher than that in the upper water layer and the steady concentration distribution approaches relative uniformity at a dimensionless downstream distance x = 0.5. The solute release position is shown highly remarkably affecting the way in which the downstream state is approached. Moreover, the vertical concentration profiles predicted by a spatially dependent four‐zone turbulent diffusivity model are better than those predicted by a constant single‐zone model. The obtained analytical results contribute essentially to our understanding of solute transport in water flows with submerged vegetation.

Indirect caffeine modeling in an urban river

Caffeine is used worldwide as a chemical tracer to identify anthropic pressures on urban water resources. Nevertheless, its quantification demands great financial investments. This research created a model that would indirectly determine a range of possible caffeine concentrations along an urban river, without the need for extensive laboratory work. The model is based on Canonical Correlation Analysis (CCA), which can correlate two sets of different-sized independent and dependent variables in order to generate a single empirical equation. This equation takes as input the concentrations of ammonia nitrogen and orthophosphate, as well as the total population and the population inhabiting irregular housing areas. From the model’s results, it was possible to elaborate a spectrum of possible concentrations of caffeine along the Atuba River (Curitiba-Brazil). The tendency of water quality degradation of this river was also predicted. This model could become a useful preliminary analysis for water resource managers and researchers alike.
 Keywords: caffeine, canonical correlation analysis, water quality modeling.

Community-based climate change adaptation and disaster risk mitigation in the Mekong Delta by the transdisciplinary approach

The article is based on data from the research program "Greater Mekong Sub-region Flood and Drought Risk Management and Mitigation Project (ADB-GMS1)" jointly implemented by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, and the Vietnam Institute of Water Resources Research in Tien Giang and Dong Thap province. The results show that, in recent years, due to the increasingly severe global climate change, the intensity of various types of natural disasters occurs more frequently, irregularly and with greater intensity. This has greatly affected the production, daily life and properties of the people in the vulnerable areas. To reduce the impact of various types of disasters on people living in vulnerable areas, it is necessary to combine two types of solutions in disaster prevention, namely construction solutions and non- construction solutions. In which, non-construction solutions play a very important role, namely, people living in communities are considered as the main actors in preventing and mitigating disaster risks occurring in the community.

Assessment of Water Balance Components by Using Wetspass Model: The Case of Dengego Sub-basin, Eastern Ethiopia

The search for new water resources, as well as the development of water balance models that can be used to control and manage the resource, is at the heart of the search for new water resources in eastern Ethiopia, particularly in the Dengego sub-basin, and its socio-economic significance in terms of water demand for agriculture and domestic use. The water balance components of the Dengego sub-basin were investigated using the WetSpass hydrological model. The goal of this study is to assess the water balance components in the Dengego sub-basin. According to WetSpass, the mean annual evapotranspiration, surface runoff, and groundwater recharge were 494.2, 173.6, and 20.2 mm, respectively. Actual evapotranspiration and surface runoff accounted for 25.2 percent and 71.8 percent of precipitation, respectively and recharge made up 2.9 percent of precipitation. Annually 7.3 million m3 of water recharges into the groundwater table as recharge from the precipitation on the entire watershed.The contribution of this study could be used as baseline information for regional water resource experts, policy makers and researchers for further investigation. It can also be concluded that integrated WetSpass and GIS-based models are good indicators for estimating and understanding of water balance components in a given watershed to implement an integrated watershed management plan for sustainable utilization and sustainable development.

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Climate change impact on Lake Tana water storage, Upper Blue Nile Basin, Ethiopia

Temperature and precipitation trend fluctuations influence the components of the hydrological cycle and the availability of water supplies and result shift in the balance of lake water (lake level). Lake Tana is one of the water resources potential providing many services and threatened by human-induced and natural factors in Upper Blue Nile Basin, Ethiopia. So assessing the impacts of climate change on this water resource is a primary activity for water resource managers, researchers, and stakeholders to understand its potential for the water resource. This study was therefore conducted to examine the implications of the influence of climate change on the water balance of Lake Tana (water level) using potential simulated climate production downscaled by a regional CORDEX climate model powered by GCM-RCM ensembles under the Eastern Africa domain CIMP5 archive (AFR44) and RCP scenarios (RCP4.5, and RCP8.5) for future climate data prediction. Quantile mapping has been used to correct temperature biases, and power transformation was applied for rainfall correction. The performance of the HBV model was evaluated through calibration and validation using objective functions (relative volume error (RVE), Nash-Sutcliffe Efficiency (NSE) and provide RVE of 3.7%, −1.27%, 1.05%, −0.72%, 8.9% and −0.68 during calibration and RVE of −1.5%, 6.93%, −3.04%,8.796%, −5.89% and 8.5% during validation for Gumara, Kiltie, Koga, Gilgel Abay, Megech and Rib respectively. While the model provided NS of 0.79, 0.63, 0.72, 0.803, 0.68 and 0.797 during calibration and NSE of 0.8, 0.64, 0.7, 0.82, 0.801 and 0.82 during validation for Gumara, Kiltie, Koga, Gilgel Abay, Megech, and Rib respectively. The simulated Lake level showed adequate agreement to the observed with NS and RVE of 0.7 and 6.44% respectively. The result showed that lake evaporation and rainfall increase for all future scenarios. The ungauged surface inflow is also increased shortly scenarios while gauged surface inflow increased for RCP4.5 (the 2070s) and RCP8.5 (2040s) and decreased for RCP4.5 (2040s) and RCP8.5 (2070s). The decrease in gauged surface water inflow is due to a decrease in inflow for Gilgel Abay, Koga and Gumara gauged catchments. The results showed that the Lake storage will decrease in all future scenarios of all-time horizons. As the study's revealed climate model minimized the level of uncertainty, especially with the use of more RCMs than GCMs, future studies should therefore use more than one regional climate model and also use fine resolution data like (CMIP 6).

A Scientometric Analysis of Indian Water Resources Research output during the period of 2001-2020

A Scientometric Analysis of Indian Water Resources Research output during the period of 2001-2020

Fifty years of water research: has it made a difference?

Research is essential in today’s connected world to meet societal needs, such as vaccines to fight the coronavirus, but the effectiveness of water resources research is still debated after more tha...

Toward Practical Education and Research in Hydrology and Water Resources

Toward Practical Education and Research in Hydrology and Water Resources

Social barriers to open (water) data

AbstractAlthough the proliferation of open water data platforms and initiatives in recent years is a laudable phenomenon, there is little empirical evidence indicating whether and to what extent these efforts are generating anticipated benefits of improved transparency, citizen participation, innovation, and water resource decision making. Relatedly, water resource researchers have devoted little attention to identifying and accounting for barriers that may be limiting open water data efforts from realizing their potential. The premise of this overview is that (a) open water data efforts could be improved with a better understanding of the non‐technical challenges and that (b) water researchers interested in open water data would benefit from delving into the emerging body of research in public policy, information science, and other disciplines on open data barriers more broadly. However, the research on open data barriers has neglected water sustainability issues. In light of this asymmetry, the aim of this overview is to foster interdisciplinary engagement on this topic by introducing the water resource community to this literature via a discussion of key social barriers to open data. Additionally, I hope to motivate water resource researchers to develop a two‐way interdisciplinary engagement by making original research contributions to this larger literature.This article is categorized under: Engineering Water Science of Water > Methods Human Water > Water Governance Human Water > Water as Imagined and Represented

Land-surface evapotranspiration derived from a first-principles primary production model

Evapotranspiration (ET) links the water and carbon cycles in the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere. In this study, we develop an ET modelling framework based on the idea that the transpiration and carbon uptake are closely coupled, as predicted by the ‘least-cost hypothesis’ that canopy conductance acclimates to environmental variations. According to eco-evolutionary optimality theory, which has been previously applied in monitoring and modelling land-surface processes, the total costs (per unit carbon fixed) for maintaining transpiration and carboxylation capacities should be minimized. We calculate gross primary production (GPP) assuming that the light- and Rubisco-limited rates of photosynthesis, described by the classical biochemical model of photosynthesis, are coordinated on an approximately weekly time scale. Transpiration (T) is then calculated via acclimated canopy conductance, with no need for plant type- or biome-specific parameters. ET is finally calculated from T using an empirical function of light, temperature, soil water content and foliage cover to predict the T/ET ratio at each site. The GPP estimates were well supported by (weekly) GPP data at 20 widely distributed eddy-covariance flux sites (228 site-years), with correlation coefficients (r) = 0.81 and root-mean-square error (RMSE) = 18.7 gC week−1 and Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) = 0.61. Predicted ET was also well supported, with r =0.85, RMSE = 5.5 mm week–1 and NSE = 0.66. Estimated T/ET ratios (0.43–0.74) showed significant positive relationships to radiation, precipitation and green vegetation cover and negative relationships to temperature and modelled T (r = 0.84). Aspects of this framework could be improved, notably the estimation of T/ET. Nonetheless, we see the application of eco-evolutionary principles as a promising direction for water resources research, eliminating the uncertainty introduced by the need to specify multiple parameters, and leveraging the power of remotely sensed vegetation cover data as a key indicator of ecosystem function.

Review of Data Science Trends and Issues in Porous Media Research With a Focus on Image‐Based Techniques

AbstractData science as a flourishing interdisciplinary domain of computer and mathematical sciences is playing an important role in guiding the porous material research streams. In the present narrative review, we have examined recent trends and issues in data‐driven methods used in the image‐based porous material research studies relevant to water resources researchers and scientists. Initially, the recent trends in porous material data‐related issues have been investigated through search engine queries in terms of data source, data storage hub, programing languages, and software packages. Subsequent to a diligent analysis of the existing trends, a review of the common concepts of porous material research and data science are presented through six categories comprising big data, data regression, classification, image segmentation, geometry reconstruction, and image data resolution. We provide: (a) a focus on image‐based and pore scale methods which has not been presented previously, (b) a detailed search engine research for trend investigation, and (c) practical examples and comparison of data storage in porous media image‐based research. By reading this review article, an overall image of the active and popular interdisciplinary research domains can be obtained. Readers will also be informed of the latest data‐driven efforts and recommended research directions for tackling the image‐based porous material problems relevant to water resources research. We concluded that porous material image reconstruction and resolution improvement techniques are unique means to reveal unprecedented details of micro‐structures that may have been missed in a medium quality tomography image.

Evaluation of monsoon effect on groundwater quality using GIS mapping: A case study of Bahawalnagar district-Pakistan

A research was carried out in Bahawalnagar, South Punjab. Both water quality and quantity have great importance for the existence of the agriculture sector that is a backbone of economy of Pakistan. Water is necessary for all living creatures. The groundwater quality was assessed using GIS (Geographical Information System) applications and GS+ software. The three major indicators Electrical Conductivity (EC), Sodium Absorption Ratio (SAR) and Residual Sodium Carbonate (RSC) were analyzed during pre and post-monsoon season. These three major parameters and pH of groundwater quality are mostly checked in both seasons. The water quality parameters of 183 monitoring sites were analyzed according to standard protocol by Punjab Irrigation Department and PCRWR (Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources). The groundwater quality was mainly affected by EC, SAR and RSC parameters. The area effected during pre and post monsoon was “75 and 70%” respectively. The groundwater quality maps showing adverse effects increasingly from north-east to south-west. But most of the area affected due to EC parameter and high adverse effect was observed during post monsoon season in case of SAR and RSC parameters.

Origin of the low-medium temperature hot springs around Nanjing, China

Abstract The exploration of the origin of hot spring is the basis of its development and utilization. There are many low-medium temperature hot springs in Nanjing and its surrounding karst landform areas, such as the Tangshan, Tangquan, Lunshan, and Xiangquan hot springs. This article discusses the origin characters of the Lunshan hot spring with geological condition analysis, hydrogeochemical data, and isotope data. The results show that the hot water is SO4–Ca type in Lunshan area, and the cation content of SO4 is high, which are related to the deep hydrogeological conditions of the circulation in the limestone. Carbonate and anhydrite dissolutions occur in the groundwater circulation process, and they also dominate the water–rock interaction processes in the geothermal reservoir of Lunshan. The hot water rising channels are deeply affected by the NW and SN faults. Schematic diagrams of the conceptual model of the geothermal water circulation in Lunshan are plotted. The origin of Tangshan, Tangquan, and Xiangquan hot springs are similar to the Lunshan hot spring. In general, the geothermal water in karst landforms around Nanjing mainly runs through the carbonate rock area and is exposed near the core of the anticlinal structure of karst strata, forming SO4–Ca/SO4–Ca–Mg type hot spring with the water temperature less than 60°C. The characters of the hot springs around Nanjing are similar, which are helpful for the further research, development, and management of the geothermal water resources in this region.

An Experimental Study on Biosorption of Fluoride from Water Using LocallyObtained Moringa Oleifera Seeds

Moringa Oleifera is considered to be a natural bio-adsorbent. Unlike chemical coagulants, Moringa Oleifera seeds are environment friendly with various other advantages. The present study investigated the fluoride removal efficiency of Moringa Oleifera from water. Influence of adsorbent dose (1, 2, 4 g/L), contact time (20, 40 and 60 min) and initial fluoride concentration (2 and 5 mg/L) over removal efficiency were determined and optimized. It was found that increased adsorbent dose and contact time enhanced the removal efficiency which is in agreement with the previous studies. The highest removal of 88.1% was achieved when the adsorbent dose and contact time were optimized to 4 g/L and 60 minutes with an initial fluoride concentration of 2 mg/L. The results showed that Moringa Oleifera can be used as an environment friendly, cheap and effective bio-adsorbent for fluoride removal from aqueous solution. All the experimental facilities were provided by Bio-Fuel Lab, Energy & Environment Department, Quaid-e-Awam University of Engineering, Science and Technology, Nawabshah, Pakistan. The samples were analyzed at the Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR), Tando Jam, Pakistan.

Water-Quality Data Imputation with a High Percentage of Missing Values: A Machine Learning Approach

The monitoring of surface-water quality followed by water-quality modeling and analysis are essential for generating effective strategies in surface-water-resource management. However, worldwide, particularly in developing countries, water-quality studies are limited due to the lack of a complete and reliable dataset of surface-water-quality variables. In this context, several statistical and machine-learning models were assessed for imputing water-quality data at six monitoring stations located in the Santa Lucía Chico river (Uruguay), a mixed lotic and lentic river system. The challenge of this study is represented by the high percentage of missing data (between 50% and 70%) and the high temporal and spatial variability that characterizes the water-quality variables. The competing algorithms implement univariate and multivariate imputation methods (inverse distance weighting (IDW), Random Forest Regressor (RFR), Ridge (R), Bayesian Ridge (BR), AdaBoost (AB), Hubber Regressor (HR), Support Vector Regressor (SVR) and K-nearest neighbors Regressor (KNNR)). According to the results, more than 76% of the imputation outcomes are considered “satisfactory” (NSE > 0.45). The imputation performance shows better results at the monitoring stations located inside the reservoir than those positioned along the mainstream. IDW was the model with the best imputation results, followed by RFR, HR and SVR. The approach proposed in this study is expected to aid water-resource researchers and managers in augmenting water-quality datasets and overcoming the missing data issue to increase the number of future studies related to the water-quality matter.

Predicting Tropical Monsoon Hydrology Using CFSR and CMADS Data over the Cau River Basin in Vietnam

To improve knowledge of this matter, the potential application of two gridded meteorological products (GMPs), the China Meteorological Assimilation Driving Datasets for the SWAT model (CMADS) and Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR), are compared for the first time with data from ground-based meteorological stations over 6 years, from 2008 to 2013, over the Cau River basin (CRB), northern Vietnam. Statistical indicators and the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model are employed to investigate the hydrological performances of the GMPs against the data of 17 rain gauges distributed across the CRB. The results show that there are strong correlations between the temperature reanalysis products in both CMADS and CFSR and those obtained from the ground-based observations (the correlation coefficients range from 0.92 to 0.97). The CFSR data overestimate precipitation (percentage bias approximately 99%) at both daily and monthly scales, whereas the CMADS product performs better, with obvious differences (compared to the ground-based observations) in high-terrain areas. Regarding the simulated river flows, CFSR-SWAT produced “unsatisfactory”, while CMADS-SWAT (R2 > 0.76 and NSE > 0.78) performs better than CFSR-SWAT on the monthly scale. This assessment of the applicative potential of GMPs, especially CMADS, may further provide an additional rapid alternative for water resource research and management in basins with similar hydro-meteorological conditions.

Reply to the Comment on “Tu et al., an Analytical Solution of Groundwater Flow in a Confined Aquifer With a Single‐Well Circulation System, Water Resources Research, First Published: 12 June 2020.”

AbstractThe authors appreciate Dr. Kabala's interest in our work and his commitment to protecting research work integrity and scientific records accuracy. They are of the utmost importance to us as well. After receiving the Comment, we made it our highest priority to respond, address the concerns raised, and carefully re‐examine our manuscript. This reply is to “Comment on ‘An analytical solution of groundwater flow in a confined aquifer with a single well circulation system, by Tu et al.'”

Reconnecting Water Resources Research and Practice

Forum papers are thought-provoking opinion pieces or essays founded in fact, sometimes containing speculation, on a civil engineering topic of general interest and relevance to the readership of the journal. The views expressed in this Forum article do not necessarily reflect the views of ASCE or the Editorial Board of the journal.

Comment on “Tu et al., An Analytical Solution of Groundwater Flow in a Confined Aquifer With a Single Well Circulation System, Water Resources Research, First Published: 12 June 2020.”

AbstractAlthough renewed interest in flow around groundwater circulation wells is a positive development, the multiple and unacknowledged republication of previously published results is not. This is what has happened in a recent paper published in Water Resources Research by Tu et al. (2020, https://doi.org/10.1029/2020WR027529). The paper repeats results that appeared in Ni et al. (2011, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2011.04.030) as well as in the lead authors' own earlier work: Tu et al. (2019, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2018.09.029). And all three papers fail to acknowledge that the same ideas and closely related solutions were published in this Journal much earlier by Kabala (1993, https://doi.org/10.1029/92WR01820) and Zlotnik and Ledder (1996, https://doi.org/10.1029/95WR03813).