Projects & Reports
I have been involved in individual and group projects during my studies. Most of these projects have yielded data, program codes/functions and reports. Since all of these reports cannot be published, I have uploaded them on this page. The methods and results in these reports have not gone through intensive peer-review process, please use these with caution. I would greatly appreciate any comments/feedback.
List of reports
1. Agricultural water transfers to support future Urban use in Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District
2. Downscaling of Relative Humidity using 50km climate model projections to 4km
3. Selecting Best Management Practice for Reducing Phosphorus Concentration in Middle Bear Logan Watershed
4. Examination of Patterns and trends in streamflow variables used in stream ecology across the US
5. Present and Future Water Demands In Cache County, Utah
6. Soil Moisture Estimation using Universal Triangle Method (UTM) for Bear and Weber River Basins, Utah
7. Using Python and ArcGIS functions to determine Net Radiation (METRIC application)
8. Opportunities of Rainwater Capture and graywater reuse for Ambulatory Care Center (ACC), University of Utah, Salt Lake City.
9. Design of Urban Rainwater Harvesting System in Salt Lake City
10. An Examination of the Constant Flux Layer Using Tower Data From the Materhorn Fall 2012 Field Experiment
11. Application of Local-scale Urban Meteorological Parameterization Scheme (LUMPS): Murray, UTAH
1. Agricultural water transfers to support future Urban use in Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District [PDF 1.66 MB]
This project is a preliminary conceptual framework upon which agricultural conversions can be carried out in the future. It also presents an assessment of the extent and viability of agricultural water conversions to provide for municipal use in the future. This report can be used by water managers and planners as an initial concept document. Since this report was a part of academic requirement for a graduate class (Hydrotopia), majority of data was not collected first-hand but was obtained from various published reports. Wherever data was not available, assumptions were made within reasonable boundaries based on group’s experiences and discussions with instructors.
2. Downscaling of Relative Humidity using 50km climate model projections to 4km [PDF 0.4 MB]
The climate group for our project dynamically downscaled 150 km CCSM data to 50 km using WRF model results. Precipitation and Temperature results were further statistically downscaled to 4km using PRISM data. This statistical downscaling accounted for topographic effects and bias corrections.
For a hydrologic model, we wanted 4 km grids of Relative Humidity. Using Specific Humidity, Temperature and Pressure at 50 km resolution, Relative Humidity grids was obtained at the same resolution. But spatial interpolation of these 50 km Relative humidity grids to 4 km yielded results which were not consistent with either the 4 km statistically downscaled temperature grids or the physical principles of hydrology.
This document describes the method to downscale Relative Humidity grids which would be consistent with physical principles as well as with the downscaled temperature.
3. Selecting Best Management Practice for Reducing Phosphorus Concentration in Middle Bear Logan Watershed [Wiki page] [PDF 0.72 MB] [PPT 3.5MB]
This report was a part of academic requirement for a graduate class (River Basin Planning and Management)
Water quality problem has been a major issue for few decades in the Middle Bear Logan watershed. Various organizations those deal with land ownership, water rights and distribution, agricultural land management, water quality assessment and management, are working closely to resolve this issue. Previous studies and reports have indicated that high phosphorus loading, suspended sediments and low dissolved oxygen are the main problems in the watershed, which have detrimental effects on ecosystem and humans alike. Initial investigation performed by the authors also supports this information. Majority of the phosphorus loading is generated from the agricultural farms and rangelands. So, land use patterns within the watershed were analyzed. Pollution concentration is simulated at various point sources and the main tributaries of the watersheds using QUAL2K model. Yearly total phosphorus loading were computed and compared with the available TMDL report (Utah Department of Environmental Quality, 2010). Two set of alternatives management practices (Stream Bank BMPs and Agricultural BMPs) are proposed that can potentially reduce phosphorus loading generated from grazing lands and agricultural land, respectively. Authors developed a simulation model that calculates cost and phosphorus reduction for implementing BMPs on different portions of agricultural and rangeland in the watershed. Using this model, authors compared cost of these BMPs and proposed an economic alternative.
4. Examination of Patterns and trends in streamflow variables used in stream ecology across the US [Web link] [PDF 1.1 MB] [PPT 1.0 MB]
This report was a part of academic requirement for a graduate class (GIS in water resources)
Hydrology is one of the primary factors influencing the physical and biological characteristics of streams. Intra and inter variation in hydrologic regime alter the composition, structure and function of aquatic ecosystem through their impacts on physical habitat characteristics. To better understand the relationship between stream biota and various streamflow variables, I selected 2419 minimally impacted gaging sites across the entire US and investigated the spatial patterns/trends for 17 streamflow variables important to stream ecology using ArcGIS.
5. Present and future water demands In Cache County, Utah [PDF 1.5 MB]
This report was a part of academic requirement for a graduate class (Groundwater Engineering).
This work focused on characterizing the current and historical conditions of water resources of Cache County based on population growth and land use changes. The result of this work suggested that M & I water demand estimates should consider land use and population growths rather than the traditional method of using population growth only. An Artificial Neural Network (ANN) model was fitted to the data with four classes of land use (Natural land, Agriculture, Urban and Other) and population as the predictor variable and M & I water demand as the response variable. The results showed that land use was an important predictor for municipal and industrial demand along with population. The same model was used to predict the water demands from 2010 to 2015.
6. Soil moisture estimation using Universal Triangle Method (UTM) for Bear and Weber River Basins, Utah [PDF 0.8 MB] [PPT 4.5MB]
This report was a part of academic requirement for a graduate class (Remote Sensing of Land Surfaces).
This work tried to estimate soil moisture for two watersheds in Utah using point measurements of soil moisture and MODIS remotely sensed data. The final model did not perform well since soil moisture measured at SNOTEL sites were not representative of the entire watershed. Nevertheless, I have included this report here to provide some insights on how Universal Triangle Method could be used to estimate watershed soil moisture.
7. Using Python and ArcGIS functions to determine Net Radiation (METRIC application) [PDF 2.4 MB] [PPT 2.4MB]
This report was a part of academic requirement for a graduate class (Hydroinformatics).
The objective of this project is to automate procedures required for calculating net radiation for use in the Mapping Evapo-Transpiration at high Resolution with Internalized Calibration (METRIC) model. This automation process is accomplished via various modules and scripts created in the Python coding language. In order to calculate ET via the METRIC model, the calculation of a myriad of parameters is required. This project's output automates the calculation of a number of these parameters.
8. Opportunities of Rainwater Capture and graywater reuse for Ambulatory Care Center (ACC), University of Utah, Salt Lake City [PDF 3.1 MB]
This report was a part of academic requirement for a graduate class (Sustainable Water Engineering).
The purpose of this work was to study feasibility of rainwater harvesting as well as graywater reuse for the ACC at Univ of Utah. Quantity of rainwater that can be harvested was estimated using SWMM, a hydrologic model developed by the EPA. For graywater reuse, two types of treatment options were analyzed - (1) Ecological treatment and (2) Treatment using Membrane filters. For ecological treatment, two alternatives were considered - (A) Constructed Wetlands and (B) Granulated Activated Carbon Filter. Finally, LCA (Life cycle Analysis) and LCC (Life cycle cost) were performed. The final recommendations were made considering economic, environmental and social benefits.
(My focus was on the project was the design of ecological treatment options for graywater reuse along with their LCC and LCA).
9.Design of Urban Rainwater Harvesting System in Salt Lake City [PDF 2.54 MB] [PPT 1.9 MB]
This report was a part of academic requirement for a graduate class (Sustainable Water Engineering). It was collaborative project between students of University of Toledo and University of Utah.
The purpose of this report is to design an urban rainwater harvesting system (RWH) to provide for indoor and/or outdoor uses for the Civil and Materials Engineering building at University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah. Three alternative designs were developed in order to meet this goal. These systems included (1) a 25,000 gallon tank to capture all of the rain water and use it for indoor and outdoor use, (2) a 2,500 gallon tank that was used for indoor use only and (3) a 2,500 gallon tank used for indoor use coupled with four 2,500 gallon tanks used for outdoor irrigation. A storage capacity as well as a water balance was calculated in order to size and analyze the performance of each RWH system. Each system was evaluated based on the overall goal of economic and social benefits and environmental effects so that the most feasible system could be recommended.
10.An Examination of the Constant Flux Layer Using Tower Data From the Materhorn Fall 2012 Field Experiment [PDF 0.6 MB] [PPT 0.4 MB]
This report was a part of academic requirement for a graduate class (Environmental Fluid Dynamics).
The Constant flux layer (also called the surface layer) is a layer of the atmosphere which is at the bottom of the atmosphere where the variations of vertical turbulent fluxes is less than 10% of their magnitude with height. Usually, this layer comprises the bottom 10% of the planetary boundary layer (PBL). Its thickness is on the order of about 100 meters. While these fluxes are not perfectly uniform with height within this layer, the idealization of a constant flux layer permits certain theoretical approaches, such as Monin–Obukhov similarity theory to describe the logarithmic wind profile. For a number of boundary layer situations, knowledge of the governing physics is insufficient to derive laws based on first principles. Nevertheless, boundary layer observations frequently show consistent and repeatable characteristics suggesting that we could develop empirical relationships for the variables of interest. So, it is important to understand about constant flux layer and review its assumptions.
This paper tries to answer the following two questions:
1. How does height of constant flux layer change over a diurnal cycle?
2. How does the fluxes in a constant flux layer vary with height?
11. Application of Local-scale Urban Meteorological Parameterization Scheme (LUMPS): Murray, UTAH [PDF 0.8 MB]
This report was a part of academic requirement for a graduate class (Environmental Fluid Dynamics).
Local scale urban meteorological parameterization Scheme (LUMPS) is developed by (Grimmond and Oke 2002) for estimating sensible, latent and storage heat fluxes from an urban environment. This model was tested using data available at seven North American cities. This paper intends to apply this model to a suburban neighborhood in Salt Lake Valley (Murray, UT) and compare the results to those actually measured in the field.
