Tool For Water Management Research Articles

Integrated multi-scale water management as a climate change adaptation strategy

Water management will become increasingly critical as the effects of climate change manifest. There are existing water management tools and concepts in current use for both policy and decision-making in industry, but these often look at water issues from the limited perspectives of specific decision-makers who see the problems only at particular scales. In this perspective paper, we argue for an integrated water management approach as an imperative climate change adaptation; there is an urgent need for research on the development of such a multi-scale framework to effectively manage water use in industrial systems.

Fluoride and phosphate release from carbonate-rich fluorapatite during managed aquifer recharge

Managed aquifer recharge (MAR) is increasingly used as a water management tool to enhance water availability and to improve water quality. Until now, however, the risk of fluoride release during MAR with low ionic strength injectate has not been recognised or examined. In this study we analyse and report the mobilisation of fluoride (up to 58 µM) and filterable reactive phosphorus (FRP) (up to 55 µM) during a field groundwater replenishment experiment in which highly treated, deionised wastewater (average TDS 33 mg/L) was injected into a siliciclastic Cretaceous aquifer. In the field experiment, maximum concentrations, which coincided with a rise in pH, exceeded background groundwater concentrations by an average factor of 3.6 for fluoride and 24 for FRP. The combined results from the field experiment, a detailed mineralogical characterisation and geochemical modelling suggested carbonate-rich fluorapatite (CFA: Ca10(PO4)5(CO3,F)F2) to be the most likely source of fluoride and phosphate release. An anoxic batch experiment with powdered CFA-rich nodules sourced from the target aquifer and aqueous solutions of successively decreasing ionic strength closely replicated the field-observed fluoride and phosphate behaviour. Based on the laboratory experiment and geochemical modelling, we hypothesise that the release of fluoride and phosphate results from the incongruent dissolution of CFA and the simultaneous formation of a depleted layer that has hydrated di-basic calcium phosphate (CaHPO4·nH2O) composition at the CFA-water interface. Disequilibrium caused by calcium removal following breakthrough of the deionised injectate triggered the release of fluoride and phosphate. Given the increasing use of highly treated, deionised water for MAR and the ubiquitous presence of CFA and fluorapatite (Ca10(PO4)6F2) in aquifer settings worldwide, the risk of fluoride and phosphate release needs to be considered in the MAR design process.

A multiscaling‐based intensity–duration–frequency model for extreme precipitation

AbstractRainfall intensity–duration–frequency (IDF) curves are a standard tool in urban water resources engineering and management. They express how return levels of extreme rainfall intensity vary with duration. The simple scaling property of extreme rainfall intensity, with respect to duration, determines the form of IDF relationships. It is supposed that the annual maximum intensity follows the generalized extreme value (GEV) distribution. As well known, for simple scaling processes, the location parameter and scale parameter of the GEV distribution obey a power law with the same exponent. Although, the simple scaling hypothesis is commonly used as a suitable working assumption, the multiscaling approach provides a more general framework. We present a new IDF relationship that has been formulated on the basis of the multiscaling property. It turns out that the GEV parameters (location and scale) have a different scaling exponent. Next, we apply a Bayesian framework to estimate the multiscaling GEV model and to choose the most appropriate model. It is shown that the model performance increases when using the multiscaling approach. The new model for IDF curves reproduces the data very well and has a reasonable degree of complexity without overfitting on the data.

WATER management strategies under water‐limited conditions

Drought conditions and growing competition for water with cities are putting pressure on growers who depend on irrigation for crop production to adapt their water management strategies. This article discusses crop rotations, residue management, and water management tools that can help. Earn 0.5 CEUs in Soil & Water Management by reading this article and taking the quiz at www.certifiedcropadviser.org/education/classroom/classes/582.

Water Accounting as an Agricultural Water Management Tool

Water Accounting as an Agricultural Water Management Tool

Trends in the application of multimetric indexes in Brazil: scienciometric analyses related to fish Fauna

The evaluation of biotic integrity through multimetric analysis of the attributes of fish fauna is recognized as an important tool for water management and conservation policies. In this sense, the present study sought to elucidate tendencies in the use of the most used metrics in multimetric indices (MMIs), based on the fish assemblage, in Brazil. An electronic search of the literature was carried out in indexing databases of periodicals. The criteria used for the selection of scientific articles were to be carried out in Brazilian territory and the use of MMI with fish. Of total, 51.9% of the studies were applied in streams, with no temporal pattern. The highest concentration of studies was observed in the southeast region. In all, 99 different metrics were used, highlighting attributes related to trophic, tolerance and species composition. There was a increment of specific metrics over the years and environments, with the exception of rivers. In comparison to other environments, streams had significantly different metrics. Difficulties in the MMI proposal in Brazil are linked to the selection of aspects that characterize the condition of a habitat before the diagnosis of the ecological components in the classification of the environmental quality.

Possibility of GPS precipitable water vapour for reservoir inflow forecasting

AbstractWe investigated the possibility of using GPS precipitable water vapour (GPS-PWV) for forecasting reservoir inflow. The correlations between monthly GPS-PWV and the inflow of two reservoirs were examined and the relationship tested, using a group method of data handling (GMDH) type neural network algorithm. The daily and monthly reservoir inflows were directly proportional to daily and monthly GPS-PWV trends. Peak reservoir inflow, however, shifted from the peak averages for GPS-PWV. A strong relationship between GPS-PWV and inflow was confirmed by high R2 values, high coefficients of correlation, and acceptable mean absolute errors (MAE) of both the daily and monthly models. The Ubon Ratana reservoir model had a monthly MAE of 54.19·106 m3 and a daily MAE of 5.40·106 m3. By comparison, the Lumpow reservoir model had a monthly MAE of 25.65·106 m3 and a daily MAE of 2.62·106 m3. The models using GPS-PWV as input data responded to extreme inflow better than traditional variables such that reservoir inflow could be predicted using GPS-PWV without using actual inflow and rainfall data. GPS-PWV, thus, represents a helpful tool for regional and national water management. Further research including more reservoirs is needed to confirm this preliminary finding.

Developing an integrated framework to build a decision support tool for urban water management

Abstract This paper presents an integrated, computer-based generic framework to couple urban water related models into a decision support tool (DST) for urban-water management. The DST, built on a participatory modelling approach, enables stakeholders to analyze impacts of climate variation, population growth, and alternative management solutions ranging from centralized to distributed options. The coupling of external models, building of the DST, and execution of simulation processes is achieved by employing GoldSim, which is linked to a database management tool and a shared library. A post-processing package generates outcomes for decision makers in the form of a new criterion, the Water System Performance Index (WSPI). The application of DST is demonstrated for the water service area of the Salt Lake City Department of Public Utilities (SLCDPU). Results show that a decentralized alternative increases the reliability of the system without changing the system's vulnerability. Centralized alternative improves the overall performance of the system based on WSPI results, but decrease in performance is still noticeable under the hot and dry climate condition. Overall, the system is very sensitive to changes in climatic conditions. Results show that during droughts, supply management is not the sole solution and compulsory demand-management practices should be instigated.

Decision Management Tools for Trans-Boundary Water Management in Lake Chad Basin

The Lake Chad basin, one of Africa’s oldest river basin has shrank to one-tenth of its original size. The environmental degradation that had occurred in the basin over the years has had direct impact on the livelihood of people in the region. The problem in the Lake Chad Basin has also constituted social risks to populations of the region resulting in accelerating global climate change due to years of unsustainable resource use. The ecological degradation in the basin has further exacerbated conflict with attendant terrorism in the region. Using a coordinated science-policy market place of ideas, an event during the EU-AU Workshop in water-energy-food nexus held in Italy in 2016, a team of scientists and policymakers from both Africa and European Union looked at the reason for the water loss and how to make the solution of inter-basin water transfer proffered practicable. Sustainability tools were recommended in the basin to provide policy advice for decision makers while also developing a nexus framework to enhance future sustainability of the basin. This paper also addresses cooperation among different stakeholders by suggesting new governance pattern and opening up the basin to external collaborators to reverse the declining fortune of Lake Chad basin.

Mitigating the Impacts of Climate Nonstationarity on Seasonal Streamflow Predictability in the U.S. Southwest

AbstractSeasonal streamflow predictions provide a critical management tool for water managers in the American Southwest. In recent decades, persistent prediction errors for spring and summer runoff volumes have been observed in a number of watersheds in the American Southwest. While mostly driven by decadal precipitation trends, these errors also relate to the influence of increasing temperature on streamflow in these basins. Here we show that incorporating seasonal temperature forecasts from operational global climate prediction models into streamflow forecasting models adds prediction skill for watersheds in the headwaters of the Colorado and Rio Grande River basins. Current dynamical seasonal temperature forecasts now show sufficient skill to reduce streamflow forecast errors in snowmelt‐driven regions. Such predictions can increase the resilience of streamflow forecasting and water management systems in the face of continuing warming as well as decadal‐scale temperature variability and thus help to mitigate the impacts of climate nonstationarity on streamflow predictability.

Developing a water and nitrogen management model for greenhouse vegetable production in China: Sensitivity analysis and evaluation

Excessive water and fertilizer inputs have led to a series of environmental problems in vegetable production areas in China. Identifying the fates of water and nutrients is crucial to develop best management strategies in intensive vegetable production systems. The objectives of this study were to (i) develop a scientific water and nitrogen (N) management tool for intensive greenhouse vegetable production in China, and (ii) evaluate the model performance in the simulating the fate of water and N, and vegetable growth under different water and N management practices in China. A vegetable growth component was added to the field soil-crop system model WHCNS (soil Water Heat Carbon Nitrogen Simulator), named WHCNS_Veg. Parameters for the model were estimated and a sensitivity analysis was conducted by coupling the model with the model-independent parameter estimation program (PEST). Data used to test the model came from two years of cucumber and tomato experiments with various water and N combinations in Shandong province, China. The results of sensitivity analysis showed that the soil hydraulic parameters and vegetable genetic parameters had a relatively higher sensitivity compared with those of N transformation parameters. The saturated soil water content had the highest sensitivity among soil hydraulic parameters, and the total available accumulated temperature, crop coefficient and maximum root depth had higher sensitivity for both vegetable crops. Among the N transformation parameters, the parameters related to nitrification had the highest sensitivity. The automatic optimization algorithm performed well in adjusting soil hydraulic parameters, vegetable genetic parameters and N transformation parameters. The normalized root mean square error for soil water content, soil nitrate concentration, marketable fresh yield and vegetable N uptake were 5.7%, 28.0%, 2.7% and 8.3%, respectively, and indices of agreement were 0.727, 0.730, 0.997 and 0.832, respectively. The results indicated that the WHCNS_Veg model has great potential to simulate and analyze water and N fates, and vegetable growth for the intensive greenhouse vegetable production in China.

The development of Atmospheric Crop Moisture Index for irrigated agriculture

This paper develops the Atmospheric Crop Moisture Index (ACMI), an indicator of atmospheric drought. Levels in the index represent the possibility of rainfall or the lack of moisture needed at various stages of crop growth. The lack of moisture is determined with the ratio between water supply and demand, where the supply indicator is Precipitable Water Vapor (PWV). The ACMI was calculated from data collected between February 2010 and September 2014. The example of calculation of 10-day values of ACMI10 for rice is provided. The comparison of ACMI and other indices shows poor correlation with the SPI, the SPEI, and the scPDSI; however, it displays high correlation with precipitation, the PE, and the MAI. The ACMI is a parameter affected by surface temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, atmospheric pressure, and solar irradiation; all these parameters are included in the study of drought. The ACMI is an effective tool for agricultural water management.

A Framework for Incorporating the Impact of Water Quality on Water Supply Stress: An Example from Louisiana, USA

AbstractWater of poor quality can directly impact the budget of water available for key user groups. Despite this importance, methods for quantifying the impact of water quality on water availability remain elusive. Here, we develop a new framework for incorporating the impact of water quality on water supply by modifying the Water Supply Stress Index (WaSSI). We demonstrate the usefulness of the framework by investigating the impact of high salinity waters on the availability of irrigation water for agriculture in Louisiana. The WaSSI was deconstructed into sectoral components such that the total available water supply could be reduced for a particular demand sector (agricultural irrigation in this example) based on available water quality information. The results for Louisiana highlight substantial impacts on water supply stress for farmers attributable to the landward encroachment of saline surface water and groundwater near the coast. Areas of high salinity near the coast also increased the competition for freshwater resources among the industrial, municipal, and agricultural demand sectors in the vicinities of the municipal areas of Lake Charles, Lafayette, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The framework developed here is easily adaptable for other water quality concerns and for other demand sectors, and as such can serve as a useful tool for water managers.

Ramsey Pricing for Cost Recovery Applied to Reservoir Infrastructure in Andalucía (Spain)

This paper proposes the Ramsey pricing methodology as a useful tool for water managers. As a case study, first we propose an alternative calculation of the annual depreciation charge for the investment in water infrastructure to that currently made by public administration, and then we apply the Ramsey contribution to the calculation of the price or regulatory tariff charged in 2009 by the Guadalquivir River Basin Authority (Andalucía, Spain) for providing water for urban supply and irrigation. According to Ramsey’s formula, its greatest effect is felt by domestic users, whose demand is relatively inelastic, compared to those whose demand is for agricultural purposes.

PATs selection towards sustainability in irrigation networks: Simulated annealing as a water management tool

Abstract Irrigation networks involve many water and energy aspects, in which the sustainability plays a paramount role. Nowadays, water tariff in irrigation networks represents a high percentage within of farmers' costs, partially due to the low hydraulic and energy efficiency. The installation of pumps working as turbines enables to reduce the pressure and it makes possible the energy generation. In this research, a new maximization methodology to recover energy, considering the feasibility of the installation, was proposed to allocate PATs within networks. Simulated annealing techniques were used with different objective functions as well as different number of machines. Once the maximum energy lines were defined, real machines were selected through the discharge and the head number, considering the available net head in each allocation. Furthermore, the use of WaterGEMS® software enabled to simulate the flow, the pressure and the efficiency variation in the installed machine over time. The combined use of WaterGEMS® and the simulated annealing in the proposed methodology is a powerful water management tool towards the search of the sustainability in irrigation networks. To illustrate the proposed methodology, a case study was presented, obtaining a recovered energy of 26.51 MW h/year (10% of the provided energy in the network).

Multivariate regression model from water level and production rate time series for the geothermal reservoir Waiwera (New Zealand)

Water management tools are necessary to guarantee the preservation of natural resources while ensuring optimum utilization. Linear regression models are a simple and quick solution for creating prognostic capabilities. Multivariate models show higher precision than univariate models. In the case of Waiwera, implementation of individual production rates is more accurate than applying just the total production rate. A maximum of approximately 1,075 m3/day can be pumped to ensure a water level of at least 0.5 m a.s.l. in the monitoring well. The model should be renewed annually to implement new data and current water level trends to keep the quality.

The Water Footprint of Crops in the Area of Mesogeia, Attiki, Greece

The Water Footprint (WF) is a particularly useful methodological tool in agricultural water management, through the demonstration of water intensive crops and the determination of water consumption. In this study, we tried to estimate the WF of 42 crop species in the area of Mesogeia, Attiki, Greece. The estimation of crop evapotranspiration was based on both the Blaney-Criddle and the Penman-Monteith methods. The WF assessment was followed by water consumption calculation. Higher WF presented the apples, the olive trees and the vineyards, and more specifically, it was found that olive trees and vineyards together account for approximately 95% of the overall water consumption in the agricultural sector of the area. Application of the Blaney-Criddle method resulted in higher WF and water consumptions for the majority of the crops, compared to the Penman-Monteith method. In conclusion, the water footprint analysis can provide a transparent framework to identify possible solutions to existing problems in water resources management. Through the demonstration of the water demanding crops, as well as of the contribution of each water use (blue, green and grey) to the total consumption, it becomes possible to achieve an efficient allocation of water resources at a regional scale, as well as to demonstrate potentially erroneous agricultural practices.

OpenMP parallelization of a gridded SWAT (SWATG)

Large-scale, long-term and high spatial resolution simulation is a common issue in environmental modeling. A Gridded Hydrologic Response Unit (HRU)-based Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWATG) that integrates grid modeling scheme with different spatial representations also presents such problems. The time-consuming problem affects applications of very high resolution large-scale watershed modeling. The OpenMP (Open Multi-Processing) parallel application interface is integrated with SWATG (called SWATGP) to accelerate grid modeling based on the HRU level. Such parallel implementation takes better advantage of the computational power of a shared memory computer system. We conducted two experiments at multiple temporal and spatial scales of hydrological modeling using SWATG and SWATGP on a high-end server. At 500-m resolution, SWATGP was found to be up to nine times faster than SWATG in modeling over a roughly 2000 km2 watershed with 1 CPU and a 15 thread configuration. The study results demonstrate that parallel models save considerable time relative to traditional sequential simulation runs. Parallel computations of environmental models are beneficial for model applications, especially at large spatial and temporal scales and at high resolutions. The proposed SWATGP model is thus a promising tool for large-scale and high-resolution water resources research and management in addition to offering data fusion and model coupling ability.

Modelling water uptake by various root systems in a clay loam soil under a high transpiration demand

Hydrological models are increasingly becoming important tools in agricultural water management. In this study, the effect of root length distribution on water uptake in a clay loam soil, a key process in agricultural hydrological models, is numerically investigated under a high transpiration demand. Four different root distributions (uniform, linear and exponential) are employed in the simulations. Results shown that roots distributed more evenly in the soil profile have an overall greater capacity and a smaller ability at later stages of transpiration of extracting water from the soil. Soil water 10 cm below the rooting depth has a very limited impact on crop transpiration.

Revealing the economic value of managed aquifer recharge: Evidence from a contingent valuation study inItaly

AbstractManaged aquifer recharge [MAR) is a promising water management tool toward restoring groundwater balance and securing groundwater ecosystem services (i.e., water for drinking, industrial or irrigation use, control of land subsidence, maintenance of environmental flows to groundwater dependent ecosystems, etc.). Obviously, MAR projects can improve the quality of lives of the people by several ways. Thus, from a social perspective, the benefits of MAR cannot and should not be based only on market revenues or costs. Although the value of groundwater, from a social perspective, has been a subject of socio‐economic research, literature on the value of MARper seis very limited. This paper, focusing on Italy which is a country with extensive utilization of MAR, aims to estimate the economic value of MAR and makes a first step toward filling this gap in the literature. For this purpose, the Contingent Valuation method was implemented to provide a monetary estimate and to explore the factors influencing people's attitude and willingness to pay for MAR. The results show that society holds not only use but also significant nonuse values, which are a part of the total economic value (TEV) of groundwater according to related research efforts. To this end, MAR valuation highlights its social importance for groundwater conservation and provides a solid basis for incorporating its nonmarket benefits into groundwater management policies and assessments.