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Irrigation Modernization Task 4: Accelerating Energy Solutions (FY2022 Final Report)

This report offers insights on energy solutions for irrigation modernization that serve the needs of farmers as well as residents and industry in the local community. Solutions are found in the irrigation districts where local generation from renewable energy sources – solar, hydro, and wind – can be combined with energy storage and customer loads. These combined resources configured in microgrids can lower costs during peak loads and provide resiliency by maintaining electricity supply during outages. The goal of this project, as stated in the FY2022 AOP, is to promote realization of energy solutions that are tailored to physical location, community, infrastructure, and energy value streams. Further, it is to develop examples of how to increase value of, and overcome barriers to, energy solutions in the context of irrigation modernization. In pursuit of that goal, the project looked at options for: 1) Reducing the cost of energy consumed in irrigation systems, 2) Increasing the revenue from surplus power generation, and 3) Deploying new power generation configured as part of a local microgrid. Potential solutions to reducing energy costs and increasing surplus power revenue revolve around addressing regulatory and legal constraints tied to how power is purchased by and sold to the irrigator or irrigation district. Some headway was made in identifying barriers and ways to push utilities to be more accommodating to distributed energy sources; however, for the most part, real progress hinges on changes at the regulatory and legislative level. Deployment of local, renewable generation systems can be implemented provided the economics of the project and the location are favorable. In concert with Famers Conservation Alliance and Energy Trust of Oregon, a number of approaches were studied in the past year, including off-grid solar powered pumps, grid-tied community solar projects, and in-conduit canal hydropower systems. Ultimately three viable projects were identified: 1) North Unit Irrigation District/City of Redmond, Oregon Critical Facility Microgrid – offers combined in-conduit hydro and solar power generation. 2) Wallowa County/Joseph, Oregon Irrigation System Upgrades – centered on upgrades to a non-powered dam that will add a turbine as well as in-conduit power in canal feeders downstream. 3) Medford, Oregon Wastewater Treatment Plant Biogas Cogeneration System – centered on building out biogas storage and grid upgrades to power the plant, sell excess power, and provide emergency backup power (supplanting a diesel generator). Each of these projects has characteristics that broaden the understanding of the value of microgrids employing renewable energy to achieve resiliency and net-zero carbon goals. The first two projects are centered on new hydropower systems. Although the Medford project is only tangentially tied to an irrigation district, it was selected for study analysis as it was the only one mature enough (with sufficient data) to complete an analysis within this project year. Thus, we chose to move forward developing a case study, in concert with the Community Water-Power Resilience project, to demonstrate a method for evaluating such projects. Essentially, this case study serves as a template for studies to be carried out next year that more directly involve irrigation system hydropower, e.g., the project at the Wallowa County/Joseph, Oregon Irrigation System. Lastly, it is recognized that the locations and case studies in this report are all located in Oregon. We recognize this as a limitation. While the intent is not to ignore other states or regions, this result is driven by the fact that we have cultivated a collaboration with non-profit entities in Oregon that focus on these topics – Farmers Conservation Alliance and Energy Trust of Oregon. These partners were central to identifying projects that may be good fits for this program. A goal in the coming year is to establish collaboration with entities in other states/regions that, similarly, can connect us to potential projects in their geographic area. The potential benefits from the WPTO’s support for demonstration projects as energy solutions in irrigation districts include: (1) Alternative power supplies for communities and farms using renewable, carbon-free energy resources, (2) Cost savings for electricity for communities and farms, (3) Resiliency of power supplies for critical loads when electricity from the grid is not available, (4) Resiliency of power supplies for critical infrastructure in the event of catastrophic events, and (5) Demonstration of irrigation modernization projects that provide resilience and a reduced carbon footprint to irrigation districts and nearby communities. These deployments can serve as vanguards/archetypes spurring similar projects in other districts and states.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗

Hydropower Modeling Gaps in Planning and Operational Studies

In the evolving power system, where new renewable resources displace continually conventional generation and hydro becomes a single traditional resource that is fully controllable, it is timely to examine hydrogeneration’s role in the power system of the future and its representation in power system operation and planning reliability studies. This paper identifies some of the gaps in hydro-based generation representation in steady-state and dynamic models and provides recommendations for their mitigation.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗

Techno-Economic Optimization of Advanced Energy Plants with Integrated Thermal, Mechanical, and Electro-Chemical Storage (Final Report)

The increasing use of renewable energy sources is leading to increased cycling of fossil-fueled power plants (FFPP) that are designed to operate at base-loaded conditions. Integrating energy storage facilities with the FFPPs can be helpful in reducing load-following operation of FFPPs. Decentralized deployment of energy storage facilities at the FFPP level has considerable advantages due to possibilities of smaller storage capacities, immediate benefits realized by the host power plant due to the increase in the efficiency, cleaner emission and higher plant life to name a few. Most importantly, deployment at the FFPP level can exploit the existing equipment items and facilities at the host power plant, thus reducing the CAPEX and reducing the storage capacity. However, realization of these benefits will critically depend on novel configuration/integration strategies with the least impact on the power plant operation and its configuration. Furthermore, dynamics of the entire integrated system including both the FFPP and the storage technologies must be taken into account to obtain the cost-optimal solution. With these motivations, the objective of this project was to complete a focused evaluation of decentralized deployments of energy storage facilities at the FFPP level. Promising thermal, chemical, mechanical, and electro-chemical storage technologies were evaluated with due consideration of their transient response to obtain various optimal system concepts that can minimize the levelized cost of storage. For thermal storage, cryogenic energy storage along with high temperature heat storage in molten salt as well as phase change material were evaluated. For mechanical storage, cryogenic air storage and pumped hydro storages were evaluated. For chemical storage, hydrogen storage was evaluated. For electrochemical storage, the team evaluated sodium sulfur, vanadium redox flow battery as well as Li-ion batteries. Integration of these storage technologies with the natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) and supercritical pulverized coal (SCPC) plants was considered. Six technologies, namely molten salt, cryogenics, compressed air, pumped hydro, H2 storage and Li-ion battery storage, were downselected based on their levelized cost of storage. It was observed that the ranking of the optimal storage technology can differ based on the host power plant technology even when same demand/supply/price profile for electricity are considered. It was also observed that as the variability in power demand varies, the ranking of the optimal storage technologies vary. However, for the same demand and LMP profile, top six optimal storage technologies for NGCC vs SCPC plants did not differ much even though LCOS for the same technology and optimal size of a given storage technology did differ. Detailed techno-economic assessment of these six technologies was undertaken.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗

Non-Powered Dam Hydropower Development and Ranking Opportunity Tool

In pursuit of a net-zero-carbon emissions economy in the United States, non-powered dams (NPDs) represent a large opportunity to develop hydropower while leveraging existing infrastructure. With almost 600 NPD sites in the United States identified as having over 1 megawatt (MW) of potential capacity, only a small portion of the total potential capacity at these sites has been developed in recent years. , Conventional NPD retrofit feasibility analysis primarily focuses on the developer’s perspective but fails to consider the broader impacts of developing a dam, including on the neighboring communities. This tool, the Non-Powered Dam Hydropower Development and Ranking Opportunity Tool (NPD HYDRO), allows users to prioritize or rank NPD sites for future development based on user-defined priorities. Benefits can be evaluated in several categories: the grid, community, industry, and environment (referred to as the four impact scores in the tool as discussed in Section 2.2). In addition, the tool provides the user with a qualitative measure for the feasibility of adding energy storage during NPD conversion, specifically battery, hydrogen electrolysis, and pumped-storage hydropower (PSH). By taking a holistic approach to the potential range of benefits provided by NPD conversions with results tailored to the user’s priorities, NPD HYDRO provides the opportunity for national-level screening and enables users to focus on the sites that are most closely aligned with their interests.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗

Hydropower Biological Evaluation Toolset Best Practice Guide

Field studies using live fish are necessary for the evaluation of turbine biological performance, but they cannot determine the specific hydraulic conditions or physical stresses experienced by the fish, the locations where deleterious conditions occur, or the specific causes of the biological response. Using the Sensor Fish (SF) sensing technology, this deficiency can be overcome because the SF can be released independently or concurrently with live fish directly into operating infrastructure, and it takes high-frequency measurements of hydraulic conditions such as pressure, acceleration, and rotation acting on a body in situ during downstream passage. The Hydropower Biological Evaluation Tools (HBET; Hou et al. 2018) software package, developed by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), is designed to assemble, organize, and process data collected by the PNNL-developed SF and by live fish. HBET was developed specifically to design SF field studies, process the raw data, and analyze the processed data efficiently and scientifically. Its objectives are to facilitate SF studies focused on characterizing hydraulic conditions and to apply SF data for evaluating the impacts on fish from passage through hydro-structures. HBET allows users to design new studies, analyze data, perform statistical analyses, and evaluate predicted biological responses. It can be used by researchers, turbine designers, hydropower operators, and regulators to evaluate hydro-structures to enhance environmental sustainability in a cost-effective manner.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗

Data-Driven Scalable Emulation of Hydropower Using Real-Time Hardware-in-the-Loop

This presentation covers Motivation: (1) With the increased grid integration of inverter-based resources, hydropower plays a crucial role in maintaining the bulk power system reliability and resilience; and (2) A more dynamic response and new control designs are required to meet the grid requirements. To evaluate any modification, control-prototyping, performance validation and de-risking grid integration of hydropower, a high-fidelity environment is required. Also covers Objectives: (1) To develop data-driven emulation of hydropower using hardware-in-the-loop for different size, types of hydro plants; and (2) To characterize hardware and obtain accurate dynamic response for shaft speed, torque, and power. Provide a mechanical power interface with emulated dynamics of a hydro-turbine shaft that can be coupled to electrical generators for mechanical and electrical PHIL.

electrical↗

Use Probabilistic Forecasts in Reliable and Economic Electricity Market Scheduling and Operations

The value of probabilistic forecasts in electricity market operations is being increasingly recognized lately, however, the use is still limited. This study demonstrates two cases of using probabilistic forecasts in scheduling and operations of the California electricity market. We first develop a data-driven method to give weather-informed estimates of ramping reserves based on short-term probabilistic solar irradiance forecasts. By using forecasts across multiple sites, our proposed method presents advantages over the real-world baseline in terms of system reliability and economics. Our second case uses probabilistic hydro power forecasts in the scheduling of a hydro power plant under economic and environmental constraints. By optimizing the bids into both the day-ahead and real-time markets, our results demonstrate considerable economic benefits.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗

Mitigating the Effect of Wind Gusts on Local Run-of-River Hydropower Plants Using Cooperative Control

This paper focuses on the challenges and solutions associated with the integration of wind farms in a hydro- dominated power system. Due to sudden increases in wind power, the system frequency can increase, causing excessive reduction in the run-of-river (ROR) system’s power. Considering their small pondage, this can result in damage to the physical structure due to water level violations which are also penalized by stakeholders. To prevent excessive ROR power deviations, ROR governor wear and tear, and to prevent tie-line deviations, a centralized, distributed, and hybrid scheme for coordinating the response from a cluster of ROR plants is examined. Both centralized and distributed control as well as their hybrids can reduce frequency peaks. However, the inclusion of decentralized cooperative controls leads to reduced governor actions from fast- acting plants while enhancing net response from the hydro unit cluster.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗

Multi-scale Coupled Processes Modeling of Fractures as Porous, Interfacial and Granular Systems from Rock Images with the Numerical Manifold Method

Abstract The greatest challenges of rigorously modeling coupled hydro-mechanical processes in fractured rocks at different scales are associated with computational geometry. In addition, selections of continuous or discontinuous models, physical laws, and coupling priorities at different scales based on different geometric features determine the applicability of a numerical model for a certain type of problem. In this study, we present our multi-scale modeling capabilities that have been developed based on the numerical manifold method for analyzing coupled hydro-mechanical processes in fractured rocks. Based on their geometric features, the fractures are modeled as continua—finite-thickness porous zones, and discontinua—discontinuous interfaces and microscale asperities and granular systems. Different governing equations, physical laws, coupling priorities, and approaches for addressing fracture intersections and shearing are then applied to describe these. We applied these models to simulate coupled processes in fractured rocks using realistic geometry obtained from rock images at different scales. We first calculated shearing of a single fracture with different models and demonstrated the impacts of asperities on shearing. We then applied the continuous and discontinuous models to simulate a network of rough fractures, demonstrating that contact dynamics contribute significantly to the geometric, multi-physical evolution of systems where rough fractures are not mineral filled. For a discrete fracture network, our coupled processes modeling demonstrates that shearing of the discrete fractures can have a major impact on stress and pore pressure distribution. Lastly, we applied the discontinuous granular model to simulate evolution of a complex granular system with a deformation band, demonstrating that the deformation band can dominate contact dynamics, the structural and the stress evolution of the granular system.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

The root-zone soil moisture spectrum in a mediterranean ecosystem

Storage of water within soil pores of the root zone introduce memory effects in the dynamics of soil moisture that are considerably longer than the integral timescale of many atmospheric processes. Thus, hydro-climatic states can be “sustained” through land-surface heat and water vapor fluxes primarily because they can “feed off” on this long-term soil moisture memory. Root-zone soil moisture memory is only but one feature characterizing the spectrum of soil moisture dynamics, which is analyzed here using a combination of long-term measurements and models. In particular, the spectrum of root-zone soil moisture content in a Mediterranean ecosystem is examined using 14-years of half-hourly measurements. A distinguishing hydro-climatic feature in such ecosystems is that sources (mainly rainfall) and sinks (mainly evapotranspiration) of soil moisture are roughly out of phase with each other. For over 4 decades of time scales and 7 decades of energy, the canonical shape of the measured soil moisture spectrum is shown to be approximately Lorentzian determined by the soil moisture variance and its memory but with two exceptions: the occurrences of a peak at diurnal-to-daily time scales and a weaker peak at near annual time scales. Model calculations and spectral analysis demonstrate that diurnal and seasonal variations in hydroclimate forcing responsible for variability in evapotranspiration had minor impact on the normalized shape of the soil moisture spectrum. However, their impact was captured by adjustments in the temporal variance. These findings indicate that precipitation and not evapotranspiration variability dominates the multi-scaling properties of soil moisture variability consistent with prior climate model simulations. Furthermore, the soil moisture memory inferred by the annual peak of soil moisture (340 d) is consistent with climate model simulations, while the memory evaluated from the loss function of a linearized mass balance approach leads to a smaller value (50 d), highlighting the effect of weak non-stationarity on soil moisture variability.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Combining anaerobic digestion and hydrothermal liquefaction in the conversion of dairy waste into energy: A techno economic model for New York state

There is increasing global interest and policies being enacted to lower greenhouse gas emissions, especially from the agricultural sector. In the U.S. for example, states with large dairy operations may combine proven manure valorization technologies, such as anaerobic digestion and hydrothermal liquefaction. Sustainable manure treatment would increase the recovery of energy and other useful co-products, namely biogas, biocrude oil and hydro-char as well as lower the environmental impacts. In this study, the economic feasibility of implementing a centralized bioenergy system in New York State was investigated. Here, the feasibility of this transformation depends on many factors, including capital costs, discount rates, and other financing arrangements, electricity selling prices, incentives and farm sizes and locations. For a large-scale implementation in New York State accounting for nearly 50% of the state’s dairy farms, our model of a distributed, hybrid anaerobic/hydrothermal system was shown to treat 590 million liters of wet manure per day, producing 607 million kWh of electricity, 162,000 L of biocrude oil and 117,000 kg of hydro-char per day. Electricity selling price is a critical factor. Increasing the electricity selling price from wholesale ($\$0.06$ /kWh) to retail ($\$0.18$ kWh) increased the net present value from $\$395$ million to $1.5 billion (considering a 40-year project lifetime).

42 ENGINEERING↗

Gas Production from Hot Water Circulation through Hydraulic Fractures in Methane Hydrate-Bearing Sediments: THC-Coupled Simulation of Production Mechanisms

Methane hydrates, widely found in permafrost and deep marine sediments, have great potential as a future energy 6 source. Conventional production schemes perform poorly for challenging hydrate reservoirs with low permeability. We propose an 7 efficient production scheme by combining hydraulic fracturing from horizontal wells and hot water circulation through fractures. A 8 fully coupled thermo-hydro-chemical (THC) model is developed to simulate the key physical processes during gas production from 9 a hydrate reservoir representative of typical geological settings in Shenhu, South China Sea. We found that the gas production 10 process has two distinct stages divided by thermal breakthrough: a relatively short prebreakthrough stage and a postbreakthrough 11 stage yielding stable gas production. Heat advection along and near the hydraulic fracture dominates the prebreakthrough stage, 12 whereas conduction-driven thermal recovery in the volume around fractures dominates the postbreakthrough stage. We identified 13 that the steady-state injection temperature has a strong effect on the performance of the proposed scheme while the fluid mass 14 circulation rate has a moderate impact beyond a threshold. The proposed scheme proves to be efficient and robust over a range of 15 reservoir conditions with respect to initial hydrate saturation and intrinsic permeability, including their spatial heterogeneities, 16 thereby offering a promising solution for challenging reservoir conditions.

gas hydrate, fracture flow, gas production, numeri↗

The Role of Interface Band Alignment in Epitaxial SrTiO 3 /GaAs Heterojunctions

Recent concerns surrounding climate change and the contribution of fossil fuels to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have sparked interest and advancements in renewable energy sources including wind, solar, and hydroelectricity. These energy sources, often referred to as “clean energy”, generate no operational onsite GHG emissions. They also offer the potential for clean hydrogen production through water electrolysis, presenting a viable solution to create an environmentally friendly alternative energy carrier with the potential to decarbonize industrial processes reliant on hydrogen. To conduct a full life cycle analysis, it is crucial to account for the embodied emissions associated with renewable and nuclear power generation plants as they can significantly impact the GHG emissions linked to hydrogen production and its derived products. In this work, we conducted a comprehensive analysis of the embodied emissions associated with solar photovoltaic (PV), wind, hydro, and nuclear electricity. We investigated the implications of including plant-embodied emissions in the overall emission estimates of electrolysis hydrogen production and subsequently on the production of synthetic ammonia, methanol, and Fischer– Tropsch (FT) fuels. Results show that average embodied GHG emissions of solar PV, wind, hydro, and nuclear electricity generation in the United States (U.S.) were estimated to be 37, 9.8, 7.2, and 0.3 g CO 2 e/kWh, respectively. Life cycle GHG emissions of electrolytic hydrogen produced from solar PV, wind, and hydroelectricity were estimated as 2.1, 0.6, and 0.4 kg of CO 2 e/kg of H 2 , respectively, in contrast to the zero-emissions often used when the embodied emissions in their construction were excluded. Average life cycle emission estimates (CO 2 e/kg) of synthetic ammonia, methanol, and FT-fuel from solar PV electricity are increased by 5.5, 16, and 49 times, respectively, compared to the case when embodied emissions are excluded. This change also depends on the local irradiance for solar power, which can result in a further increase of GHG emissions by 35–41% in areas of low irradiance or reduce GHG emissions by 21–25% in areas with higher irradiance.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Mitigating Injection‐Induced Seismicity Along Basement Faults by Extraction: Application to 2016–2018 Pohang Earthquakes

Abstract The risk of induced earthquake is considered as the major obstacle for sustainable subsurface energy activities. As a mitigation approach, mechanistic risk assessment can be essential to minimize the potential of seismic hazard. Coupled hydro‐mechanical modeling approach is integrated with geomechanical analysis to better assess the occurrence of seismicity induced by injection and/or extraction, which will provide a basis to update operational conditions (e.g., number and location of mitigating wells, rate and duration of operations) for mitigating earthquake nucleation. The Coulomb stability analysis and seismicity rate estimates from this generic study indicate that simultaneous extraction can relieve injection‐induced pore‐pressure buildup, but also transfer and accumulate elastic energy along the faults. Field‐scale simulation with variation in well design for the Pohang EGS site, South Korea, show that multiple wells aligned across a preexisting fault form gradients of pressure and stress fields normal to the fault, which can enhance the direct impact of diffusion process and poroelastic stressing on the fault stability perturbation. Our mechanistic study suggests multiphysics‐oriented mitigation strategies that consider (1) possible mechanical deformation, caused by hydro‐mechanical coupling effects, and (2) proper configuration of well operations based on site‐specific geological characteristics.

Chang, K. W.↗

Weather Systems Connecting Modes of Climate Variability to Regional Hydroclimate Extremes

Abstract Weather system clustering provides a high‐level summary of regional meteorological conditions. Most quantitative clustering schemes focus on precipitation alone, which does not sufficiently describe the meteorological conditions driving hydroclimate variability. This study presents the Weather Anomaly Clustering (WAC‐hydro), which extends the existing capability of predicting weather systems to predicting hydroclimate variability. Focusing on both precipitation and temperature predictions, WAC‐hydro identifies 12 clusters of daily weather anomaly modes in the US Pacific Northwest Puget Sound region during 1981–2020. The influence of El Niño‐Southern Oscillation and Madden‐Julian Oscillation on regional precipitation can be well approximated by their modulation on the weather clusters. Within each weather cluster, local factors such as topography only play a secondary role in the hydrologic variability. The weather clusters highlight two types of flood‐inducing regional weather conditions, one causing floods by inducing positive precipitation anomalies and the other causing floods through combined precipitation and temperature‐induced rain‐on‐snow effect.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Demonstration of a hydrodynamically equivalent burning plasma in direct-drive inertial confinement fusion

Focussing laser light onto the surface of a small target filled with deuterium and tritium implodes it and leads to the creation of a hot and dense plasma, in which thermonuclear fusion reactions occur. In order for the plasma to become self-sustaining, the heating of the plasma must be dominated by the energy provided by the fusion reactions—a condition known as a burning plasma. A metric for this is the generalized Lawson parameter, where values above around 0.8 imply a burning plasma. Here, we report on hydro-equivalent scaling of experimental results on the OMEGA laser system and show that these have achieved core conditions that reach a burning plasma when the central part of the plasma, the hotspot, is scaled in size by at least a factor of 3.9 ± 0.10, which would require a driver laser energy of at least 1.7 ± 0.13 MJ. In addition, we hydro-equivalently scale the results to the 2.15 MJ of laser energy available at the National Ignition Facility and find that these implosions reach 86% of the Lawson parameter required for ignition. Furthermore, our results support direct-drive inertial confinement fusion as a credible approach for achieving thermonuclear ignition and net energy in laser fusion.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Assessment of chemo-mechanical impacts of CO 2 sequestration on the caprock formation in Farnsworth oil field, Texas

This study evaluates the chemo-mechanical influence of injected CO 2 on the Morrow B sandstone reservoir and the upper Morrow shale caprock utilizing data from the inverted 5-spot pattern centered on Well 13-10A within the Farnsworth unit (FWU). This study also seeks to evaluate the integrity of the caprock and the long-term CO 2 storage capability of the FWU. The inverted 5-spot pattern was extracted from the field-scale model and tuned with the available field observed data before the modeling work. Two coupled numerical simulation models were utilized to continue the study. First, a coupled hydro-geochemical model was constructed to simulate the dissolution and precipitation of formation minerals by modeling three intra-aqueous and six mineral reactions. In addition, a coupled hydro-geomechanical model was constructed and employed to study the effects of stress changes on the caprock’s porosity, permeability, and ground displacement. The Mohr–Coulomb circle and failure envelope were used to determine caprock failure. In this work, the CO 2 -WAG injection is followed by the historical field-observed strategy. During the forecasting period, a Water Alternating Gas (WAG) injection ratio of 1:3 was utilized with a baseline bottom-hole pressure constraint of 5500 psi for 20 years. A post-injection period of 1000 years was simulated to monitor the CO 2 plume and its effects on the CO 2 storage reservoir and caprock integrity. The simulation results indicated that the impacts of the geochemical reactions on the porosity of the caprock were insignificant as it experienced a decrease of about 0.0003% at the end of the 1000-year post-injection monitoring. On the other hand, the maximum stress-induced porosity change was about a 1.4% increase, resulting in about 4% in permeability change. It was estimated that about 3.3% of the sequestered CO 2 in the formation interacted with the caprock. Despite these petrophysical property alterations and CO 2 interactions in the caprock, the caprock still maintained its elastic properties and was determined to be far from its failure.

04 OIL SHALES AND TAR SANDS↗

Influence of monsoon low pressure systems on South Asian disasters and implications for disaster prediction

Transient atmospheric vortices called monsoon low pressure systems (LPS) generate a large fraction of total rainfall over South Asia and often produce extreme precipitation. Here, we assess the influence of these storms on the occurrence of disasters, using information from the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) that we geocoded and then associated with LPS tracks. We show that more than half of hydro-meteorological disasters over South Asia during summer are associated with these LPS events. Weaker LPS (which are called monsoon lows) occur more frequently than stronger LPS (called monsoon depressions), but the stronger LPS produce a larger number of disasters. Furthermore, although many prior studies have shown that the peak rainfall in LPS falls southwest of the vortex centre, the disasters are concentrated on the northern edge of the LPS tracks, along the Himalayas and upper basins of the Ganga and Brahmaputra rivers. Observations show a sharp peak in rainfall on the day of disasters, confirming the physical link between LPS and these hydro-meteorological disasters. A similar peak in rainfall is found in weather forecasts made up to five days before the disaster, suggesting that short-term precipitation forecasts can be useful in disaster preparation.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗