scholarly journals Function of check dam aggradation in local water supply of mountainous areas

2019 ◽  
pp. 117-130
Author(s):  
Zoran Nikic ◽  
Ratko Ristic ◽  
Nenad Maric ◽  
Vukasin Milcanovic ◽  
Sinisa Polovina ◽  
...  

Check dams are built to control erosion processes and torrential floods. In Serbia, legally binding documents, VOS (2002) and PPRS (2010), provide the concept for the water supply of the population and industry by regional systems for which water is provided by building high dams and formation of reservoirs. With this concept, it is often not possible to meet the needs of local communities in mountainous areas. In order to contribute to solving the water supply problems of these mostly poor villages, research was conducted on the possibility of using check dam aggradation groundwater for this purpose. Field investigations and analysis of project documentation for numerous check dams and aggradations in Serbia were carried out. Potential quantities and quality of groundwater in the aggradations were analyzed as a resource for the water supply of the population. The results of the research indicate very favorable possibilities of the aggradations for the accumulation of groundwater in the form of unconfined or phreatic aquifer with a free water table, in quantities that can be used for water supply. It was stated that: 1) under favorable conditions, with check dams on watercourses with constant flow and large-scale aggradations, there is a possibility of accumulating sufficient quantities of groundwater as a resource for water supply, 2) improving the quality of infiltrated waters by the process of filtration through intergranular porous media of the aggradation, and reaching the level of water supply quality, and 3) favorable economic parameters for opening the source at the aggradation, compared to other types of water sources. The possibility that check dams, in addition to their traditional role, could be used for local water supply facilities was also highlighted.

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Y. Sun ◽  
Guoqiang Tang

High-quality and high-resolution precipitation products are critically important to many hydrological applications. Advances in satellite remote sensing instruments and data retrieval algorithms continue to improve the quality of the operational precipitation products. However, most satellite products existing today are still too coarse to be ingested for local water management and planning purposes. Recent advances in deep learning algorithms enable the fusion of multi-source, high-dimensional data for statistical learning. In this study, we investigated the efficacy of an attention-based, deep convolutional neural network (AU-Net) for learning spatial and temporal mappings from coarse-resolution to fine-resolution precipitation products. The skills of AU-Net models, developed using combinations of static and dynamic predictors, were evaluated over a 3 × 3° study area in Central Texas, U.S., a region known for its complex precipitation patterns and low predictability. Three coarse-resolution satellite/reanalysis precipitation products, ERA5-Land (0.1°), TRMM (0.25°), and IMERG (0.1°), are used as part of the inputs, while the predictand is the 1-km PRISM data. Auxiliary predictors include elevation, vegetation index, and air temperature. The study period includes 18 years of data (2001–2018) at the monthly scale for training, validation, and testing. Results show that the trained AU-Net models achieve different degrees of success in downscaling the baseline coarse-resolution products, depending on the total precipitation, the accuracy of large-scale patterns captured by the baseline products, and the amount of information transferable from predictors. Higher precipitation rate tends to affect AU-Net model performance negatively. Use of the attention mechanism in the AU-Net models allows for infilling of multiscale features and generation of sharper images. Correction using gauge data, if there is any, can further improve the results significantly.


Water Policy ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 103-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Stalker Prokopy

Evidence supporting the claim that women's participation in large-scale rural water supply projects leads to improved project outcomes is largely limited to isolated case studies. This paper attempts to fill this gap by examining data from 45 villages in two World Bank-assisted projects in India. Using data from a variety of sources, including water committee members, household surveys and focus groups, women's participation is quantified - what percentage actually attend meetings or are involved at higher levels of participation such as decision-making? While it is determined that, in some cases, female committee members are nominal, or token, participants, there is evidence that being on a local water committee helps women develop skills and confidence. Overall community participation is found to have a positive and significant relationship with different measures of project success; however, women's participation at the levels observed in this study is found to have no relationship to project success.


Author(s):  
Robyn Horan ◽  
Pawan Wable ◽  
Veena Srinivasan ◽  
Helen Baron ◽  
Virginie D. J. Keller ◽  
...  

Recently, there has been renewed interest in the performance, functionality, and sustainability of traditional small-scale storage interventions (check dams, farm bunds and tanks) used across India for the improvement of local water security. The Central Groundwater Board of India is en-couraging the construction of such interventions for the alleviation of water scarcity. It is of critical importance to understand the hydrological effect of these interventions at basin scales to maximise their effectiveness. The quantification of small-scale interventions in hydrological modelling is often neglected, especially in large-scale modelling exercises. A bespoke version of the GWAVA model was developed to assess the impact of interventions on the water balance of the Cauvery Basin and two smaller sub-catchments. Model results demonstrate that farm bunds appear to have a negligible effect on the estimated average annual simulated streamflow at the outlets of the two sub-catchments and the basin whereas tanks and check dams have a more significant effect. In-terventions generally were found to increase evaporation losses across the catchment. The model adaption used in this study provides a step-change in the conceptualisation and quantification of the consequences of small-scale storage interventions in large- or basin-scale hydrological models.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (No. 2) ◽  
pp. 116-124
Author(s):  
Petra Bíla ◽  
Bořivoj Šarapatka ◽  
Ondřej Horňák ◽  
Jaroslava Novotná ◽  
Martin Brtnický

Soil erosion, especially water erosion, is one of the most widespread types of soil degradation, not only worldwide, but also within the Czech Republic, where it endangers more than a half of the agricultural land. In addition to farming, the landscape structure has a significant impact on soil erosion in the conditions under study, where, especially in the post-war period, the collectivisation of large-scale arable land was accompanied by the abolition of the associated landscape elements. The agricultural production area of South Moravia is one of the most endangered areas in the Czech Republic, therefore, it was selected for our research, whose main objective was to verify the sensitivity of the selected physical, chemical and biochemical characteristics to identify the changes in the soil properties in the erosion processes at the identified erosion areas. The testing was carried out within a period of 5 years in 60 locations with Chernozems with cultivated corn. To assess the quality of the soil properties, indicators of soil quality from the physical, chemical and biological – biochemical groups were selected. The results of the analyses and the subsequent statistical evaluation showed that the chemical characteristics, especially those related to the quantity and quality of the organic matter, were the most sensitive to the changes in the soil properties. From the biochemical indicators, some enzymes, particularly dehydrogenase and acid phosphatase, reacted sensitively. The physical characteristics were not significantly affected by the erosion processes.


Author(s):  
A. Babirad

Cerebrovascular diseases are a problem of the world today, and according to the forecast, the problem of the near future arises. The main risk factors for the development of ischemic disorders of the cerebral circulation include oblique and aging, arterial hypertension, smoking, diabetes mellitus and heart disease. An effective strategy for the prevention of cerebrovascular events is based on the implementation of large-scale risk control measures, including the use of antiagregant and anticoagulant therapy, invasive interventions such as atheromectomy, angioplasty and stenting. In this connection, the efforts of neurologists, cardiologists, angiosurgery, endocrinologists and other specialists are the basis for achieving an acceptable clinical outcome. A review of the SF-36 method for assessing the quality of life in patients with the effects of transient ischemic stroke is presented. The assessment of quality of life is recognized in world medical practice and research, an indicator that is also used to assess the quality of the health system and in general sociological research.


Author(s):  
A. V. Ponomarev

Introduction: Large-scale human-computer systems involving people of various skills and motivation into the information processing process are currently used in a wide spectrum of applications. An acute problem in such systems is assessing the expected quality of each contributor; for example, in order to penalize incompetent or inaccurate ones and to promote diligent ones.Purpose: To develop a method of assessing the expected contributor’s quality in community tagging systems. This method should only use generally unreliable and incomplete information provided by contributors (with ground truth tags unknown).Results:A mathematical model is proposed for community image tagging (including the model of a contributor), along with a method of assessing the expected contributor’s quality. The method is based on comparing tag sets provided by different contributors for the same images, being a modification of pairwise comparison method with preference relation replaced by a special domination characteristic. Expected contributors’ quality is evaluated as a positive eigenvector of a pairwise domination characteristic matrix. Community tagging simulation has confirmed that the proposed method allows you to adequately estimate the expected quality of community tagging system contributors (provided that the contributors' behavior fits the proposed model).Practical relevance: The obtained results can be used in the development of systems based on coordinated efforts of community (primarily, community tagging systems). 


2020 ◽  
Vol 103 (11) ◽  
pp. 1194-1199

Objective: To develop and validate a Thai version of the Wisconsin Quality of Life (TH WISQoL) Questionnaire. Materials and Methods: The authors developed the TH WISQoL Questionnaire based on a standard multi-step process. Subsequently, the authors recruited patients with kidney stone and requested them to complete the TH WISQoL and a validated Thai version of the 36-Item Short Form Survey (TH SF-36). The authors calculated the internal consistency and interdomain correlation of TH WISQoL and compared the convergent validity between the two instruments. Results: Thirty kidney stone patients completed the TH WISQoL and the TH SF-36. The TH WISQoL showed acceptable internal consistency for all domains (Cronbach’s alpha 0.768 to 0.909). Interdomain correlation was high for most domains (r=0.698 to 0.779), except for the correlation between Vitality and Disease domains, which showed a moderate correlation (r=0.575). For convergent validity, TH WISQoL demonstrated a good overall correlation to TH SF-36, (r=0.796, p<0.05). Conclusion: The TH WISQoL is valid and reliable for evaluating the quality of life of Thai patients with kidney stone. A further large-scale multi-center study is warranted to confirm its applicability in Thailand. Keywords: Quality of life, Kidney stone, Validation, Outcome measurement


2007 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
William C. Lucas

Retaining rainfall where it lands is a fundamental benefit of Low Impact Development (LID). The Delaware Urban Runoff Management Model (DURMM) was developed to address the benefits of LID design. DURMM explicitly addresses the benefits of impervious area disconnection as well as swale flow routing that responds to flow retardance changes. Biofiltration swales are an effective LID BMP for treating urban runoff. By adding check dams, the detention storage provided can also reduce peak rates. This presentation explores how the DURMM runoff reduction approach can be integrated with detention routing procedures to project runoff volume and peak flow reductions provided by BMP facilities. This approach has been applied to a 1,200 unit project on 360 hectares located in Delaware, USA. Over 5 km of biofiltration swales have been designed, many of which have stone check dams placed every 30 to 35 meters to provide detention storage. The engineering involved in the design of such facilities uses hydrologic modeling based upon TR-20 routines, as adapted by the DURMM model. The hydraulic approach includes routing of flows through the check dams. This presentation summarizes the hydrological network, presents the hydrologic responses, along with selected hydrographs to demonstrate the potential of design approach.


2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Rowan ◽  
E. Hecox ◽  
S. Morea

The last decade has brought many changes to Colorado's water supply outlook. Despite the recent economic recession, the state has experienced significant population growth, and Colorado's population is expected to nearly double within the next 40 years. Other pressures on Colorado's water supply include severe drought, a desire to meet multiple needs (i.e., municipal, environmental, recreational) with existing resources, and impacts to agriculture due to water shortages, urbanization, and transfers to new users. To address these challenges, the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) has undertaken a visioning process to explore solutions to these future water supply challenges. As part of this process, CWCB has led the state in identifying demand and supply strategies to meet the state's future water needs while considering agriculture and the environment. These strategies have been combined into varying portfolios that include methods such as conservation, local water projects, new Colorado River development, and agricultural transfers. This paper details the development and evaluation of these portfolios and describes stakeholder's efforts to balance meeting Colorado's water needs in the future.


Author(s):  
Jeasik Cho

This book provides the qualitative research community with some insight on how to evaluate the quality of qualitative research. This topic has gained little attention during the past few decades. We, qualitative researchers, read journal articles, serve on masters’ and doctoral committees, and also make decisions on whether conference proposals, manuscripts, or large-scale grant proposals should be accepted or rejected. It is assumed that various perspectives or criteria, depending on various paradigms, theories, or fields of discipline, have been used in assessing the quality of qualitative research. Nonetheless, until now, no textbook has been specifically devoted to exploring theories, practices, and reflections associated with the evaluation of qualitative research. This book constructs a typology of evaluating qualitative research, examines actual information from websites and qualitative journal editors, and reflects on some challenges that are currently encountered by the qualitative research community. Many different kinds of journals’ review guidelines and available assessment tools are collected and analyzed. Consequently, core criteria that stand out among these evaluation tools are presented. Readers are invited to join the author to confidently proclaim: “Fortunately, there are commonly agreed, bold standards for evaluating the goodness of qualitative research in the academic research community. These standards are a part of what is generally called ‘scientific research.’ ”


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