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At least 271 records · Page 15
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

Model data for Flood Frequency Analysis using Stochastic Storm Transposition and an Integrated Surface-Subsurface Hydrological Model

This archived provides scripts and input files used for the implementation of a novel approach to conduct process-based Flood Frequency Analysis using a Stochastic Storm Transposition (SST) and an Integrated Surface-Subsurface Hydrological Model (ISSHM). As a proof-of-concept, this study uses the ISSHM, Advanced Terrestrial Simulator (Amanzi-ATS) model, and the SST model, RainyDay, to conduct flood frequency analysis by simulating the flood response to 5,000 annual synthetic storm events in a ~2000 km2 Southeast Texas watershed.The Watershed Workflow package is implemented in Python3. The Jupyter notebooks can be executed through multiple open-source tools, for example, Anaconda Jupyter Lab, VS Studio Code, etc. Other data files include TXT, CSV, DAT, SBATCH, SHP, TIF, NetCDF, and HDF5 files, which can be read through Python scripts. The input files for the ATS model and RainyDay model have .XML and .SST extensions, respectively, and can be edited in any commonly used text editors.This archive contains:* Scripts and data files essential for generating the ATS model input. It uses the Watershed Workflow package to produce both mesh and ATS input files. * Jupyter notebooks designated for the ATS model evaluation, covering both long-term simulations and 40 rainfall-runoff events.* Input files required to simulate SST storm events using RainyDay.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Microfluidic Investigation of Salinity-Induced Oil Recovery in Porous Media during Chemical Flooding

High and low salinity water flooding are common oil recovery processes performed in the oil fields for extracting crude oil from the reservoir. These processes are often performed sequentially, naturally establishing non-uniform salinity in the porous subsurface. In this article, we investigate oil transport in porous media induced by salinity change upon flooding with high and low salinity water. As we observe a large number of impervious dead-ends from three-dimensional imaging of the actual reservoir, we identify that these areas play an important role in oil recovery where the oil transport is governed by the salinity change rather than hydrodynamics. The salinity gradients induced upon high salinity water flooding provide pathways to enhance the transport of oil drops trapped in the dead-end regions via non-equilibrium effects. However, above a critical salinity, we observe a rapid aggregation of drops that lead to the complete blockage of the pore space, thereby inhibiting oil recovery. We also find that, at an intermediate salinity where the drop aggregation is modest, the aggregation rather promotes the oil recovery. Furthermore, our observations suggest that there exist optimal salinity conditions for maximizing oil recovery during chemical flooding.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2023

Neglecting Model Parametric Uncertainty Can Drastically Underestimate Flood Risks

Abstract Floods drive dynamic and deeply uncertain risks for people and infrastructures. Uncertainty characterization is a crucial step in improving the predictive understanding of multi‐sector dynamics and the design of risk‐management strategies. Current approaches to estimate flood hazards often sample only a relatively small subset of the known unknowns, for example, the uncertainties surrounding the model parameters. This approach neglects the impacts of key uncertainties on hazards and system dynamics. Here we mainstream a recently developed method for Bayesian inference to calibrate a computationally expensive distributed hydrologic model. We compare three different calibration approaches: (a) stepwise line search, (b) precalibration or screening, and (c) the Fast Model Calibrations (FaMoS) approach. FaMoS deploys a particle‐based approach that takes advantage of the massive parallelization afforded by modern high‐performance computing systems. We quantify how neglecting parametric uncertainty and data discrepancy can drastically underestimate extreme flood events and risks. Precalibration improves prediction skill score over a stepwise line search. The Bayesian calibration improves the uncertainty characterization of model parameters and flood risk projections.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2026

Reimagining How Flood Warnings Can Inform Decision‐Making and Community Actions

Society faces increasingly severe flood hazards, intensifying demand for flood early warning systems (FEWS) that deliver accurate and actionable information. However, most existing FEWS remain prediction‐centric, treating decision‐making as a downstream consumer of hazard forecasts while offering limited support for uncertainty interpretation, risk communication, and real‐world response. This Perspective presents a vision and blueprint for a novel inland FEWS‐decision‐making (FEWS‐DM) framework that repositions decision‐making as an equal partner in the forecasting process—not a passive recipient of its outputs. The framework is built on three tightly coupled, co‐evolving thrusts: Physical Science (T1), which advances flood prediction with quantified uncertainty informed by decision relevance; Human Science (T2), which incorporates psychology, behavior, and cultural and institutional context; and Decision Science (T3), which unifies physical predictions and human factors through principled, utility‐based decision support with end‐to‐end uncertainty management. Rather than treating T1 as a solved problem, FEWS‐DM recognizes that forecast development itself must be shaped by decision needs through continuous bidirectional feedback. We identify key scientific, behavioral, and operational challenges limiting such integration and discuss the enabling role of AI, while emphasizing human‐centered design and community feedback as essential for building trust and improving flood risk management.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Floods of Egypt’s Nile in the 21st century

Extreme precipitation and flooding events are rising globally, necessitating a thorough understanding and sustainable management of water resources. One such setting is the Nile River’s source areas, where high precipitation has led to the filling of Lake Nasser (LN) twice (1998–2003; 2019–2022) in the last two decades and the diversion of overflow to depressions west of the Nile, where it is lost mainly to evaporation. Using temporal satellite-based data, climate models, and continuous rainfall-runoff models, we identified the primary contributor to increased runoff that reached LN in the past two decades and assessed the impact of climate change on the LN’s runoff throughout the twenty-first century. Findings include: (1) the Blue Nile subbasin (BNS) is the primary contributor to increased downstream runoff, (2) the BNS runoff was simulated in the twenty-first century using a calibrated (1965–1992) rainfall-runoff model with global circulation models (GCMs), CCSM4, HadGEM3, and GFDL-CM4.0, projections as model inputs, (3) the extreme value analysis for projected runoff driven by GCMs’ output indicates extreme floods are more severe in the twenty-first century, (4) one adaptation for the projected twenty-first century increase in precipitation (25–39%) and flood (2%-20%) extremes is to recharge Egypt’s fossil aquifers during high flood years.

Climate change↗
DOE OSTI2021

Soil texture and environmental conditions influence the biogeochemical responses of soils to drought and flooding

Abstract Climate change is intensifying the global water cycle, with increased frequency of drought and flood. Water is an important driver of soil carbon dynamics, and it is crucial to understand how moisture disturbances will affect carbon availability and fluxes in soils. Here we investigate the role of water in substrate-microbe connectivity and soil carbon cycling under extreme moisture conditions. We collected soils from Alaska, Florida, and Washington USA, and incubated them under Drought and Flood conditions. Drought had a stronger effect on soil respiration, pore-water carbon, and microbial community composition than flooding. Soil response was not consistent across sites, and was influenced by site-level pedological and environmental factors. Soil texture and porosity can influence microbial access to substrates through the pore network, driving the chemical response. Further, the microbial communities are adapted to the historic stress conditions at their sites and therefore show site-specific responses to drought and flood.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

Climate change alters flood magnitudes and mechanisms in climatically-diverse headwaters across the northwestern United States

Abstract Flooding caused by high streamflow events poses great risk around the world and is projected to increase under climate change. This paper assesses how climate change will alter high streamflow events by changing both the prevalence of different driving mechanisms (i.e. ‘flood generating processes’) and the magnitude of differently generated floods. We present an analysis of simulated changes in high streamflow events in selected basins in the hydroclimatically diverse Pacific Northwestern United States, classifying the events according to their mechanism. We then compare how the different classes of events respond to changes in climate at the annual scale. In a warmer future, high flow events will be caused less frequently by snowmelt and more frequently by precipitation events. Also, precipitation-driven high flow events are more sensitive to increases in precipitation than are snowmelt-driven high flow events, so the combination of the increase in both frequency and magnitude of precipitation-driven high flow events leads to higher flood likelihood than under each change alone. Our comparison of the results from two emissions pathways shows that a reduction in global emissions will limit the increase in magnitude and prevalence of these precipitation-driven events.

S Chegwidden, Oriana (ORCID:0000000313763835)↗
DOE OSTI2021

Equatorial waves triggering extreme rainfall and floods in southwest Sulawesi, Indonesia

On the basis of detailed analysis of a case study and long-term climatology, it is shown that equatorial waves and their interactions serve as precursors for extreme rain and flood events in the central Maritime Continent region of southwest Sulawesi, Indonesia. Meteorological conditions on January 22, 2019, leading to heavy rainfall and devastating flooding in this area were studied. It is shown that a convectively coupled Kelvin wave (CCKW) and a convectively coupled Rossby wave (CCERW) embedded within the larger-scale envelope of the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) enhanced convective phase, contributed to the onset of a mesoscale convective system which developed over the Java Sea. Low-Level convergence from the CCKW forced mesoscale convective organization and orographic ascent of moist air over the slopes of southwest Sulawesi. Climatological analysis shows that 92 % of December-January-February floods and 76% of extreme rain events in this region were immediately preceded by positive low-level westerly wind anomalies. It is estimated that both CCKWs and CCERWs propagating over Sulawesi double the chance of floods and extreme rain event development, which the probability of such hazardous events occurring during their combined activity is eight times greater than on a random day. While the MJO is a key component shaping tropical atmospheric variability, it is shown that its usefulness as a single factor for extreme weather-driven hazard prediction is limited.

Latos, Beata↗
DOE OSTI2026

CROCUS Tipping Bucket Rain Gauge Data from Argonne Deployable Mast Deployed at Argonne National Laboratory During Urban Flooding Campaign

The Tipping Bucket Rain Gauge (TBRG) dataset contains data from a non-heated Met One 12-inch tipping bucket rain gauge that was mounted on the Argonne Deployable Mast (ADM). The ADM is a rapid deployable meteorological trailer that can be outfitted with instrumentation to measure urban heat island effects, urban flooding or urban flux measurements. During the urban flooding field campaign, the ADM was outfitted with multiple precipitation measurement systems, including the TBRG. This dataset contains one minute measurements for precipitation accumulation during the ADM's deployment at the Argonne Testbed for Multiscale Observational Science (ATMOS) site. These data are helpful for identifying periods of precipitation, leading to potential flooding. TBRGs can be used to validate optical rain gauge data and disdrometer data collected during the CROCUS urban flooding campaign. Data were collected at ATMOS, a 20-acre prairie site at Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont, Illinois. The data is presented as daily NetCDF (.nc) files, each containing approximately 24 hours of observations. Files follow the naming convention of: the project (CROCUS), location (ADM-atmos), instrument name (tbrg), data level (raw, a1), and date (year, month, day). The NetCDF format can be accessed using common scientific software such as Python using xarray, netCDF4 or act-doe.

1-min Precipitation Accumulation↗
DOE OSTI2020

First Ever Polymer Flood Field Pilot To Enhance The Recovery Of Heavy Oils On Alaska’s North Slope - Pushing Ahead One Year Later

In June 2018 the team embarked on an ambitious project to address the slow development pace of Alaska’s 20+ billion barrels heavy oil resource via the first ever polymer flood pilot. Following the successful commencement of the pilot in August 2018, the field demonstration, supporting laboratory experiments and numerical simulation have steadily progressed. A significant amount of valuable data and lessons learned have been collected, and are reported in this paper. The ongoing pilot and the research activities is making headway toward the primary objective of validating the use of polymer flooding for extracting heavy oil in Alaska’s challenging environment. The pilot is conducted in two pre-existing pairs of horizontal injectors and producers in an isolated fault block of the Schrader Bluff heavy oil reservoir at the Milne Point Field. A customized polymer blending and pumping unit injects HPAM polymer at a concentration of 1,750 ppm to achieve a target viscosity of 45 cP. Supporting coreflood laboratory experiments have focused on quantification of polymer retention in the rock, and effect of injection water salinity, polymer, and their combinations on oil recovery. The injection and production response of the pilot flood pattern is utilized to develop a history matched reservoir simulation model for forecasting oil recovery beyond the pilot. Finally, specially designed laboratory experiments address anticipated operating concerns regarding post-polymer breakthrough such as oil-water separation efficiency and polymer induced fouling of heater tubes. Polymer has been injected continuously since startup except for two short equipment modification shutdowns, and more recently a prolonged disruption due to polymer hydration issues at the J-pad field site. Cumulatively, over 600,000 lbs. of polymer has been injected, corresponding to ~7%PV. The two producers show significant decrease in the water cut, gradually increasing oil rate, and no polymer breakthrough. Two main observations from the coreflood are a significant uncertainty in polymer retention values, and positive oil recovery response to low salinity water (2,600 mg/liter TDS). The heterogeneity in the flood pattern presents some challenges in obtaining a robust history matched simulation model. Experimental results on produced fluids treatment indicate the formation of a dense polymer deposit, at certain conditions, on heating tubes that can negatively impact the heat transfer efficiency. The scientific knowledge, including the lessons learned during unanticipated shutdowns, quality control, logistics and field data that is being acquired from this effort has referential value for other planned EOR projects. Finally, by all indications, the polymer field pilot is steadily progressing toward achieving the ultimate goal of unlocking the massive heavy oil resources on Alaska North Slope (ANS).

Dandekar, Abhijit↗
DOE OSTI2021

Science-integrated Artificial-intelligence for Flooding and precipitation Extremes (SAFE)

A grand challenge in hydrologic science is to understand why signals of climate change and variability, which are often visible in precipitation extremes at aggregate scales, are not consistently observed in the case of extreme flooding. However, a solution to this challenge may prove elusive unless the water cycle is viewed in an integrative manner. Thus, for riverine flooding, while Hortonian (infiltration excess) runoff may have stronger correlation with precipitation extremes and hence perhaps to warming trends or climate oscillators, Dunne (saturation excess) runoff may have a more complex relationships with time series of precipitation and with evaporation and transpiration, but rain-on-snow and snowmelt events may depend on land-surface and atmospheric temperatures. Atmospheric rivers and tropical cyclones lead to precipitation or flooding and are impacted by climate. Flooding assessments need to consider long-term baselines, evolving risk factors, coupled natural-human systems, and novel adaptation such as nature-inspired design.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2026

Who Has the Upper HAND in a Hurricane? Flood Risk, Weather Shocks, and Property Prices

Flood risk is increasing in the United States, but how property markets respond to this hazard is unclear. Focusing on Houston, Texas, we analyze changes in flood risk capitalization in property prices after three major Gulf Coast hurricanes. Here, we compare two measures of flood risk–floodplain designations from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and a hydrologically-imputed, continuous measure, Height Above the Nearest Drainage (HAND). HAND affects property prices after a storm in intuitive ways, while we observe counterintuitive post-storm price premiums within FEMA floodplains. Plausibly exogenous measures like HAND may be useful tools for characterizing flood risk in economic analyses.

Plough, Julian A. [University of North Carolina, C↗
NASA NTRS1973

Application of ERTS-1 Imagery to Flood Inundation Mapping

Ground data and a variety of low-altitude multispectral imagery were acquired for the East Nishnabotna River on September 14 and 15. This successful effort concluded that a near-visible infrared sensor could map inundated areas in late summer for at least three days after flood recession. ERTS-1 multispectral scanner subsystem (MSS) imagery of the area was obtained on September 18 and 19. Analysis of MSS imagery by IGSRSL, USGS, and NASA reinforced the conclusions of the low-altitude study while increasing the time period critical for imagery acquisition to at least 7 days following flood recession. The capability of satellite imagery to map late summer flooding at a scale of 1:250,000 is exhibited by the agreement of interpreted flood boundaries obtained from ERTS-1 imagery to boundaries mapped by low-altitude imagery and ground methods.

Hallberg, G. R.↗
NASA NTRS1975

Earth resources satellite systems for flood monitoring

The environmental satellites NOAA-2 and ERTS-1 observed flooding in United States' rivers such as the Mississippi during 1973. Combination of NOAA-2 observation frequency and the ERTS-1 resolution provides an adequate satellite system for monitoring floods. Several polar-orbiting satellites of the ERTS type could view flooded areas at a reasonably high resolution every three to five days. A high-resolution earth-synchronous satellite would further enhance flood mapping by providing observations whenever clouds are absent.

Mcginnis, D. F.↗
NASA NTRS1977

Optical data processing and projected applications of the ERTS-1 imagery covering the 1973 Mississippi River Valley floods

Flooding was detected along the Mississippi River and some of its tributaries by the multispectral scanner (MSS) on the ERTS-1 on at least three orbits during the spring of 1973. The ERTS data provided the first opportunity for mapping the regional extent of flooding. Special optical data processing techniques were used to produce a variety of multispectral color composites enhancing flood-plain details. One of these, a 2-color composite of near infrared bands 6 and 7, was enlarged and registered to 1:250,000-scale topographic maps and used as the basis for preparation of flood image maps. Two specifically filtered 3-color composites of MSS bands 5,6, and 7 and 4, 5, and 7 were prepared.

Deutsch, M.↗
NASA NTRS1978

The Spokane flood controversy and the Martian outflow channels

The controversy over Bretz's hypothesis concerning the cataclysmic Spokane flood is discussed. Attention is directed to similarities between the Channeled Scabland of Washington and some Martian land features considered to be catastrophic flood channels. Characteristics of the enormous plexus of proglacial stream channels eroded into the loess and basalt of the Columbia Plateau in eastern Washington are described. The controversiality of the suggestion that a catastrophic flood is responsible for the Martian features is considered with respect to the Spokane flood controversy.

Baker, V. R.↗
NASA NTRS1979

Developing in situ flood estimators using multi-date Landsat imagery

Landsat satellite imagery is being used as the primary source of information on flooding in the Black River Basin of northern New York State. Landsat images (Band 7) depicting flood conditions during several flood seasons since 1973 were obtained for analysis. Visual interpretation of these images is providing the basis for quantitatively relating in situ measurements of river discharge with the total area and geographic locations of inundation. This, in turn, will provide real-time estimation of flood losses over the entire river basin. This practical and inexpensive approach can provide sufficiently reliable information, and is applicable in other similar river basins.

Mcleester, J. N.↗
NASA NTRS1979

A hydrological analysis of east Australian floods using Nimbus-5 electrically scanning radiometer data

The chronological development and diminution of six floods in eastern Australia during January, February, and March 1974 were mapped for the first time by the Nimbus Electrically Scanning Microwave Radiometer (ESMR). Day and nighttime ESMR (19.35 GHz) coverage was analyzed for the low gradient, flooded Darling River system in New South Wales. Apparent movement of surface water as indicated by low brightness temperatures (less than 250 K, day and less than 240 K, night) was easily followed around the curved runoff basin along the northern shoreline of the flooded Darling River during this 3-month period. This pattern was in good agreement with flood crest data at selected river height gage stations, even under cloudy conditions.

Allison, L. J.↗