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At least 55 records · Page 3

Water Treatment: Are Membranes the Panacea?

Alongside the rising global water demand, continued stress on current water supplies has sparked interest in using nontraditional source waters for energy, agriculture, industry, and domestic needs. Membrane technologies have emerged as one of the most promising approaches to achieve water security, but implementation of membrane processes for increasingly complex waters remains a challenge. The technical feasibility of membrane processes replacing conventional treatment of alternative water supplies (e.g., wastewater, seawater, and produced water) is considered in the context of typical and emerging water quality goals. This review considers the effectiveness of current technologies (both conventional and membrane based), as well as the potential for recent advancements in membrane research to achieve these water quality goals. We envision the future of water treatment to integrate advanced membranes (e.g., mixed-matrix membranes, block copolymers) into smart treatment trains that achieve several goals, including fit-for-purpose water generation, resource recovery, and energy conservation.

catalysis (heterogeneous)↗

Policy Brief: Integrated Nexus Policies for Sustainable and Resilient Energy, Water, and Food Systems

Population growth, climate change, and resource depletion put food and water security and energy supply at risk. Sustainable and resilient water, food, and energy systems are crucial to meet Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and increase resilience to global health crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. This policy brief describes the challenges and presents proposals regarding synergies in the land, water, and energy nexus to maximize net environmental, health, and social benefits. First, this brief focuses on water desalination, where the nexus approach helps to balance the full cost, including externalities, of desalinated water, and its socio-economic benefits. Second, this policy brief highlights nutrition-sensitive food policies that improve health and contribute to the preservation of natural resources. Finally, this brief presents challenges and opportunities for developing renewable energy.

energy↗

Opportunities for iron and steel industrial wastewater treatment and reuse in the United States

Concerns around water security in the United States have heightened the interest in industrial water treatment and reuse to improve water efficiency and operational reliability. Alongside nationwide efforts to expand industrial capacity, primary manufacturing sectors are adopting more resource-efficient technologies. This transition is expected to shift industrial water consumption patterns, driving the need for improved treatment and reuse practices. This study investigates opportunities for water use, treatment, and reuse in the iron and steel sector through a review of academic and industry literature and interviews with industry representatives. It identifies key challenges in water and wastewater management and outlines the conditions under which innovative treatment technologies could be deployed. Based on these insights, the study presents a practical water management action plan. Furthermore, it assesses water quality targets across different process operations, evaluates existing treatment technologies, and highlights challenges and opportunities for improvement relative to future performance expectations. Although water is often perceived as a low-cost commodity, industry feedback suggests that improvements in water use and treatment efficiency are typically prioritized only when they also reduce energy use, carbon emissions, or costs. This study advocates for a direct two-way partnership between industry and research audiences to bring their attention toward sustainable industrial water use, treatment, and reuse.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

Carbon mineralization pathways in interfacial adsorbed water nanofilms

Carbon mineralization in humidified carbon dioxide offers a promising route to mitigate anthropogenic emissions in a world stressed by water security. Despite its technological importance, our understanding of carbonation in water-poor environments lags, as traditional dissolution-precipitation pathways struggle to explain the adsorbed water nanofilm-mediated reactivity. Here, we utilize in operando X-ray diffraction (XRD) and advanced molecular simulations to investigate nanoconfined reactions driving forsterite carbonation, the magnesium-rich olivine. By examining magnesium ion dissolution and transport in atomistic simulations of the forsterite-water-carbon dioxide interface and comparing these with the in operando XRD activation energies, we identify both processes as rate-limiting at saturation. Our simulations reveal a mechanistic view of interfacial carbonation, where dissolution and precipitation are mediated by anomalous quasi two-dimensional diffusion. The transport process involves intermittent diffusive hopping in the desorbed state, separated by crawling events that are spatially short but temporally long. This understanding transcends carbon mineralization, with implications for understanding the transport of contaminants in geosystems, the design of multifunctional materials, water desalination, and molecular recognition systems.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

FALCON: Framework for Anomaly Detection in Industrial Control Systems

Industrial Control Systems (ICS) are used to control physical processes in critical infrastructure. These systems are used in a wide variety of operations such as water treatment, power generation and distribution, and manufacturing. While the safety and security of these systems are of serious concern, recent reports have shown an increase in targeted attacks aimed at manipulating physical processes to cause catastrophic consequences. This trend emphasizes the need for algorithms and tools that provide resilient and smart attack detection mechanisms to protect ICS. In this paper, we propose an anomaly detection framework for ICS based on a deep neural network. The proposed methodology uses dilated convolution and long short-term memory (LSTM) layers to learn temporal as well as long term dependencies within sensor and actuator data in an ICS. The sensor/actuator data are passed through a unique feature engineering pipeline where wavelet transformation is applied to the sensor signals to extract features that are fed into the model. Additionally, this paper explores four variations of supervised deep learning models, as well as an unsupervised support vector machine (SVM) model for this problem. The proposed framework is validated on Secure Water Treatment testbed results. This framework detects more attacks in a shorter period of time than previously published methods.

97 - MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Peru Water Resources: Integrating NASA Earth Observations into Water Resource Planning and Management in Perus La Libertad Region

Developing countries often struggle with providing water security and sanitation services to their populations. An important aspect of improving security and sanitation is developing a comprehensive understanding of the country's water budget. Water For People, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing clean drinking water, is working with the Peruvian government to develop a water budget for the La Libertad region of Peru which includes the creation of an extensive watershed management plan. Currently, the data archive of the necessary variables to create the water management plan is extremely limited. Implementing NASA Earth observations has bolstered the dataset being used by Water For People, and the METRIC (Mapping EvapoTranspiration at High Resolution and Internalized Calibration) model has allowed for the estimation of the evapotranspiration values for the region. Landsat 8 imagery and the DEM (Digital Elevation Model) from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) sensor onboard Terra were used to derive the land cover information, and were used in conjunction with local weather data of Cascas from Peru's National Meteorological and Hydrological Service (SENAMHI). Python was used to combine input variables and METRIC model calculations to approximate the evapotranspiration values for the Ochape sub-basin of the Chicama River watershed. Once calculated, the evapotranspiration values and methodology were shared Water For People to help supplement their decision support tools in the La Libertad region of Peru and potentially apply the methodology in other areas of need.

Padgett-Vasquez, Steve↗

Desalination for a circular water economy

Today's water systems are enabled by ample fresh water sources, low-cost centralized treatment, and facile wastewater disposal. Climatic change, aging infrastructure, and source water contamination have exposed the vulnerabilities of this linear water paradigm. While seawater desalination enables coastal communities to augment their supply, more broadly securing water systems for municipal, industrial, and agricultural water users will require distributed desalination and fit-for-purpose reuse of nontraditional water sources. Our linear water economy must evolve into a resilient circular water economy, where water is continuously reused and “contaminants” become the feedstocks for other economically valuable processes. Additionally, technology innovation is needed to deliver autonomous, precise, resilient, intensified, modular, and electrified desalination systems that reduce the cost, improve the performance, and enhance the resilience of nontraditional water reuse systems. Meanwhile, strong federal leadership and coordination is needed to accelerate desalination research, promote information gathering efforts to direct technology development, and create an expanded role for non-profit organizations in knowledge dissemination.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

The water–climate nexus: Intersections across sectors

Water security and climate change are important priorities for communities and regions worldwide. The intersections between water and climate change extend across many environmental and human activities. This Primer is intended as an introduction, grounded in examples, for students and others considering the interactions between climate, water, and society. In this Primer, we summarize key intersections between water and climate across four sectors: environment; drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene; food and agriculture; and energy. We begin with an overview of the fundamental water dynamics within each of these four sectors, and then discuss how climate change is impacting water and society within and across these sectors. Emphasizing the relationships and interconnectedness between water and climate change can encourage systems thinking, which can show how activities in one sector may influence activities or outcomes in other sectors. We argue that to achieve a resilient and sustainable water future under climate change, proposed solutions must consider the water–climate nexus to ensure the interconnected roles of water across sectors are not overlooked. Toward that end, we offer an initial set of guiding questions that can be used to inform the development of more holistic climate solutions.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Satellite Estimation of Fractional Cover in Several California Specialty Crops

Past research in California and elsewhere has revealed strong relationships between satellite NDVI, photosynthetically active vegetation fraction (Fc), and crop evapotranspiration (ETc). Estimation of ETc can support efficiency of irrigation practice, which enhances water security and may mitigate nitrate leaching. The U.C. Cooperative Extension previously developed the CropManage (CM) web application for evaluation of crop water requirement and irrigation scheduling for several high-value specialty crops. CM currently uses empirical equations to predict daily Fc as a function of crop type, planting date and expected harvest date. The Fc prediction is transformed to fraction of reference ET and combined with reference data from the California Irrigation Management Information System to estimate daily ETc. In the current study, atmospherically-corrected Landsat NDVI data were compared with in-situ Fc estimates on several crops in the Salinas Valley during 2011-2014. The satellite data were observed on day of ground collection or were linearly interpolated across no more than an 8-day revisit period. Results will be presented for lettuce, spinach, celery, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, peppers, and strawberry. An application programming interface (API) allows CM and other clients to automatically retrieve NDVI and associated data from NASA's Satellite Irrigation Management Support (SIMS) web service. The SIMS API allows for queries both by individual points or user-defined polygons, and provides data for individual days or annual timeseries. Updates to the CM web app will convert these NDVI data to Fc on a crop-specific basis. The satellite observations are expected to play a support role in Salinas Valley, and may eventually serve as a primary data source as CM is extended to crop systems or regions where Fc is less predictable.

satellite↗

Nominal 30-M Cropland Extent Map of Continental Africa by Integrating Pixel-Based and Object-Based Algorithms Using Sentinel-2 and Landsat-8 Data on Google Earth Engine

A satellite-derived cropland extent map at high spatial resolution (30-m or better) is a must for food and water security analysis. Precise and accurate global cropland extent maps, indicating cropland and non-cropland areas, is a starting point to develop high-level products such as crop watering methods (irrigated or rainfed), cropping intensities (e.g., single, double, or continuous cropping), crop types, cropland fallows, as well as assessment of cropland productivity (productivity per unit of land), and crop water productivity (productivity per unit of water). Uncertainties associated with the cropland extent map have cascading effects on all higher-level cropland products. However, precise and accurate cropland extent maps at high spatial resolution over large areas (e.g., continents or the globe) are challenging to produce due to the small-holder dominant agricultural systems like those found in most of Africa and Asia. Cloud-based Geospatial computing platforms and multi-date, multi-sensor satellite image inventories on Google Earth Engine offer opportunities for mapping croplands with precision and accuracy over large areas that satisfy the requirements of broad range of applications. Such maps are expected to provide highly significant improvements compared to existing products, which tend to be coarser in resolution, and often fail to capture fragmented small-holder farms especially in regions with high dynamic change within and across years. To overcome these limitations, in this research we present an approach for cropland extent mapping at high spatial resolution (30-m or better) using the 10-day, 10 to 20-m, Sentinel-2 data in combination with 16-day, 30-m, Landsat-8 data on Google Earth Engine (GEE). First, nominal 30-m resolution satellite imagery composites were created from 36,924 scenes of Sentinel-2 and Landsat-8 images for the entire African continent in 2015-2016. These composites were generated using a median-mosaic of five bands (blue, green, red, near-infrared, NDVI) during each of the two periods (period 1: January-June 2016 and period 2: July-December 2015) plus a 30-m slope layer derived from the Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission (SRTM) elevation dataset. Second, we selected Cropland/Non-cropland training samples (sample size 9791) from various sources in GEE to create pixel-based classifications. As supervised classification algorithm, Random Forest (RF) was used as the primary classifier because of its efficiency, and when over-fitting issues of RF happened due to the noise of input training data, Support Vector Machine (SVM) was applied to compensate for such defects in specific areas. Third, the Recursive Hierarchical Segmentation (RHSeg) algorithm was employed to generate an object-oriented segmentation layer based on spectral and spatial properties from the same input data. This layer was merged with the pixel-based classification to improve segmentation accuracy. Accuracies of the merged 30-m crop extent product were computed using an error matrix approach in which 1754 independent validation samples were used. In addition, a comparison was performed with other available cropland maps as well as with LULC maps to show spatial similarity. Finally, the cropland area results derived from the map were compared with UN FAO statistics. The independent accuracy assessment showed a weighted overall accuracy of 94, with a producers accuracy of 85.9 (or omission error of 14.1), and users accuracy of 68.5 (commission error of 31.5) for the cropland class. The total net cropland area (TNCA) of Africa was estimated as 313 Mha for the nominal year 2015.

Cropland mapping; cropland areas; 30-m; Landsat-8;↗

Integrating field observations and process-based modeling to predict watershed water quality under environmental perturbations

Watersheds play a critical role in supplying water resources needed for human use and ecosystem health. Understanding and predicting how, when, and where changes in the quantity and quality of water resources occur under different environmental stresses including extreme events is crucial for sustainable management of water resources under a changing environment. However, few studies have attempted to quantify or identify the factors and process interactions controlling the impact of extreme events across water-shed systems. Only few large-scale studies include coordinated monitoring and modeling efforts, which limits our ability to assess the large-scale impact of extreme events on water supply and quality. Methods are lacking to propagate uncertainty in process understanding through an integrated hydro-biogeochemical model framework and evaluate its importance, thus failing to take full advantage of the information potentially available through transformative advances in characterization technologies from high-resolution mass spectrometry to airborne and satellite-based remote sensing. There are consequent risks to our nations water security and to human and ecosystem health that may become exacerbated with the increasing frequency of extreme events that is projected for the coming decades. This paper reviews the current status of watershed science for both water quantity and quality and identifies critical gaps in our current knowledge and modeling capability in addressing the emergent needs in predicting watershed hydrologic and biogeochemical responses (i.e., water quantity and quality) under natural and anthropogenic perturbations. We highlight the need to (1) understand how environmental perturbations including extreme events like floods and droughts propagate through watershed systems and assess their short- and long-term impacts on watershed biogeochemistry, water quality and their recovery pathways; (2) develop and improve a watershed water quality model that reflects the state of scientific understanding gained from observations; and (3) construct a data-model fusion system for watershed characterization, process identification, and mechanistic model parameterization. A large base of modeling, monitoring and data capabilities have been built by various federal government agencies given the relevance of water to their critical missions. An emerging need is to build an integrated national capability for watershed water availability and quality that can address water-related missions across multiple federal agencies.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗

Northern Hemisphere Snow Drought in Earth System Model Simulations and ERA5‐Land Data in 1980–2014

Abstract Low snow levels over the past few decades and predictions of a low‐to‐no snow future have spurred research into snow droughts, which pose a threat to water security and management. Systematic data‐model comparisons of snow drought have been lacking, hindering our understanding of the drivers of snow drought in the past. To address this gap, we analyzed snow drought events using standardized snow water equivalent index derived from monthly results of four numerical experiments using the E3SM Land Model (ELM) and ERA5‐Land data during the period of 1980–2014. Additionally, we compared snow drought duration calculated from models with those from the ERA5‐Land data during selected El Niño‐Southern Oscillation (ENSO) years. The numerical experiments were conducted with ELM driven by two prescribed atmospheric forcings, and with the coupled land‐atmosphere configuration of E3SM with and without plant hydraulics scheme feedback. Analysis reveals that 20%–30% of snow droughts occur due to factors other than above‐normal temperature and low snowfall, such as low soil moisture, warm soil temperature, and low relative humidity, etc., especially in high latitudes (50° North). Furthermore, our study highlights the exacerbating effect of ENSO events on snow drought conditions in various regions, despite some discrepancies between model and ERA5‐Land results. We also identified limitations of the coupled land‐atmosphere models in our current configuration in capturing the spatial patterns of snow droughts. This study underscores the challenge of predicting and mitigating snow drought and the need for a comprehensive understanding of the factors contributing to snow drought.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Restoring Historic Forest Disturbance Frequency Would Partially Mitigate Droughts in the Central Sierra Nevada Mountains

Forest thinning and prescribed fire are expected to improve the climate resilience and water security of forests in the western U.S., but few studies have directly modeled the hydrological effects of multi-decadal landscape-scale forest disturbance. By updating a distributed process-based hydrological model (DHSVM) with vegetation maps from a distributed forest ecosystem model (LANDIS-II), we simulate the water resource impacts of forest management scenarios targeting partial or full restoration of the pre-colonial disturbance return interval in the central Sierra Nevada mountains. In a fully restored disturbance regime that includes fire, thinning, and insect mortality, reservoir inflow increases by 4%–9% total and 8%–14% in dry years. At sub-watershed scales (10–100 km2), thinning dense forests can increase streamflow by >20% in dry years. In a thinner forest, increased understory transpiration compensates for decreased overstory transpiration. Consequentially, 73% of streamflow gains are attributable to decreased overstory rain and snow interception loss. Thinner forests can increase headwater peak flows, but reservoir-scale peak flows are almost exclusively influenced by climate. Uncertainty in future precipitation causes high uncertainty in future water yield, but the additional water yield attributable to forest disturbance is about five times less sensitive to annual precipitation uncertainty. This partial decoupling of the streamflow disturbance response from annual precipitation makes disturbance especially valuable for water supply during dry years. Our study can increase confidence in the water resource benefits of restoring historic forest disturbance frequencies in the central Sierra Nevada mountains, and our modeling framework is widely applicable to other forested mountain landscapes.

Boardman, Eli N. [University of Nevada, Reno, NV (↗

NASA's SnowEx Campaign and Measuring Global Snow from Space

Snow blankets 30% of Earth's land surface (60% of northern hemisphere land) in midwinter, dramatically changing our planet's land surface and affecting our weather for months. Seasonal snow is critically important to society for the management of water resources, natural hazards, water security, and in many economic sectors. The only practical way to estimate the quantity of snow on a global scale is through satellites. Despite 4 decades of satellite observations, the highly variable nature of snow still presents significant challenges toward achieving this goal. For example, current space-based techniques underestimate snow water equivalent (SWE) by as much as 50%, and model-based estimates can differ greatly versus estimates based on remotely-sensed observations. Snow community consensus is that a multi-sensor approach is needed to adequately address global snow, combined with modeling and data assimilation to fill the gaps in space and time. What remains, then, is how best to combine and use the various sensors under different types of snow conditions and confounding factors. NASA's multi-year SnowEx airborne campaign is designed to collect measurements needed to enable algorithm development and to guide those mission trade studies. Year 1 (2017) focused on the distribution of snow-water equivalent (SWE) and the snow energy balance in a forested environment. This paper will discuss the various remote sensing options for snow, the challenging factors, and describe the recently-completed first year of SnowEx in Colorado, USA. Ground-based remote sensing and in situ data collection involved nearly 100 participants over three weeks. The airborne campaign included nine sensors on five aircraft. We will conclude by discussing options for a future snow satellite mission.

campaign↗

The Future of Evapotranspiration: Global Requirements for Ecosystem Functioning, Carbon and Climate Feedbacks, Agricultural Management, and Water Resources

The fate of the terrestrial biosphere is highly uncertain given recent and projected changes in climate. This is especially acute for impacts associated with changes in drought frequency and intensity on the distribution and timing of water availability. The development of effective adaptation strategies for these emerging threats to food and water security are compromised by limitations in our understanding of how natural and managed ecosystems are responding to changing hydrological and climatological regimes. This information gap is exacerbated by insufficient monitoring capabilities from local to global scales. Here, we describe how evapotranspiration (ET) represents the key variable in linking ecosystem functioning, carbon and climate feedbacks, agricultural management, and water resources, and highlight both the outstanding science and applications questions and the actions, especially from a space-based perspective, necessary to advance them.

Fisher, Joshua B.↗

The Third Assessment of the Effects of Climate Change on Federal Hydropower

Understanding the future changes in projected water supplies is a vital objective for federal hydropower facilities tasked with providing low-cost, reliable electricity across a large regional footprint that encompasses a growing customer base, alternative market structures for marketing the electricity, and a more diverse generation asset mix than was historically present when a majority of federal hydropower facilities were built. This study, The Third Assessment of the Effects of Climate Change on Federal Hydropower, directed by Section 9505 of the SECURE Water Act of 2009 (SWA), is the third quinquennial report on evaluating the effects of climate change on hydroelectric energy generated from 132 US federal hydropower plants marketed by four US Department of Energy (DOE) Power Marketing Administrations (PMAs). The technical assessment is conducted by DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and Texas A&M University under the guidance of DOE’s Water Power Technologies Office. This study is the result of extensive consultation with the four federal PMAs (Bonneville Power Administration [BPA], Western Area Power Administration [WAPA], Southwestern Power Administration [SWPA], and Southeastern Power Administration [SEPA]), as well as other agencies, including federal hydropower owners/operators (the US Army Corps of Engineers, US Bureau of Reclamation [Reclamation]), US Geological Survey, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). The main findings of this assessment, along with the PMA administrators’ recommendations, will be included in a subsequent DOE report to Congress. The assessment method and the technical findings are described in this report.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗

FIND: A Synthetic weather generator to control drought Frequency, Intensity, and Duration

Water systems worldwide are experiencing climate change-induced shifts in drought properties like frequency, intensity, and duration, affecting water security and reliability. To develop and test effective drought preparedness plans, researchers often use synthetic weather generators to create hydrological scenarios that explore drought variability beyond historical records. Existing weather generators typically allow users to adjust streamflow statistics like percentiles or temporal correlation but do not directly control drought properties of frequency, intensity, and duration. To fill this gap, we propose FIND (Frequency, INtensity, and Duration) synthetic weather generator. FIND incorporates a standardized drought index to directly and in dependently control drought frequency, intensity, and duration in generated streamflow time series while preserving observed hydrological variability. Use cases for FIND include i) water systems analysis applications that seek to train and test drought strategies under historical and plausible future drought conditions, and ii) bottom-up vulnerability studies relating system vulnerability outcomes to specific changes in drought properties of frequency, intensity, and duration. Here, we demonstrate FIND’s versatility through three experiments: replicating historically observed drought properties, generating streamflow scenarios for multiple sites preserving correlation between their drought conditions, and generating a set of scenarios with direct and independent changes in drought properties. FIND source code is openly available for applications beyond the scope of this paper.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Multisectoral analysis of drought impacts and management responses to the 2008–2015 record drought in the Colorado Basin, Texas

Abstract. Drought has long posed an existential threat to society. Engineering and technological advancements have enabled the development of complex, interconnected water supply systems that buffer societies from the impacts of drought, enabling growth and prosperity. However, increasing water demand from population growth and economic development, combined with more extreme and prolonged droughts due to climate change, poses significant challenges for governments in the 21st century. Improved understanding of the cascading multisectoral impacts and adaptive responses resulting from extreme drought can aid in adaptive planning and highlight key processes in modeling drought impacts. The record drought spanning 2008 to 2015 in the Colorado Basin in the state of Texas, United States, serves as an outstanding illustration to assess multisectoral impacts and responses to severe, multi-year drought. The basin faces similar water security challenges to those across the western US, such as groundwater depletion and sustainability, resource competition between agriculture and growing urban populations, limited options for additional reservoir expansion, and the heightened risk of more severe and frequent droughts due to climate change. By analyzing rich, high-quality data sourced from nine different local, state, and federal sources, we demonstrate that characterizing regional multisector dynamics is crucial to predicting and understanding future vulnerability and possible approaches to reduce impacts to human and natural systems in the face of extreme drought conditions. This review reveals that, despite the severe hydrometeorological conditions of the drought, the region's advanced economy and existing water infrastructure effectively mitigated economic and societal impacts.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗