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Water, Volume 12, Issue 9 (September 2020) - Hydrology & Hydrogeology; Policy, Management & Governance; Treatment & Reuse; Hydraulics & Hydrodynamics; Ecosystems; More! - 336 Articles

Water, 12(9) - September 2020 - 336 articles  

Click here to access all articles - only the featured and general ones are posted here.

Cover Story

Article: Mapping of Major Land-Use Changes in the Kolleru Lake Freshwater Ecosystem by Using Landsat Satellite Images in Google Earth Engine

Meena Kumari Kolli, Christian Opp, Daniel Karthe and Michael Groll

Water 2020, 12(9), 2493; doi:10.3390/w12092493

Featured Papers

Article: Performances of the New HEC-RAS Version 5 for 2-D Hydrodynamic-Based Rainfall-Runoff Simulations at Basin Scale: Comparison with a State-of-the Art Model

Pierfranco Costabile, Carmelina Costanzo, Domenico Ferraro, Francesco Macchione and Gabriella Petaccia

Water 2020, 12(9), 2326; doi:10.3390/w12092326

Article: Understory Limits Surface Runoff and Soil Loss in Teak Tree Plantations of Northern Lao PDR

Layheang Song, Laurie Boithias, Oloth Sengtaheuanghoung, Chantha Oeurng, Christian Valentin, Bounthan Souksavath, Phabvilay Sounyafong, Anneke de Rouw, Bounsamay Soulileuth, Norbert Silvera, Bounchanh Lattanavongkot, Alain Pierret and Olivier Ribolzi

Water 2020, 12(9), 2327; doi:10.3390/w12092327

Article: Natural Surface Hydrocarbons and Soil Faunal Biodiversity: A Bioremediation Perspective

Sara Remelli, Pietro Rizzo, Fulvio Celico and Cristina Menta

Water 2020, 12(9), 2358; doi:10.3390/w12092358

Article: River Water Quality of the Selenga-Baikal Basin: Part II—Metal Partitioning under Different Hydroclimatic Conditions

Nikolay Kasimov, Galina Shinkareva, Mikhail Lychagin, Sergey Chalov, Margarita Pashkina, Josefin Thorslund and Jerker Jarsjö

Water 2020, 12(9), 2392; doi:10.3390/w12092392

Article: Influence of Season, Occupancy Pattern, and Technology on Structure and Composition of Nitrifying and Denitrifying Bacterial Communities in Advanced Nitrogen-Removal Onsite Wastewater Treatment Systems

Bianca N. Ross, Sara K. Wigginton, Alissa H. Cox, George W. Loomis and Jose A. Amador

Water 2020, 12(9), 2413; doi:10.3390/w12092413

Article: Modelling Projected Changes in Soil Water Budget in Coastal Kenya under Different Long-Term Climate Change Scenarios

Cornelius Okello, Nicolas Greggio, Beatrice Maria Sole Giambastiani, Nina Wambiji, Julius Nzeve and Marco Antonellini

Water 2020, 12(9), 2455; doi:10.3390/w12092455

Article: Hybrid Pumped Hydro Storage Energy Solutions towards Wind and PV Integration: Improvement on Flexibility, Reliability and Energy Costs

Mariana Simão and Helena M. Ramos

Water 2020, 12(9), 2457; doi:10.3390/w12092457

Article: Anisotropy in the Free Stream Region of Turbulent Flows through Emergent Rigid Vegetation on Rough Beds

Nadia Penna, Francesco Coscarella, Antonino D’Ippolito and Roberto Gaudio

Water 2020, 12(9), 2464; doi:10.3390/w12092464

Article: Sea-Level Variability in the Gulf of Naples and the “Acqua Alta” Episodes in Ischia from Tide-Gauge Observations in the Period 2002–2019

Berardino Buonocore, Yuri Cotroneo, Vincenzo Capozzi, Giuseppe Aulicino, Giovanni Zambardino and Giorgio Budillon

Water 2020, 12(9), 2466; doi:10.3390/w12092466

Article: Exploring How Cyanobacterial Traits Affect Nutrient Loading Thresholds in Shallow Lakes: A Modelling Approach

Manqi Chang, Sven Teurlincx, Jan H. Janse, Hans W. Paerl, Wolf M. Mooij and Annette B. G. Janssen

Water 2020, 12(9), 2467; doi:10.3390/w12092467

Article: The Use of Straw Mulches to Mitigate Soil Erosion under Different Antecedent Soil Moistures

Ataollah Kavian, Mahin Kalehhouei, Leila Gholami, Zeinab Jafarian, Maziar Mohammadi and Jesús Rodrigo-Comino

Water 2020, 12(9), 2518; doi:10.3390/w12092518

Article: Modeling Wave Overtopping on a Seawall with XBeach, IH2VOF, and Mase Formulas

João Nuno C. Oliveira, Filipa S. B. F. Oliveira, Maria Graça Neves, María Clavero and António A. Trigo-Teixeira

Water 2020, 12(9), 2526; doi:10.3390/w12092526

Article: Optimization of Irrigation and Leaching Depths Considering the Cost of Water Using WASH_1D/2D Models

Haruyuki Fujimaki, Hassan M. Abd El Baki, Seyed Mohamad Mahdavi and Hamed Ebrahimian

Water 2020, 12(9), 2549; doi:10.3390/w12092549

Article: Modelling the Role of SuDS Management Trains in Minimising Flood Risk, Using MicroDrainage

Craig Lashford, Susanne Charlesworth, Frank Warwick and Matthew Blackett

Water 2020, 12(9), 2559; doi:10.3390/w12092559

Article: Evaluation of Satellite Precipitation Products for Hydrological Modeling in the Brazilian Cerrado Biome

Jhones da S. Amorim, Marcelo R. Viola, Rubens Junqueira, Vinicius A. de Oliveira and Carlos R. de Mello

Water 2020, 12(9), 2571; doi:10.3390/w12092571

Article: A Molecular-Level Picture of Electrospinning

Jan Jirsák, Pavel Pokorný, Pavel Holec and Šárka Dědičová

Water 2020, 12(9), 2577; doi:10.3390/w12092577

Article: Aquatic Worm Assemblages along the Danube: A Homogenization Warning

Ana Atanacković, Ferdinand Šporka, Vanja Marković, Jaroslav Slobodnik, Katarina Zorić, Bela Csányi and Momir Paunović

Water 2020, 12(9), 2612; doi:10.3390/w12092612

Article: Modelling Pluvial Flooding in Urban Areas Coupling the Models Iber and SWMM

Esteban Sañudo, Luis Cea and Jerónimo Puertas

Water 2020, 12(9), 2647; doi:10.3390/w12092647

General

Review: Microplastics and Nanoplastics in the Freshwater and Terrestrial Environment: A Review

Kellie Boyle and Banu Örmeci

Water 2020, 12(9), 2633; doi:10.3390/w12092633

Article: Evaluation of Irrigation Water Resources Availability and Climate Change Impacts—A Case Study of Mwea Irrigation Scheme, Kenya

George Akoko, Tasuku Kato and Le Hoang Tu

Water 2020, 12(9), 2330; doi:10.3390/w12092330

Article: Assessing Hydrological Vulnerability to Future Droughts in a Mediterranean Watershed: Combined Indices-Based and Distributed Modeling Approaches

Youssef Brouziyne, Aziz Abouabdillah, Abdelghani Chehbouni, Lahoucine Hanich, Karim Bergaoui, Rachael McDonnell and Lahcen Benaabidate

Water 2020, 12(9), 2333; doi:10.3390/w12092333

Article: Influence of Plasma-Activated Water on Physical and Physical–Chemical Soil Properties

Jana Šimečková, František Krčma, Daniel Klofáč, Lukáš Dostál and Zdenka Kozáková

Water 2020, 12(9), 2357; doi:10.3390/w12092357

Article: Lag Time as an Indicator of the Link between Agricultural Pressure and Drinking Water Quality State

Hyojin Kim, Nicolas Surdyk, Ingelise Møller, Morten Graversgaard, Gitte Blicher-Mathiesen, Abel Henriot, Tommy Dalgaard and Birgitte Hansen

Water 2020, 12(9), 2385; doi:10.3390/w12092385

Article: Real-Time Estimation of Disinfection By-Products through Differential UV Absorbance

Guilherme Stéphanie and Dorea Caetano

Water 2020, 12(9), 2536; doi:10.3390/w12092536

Article: Research on Livestock Carrying Capacity of Arid Pastoral Areas Based on Dynamic Water–Forage–Livestock Balance in OtogBanner, China

Lin Qin, Xiaoyu Song, Wang Wen, Xiaodi Liu and Hui Liu

Water 2020, 12(9), 2539; doi:10.3390/w12092539

Article: Dynamic Evaluation of Sustainable Water Resource Systems in Metropolitan Areas: A Case Study of the Beijing Megacity

Chaoyang Du

Water 2020, 12(9), 2629; doi:10.3390/w12092629

Editorial: Land Use and Water Quality

Brian Kronvang, Frank Wendland, Karel Kovar and Dico Fraters

Water 2020, 12(9), 2412; doi:10.3390/w12092412

Click here to access all 336 articles!

Enjoy!

"No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public." -- H.L. Mencken

John A. Cherry Editorial: 'The Groundwater Project - Democratizing Groundwater Knowledge'

Dr. John A. Cherry, the only hydrogeologist (apologies to Gedeon Dagan - thank you, Gretchen Miller) to win the Stockholm Water Prize (2020) wrote this editorial in the current issue of Groundwater 58(5) September-October 2020. It's important enough for me to publish here. I admire John as a scientist but I admire him even more for what he has undertaken.

Download Gwat.13029

Read on:

We are in a global water crisis right now and groundwater is at the core of it because 99% of the Earth's liquid freshwater is groundwater, and groundwater is the buffer of the world water system. Nearly 50% of the world population depends on groundwater for domestic use and many more on its irrigation benefits. An inevitable increase on this dependence is coming as the population swells. Groundwater is used locally but transferred around the world in food and products. There are unprecedented rates of change to the water cycle and much is out of balance. Unfortunately, this elusive and invisible groundwater resource is commonly misunderstood, mismanaged, and abused. A key limiting factor is that the immense advances in groundwater science of the past 50 years are not being put to work in solving today's problems. The science is not being converted into widely recognized benefits to humanity and the environment. Why? Scientific knowledge is not sufficiently democratized.

Knowledge democratization means full accessibility to it around the globe. Accessibility to knowledge has been limited by a number of impediments. First is the peer‐review journal publication process. Although successful as the gatekeeper for scientific advancement, it is a tragic restriction presenting only fragments of incremental insights. By design, journals communicate short, ongoing, often inconclusive, and site/time‐specific research findings that do not filter and synthesize the exploding literature into the essence of scientific advances needed for education and into actionable knowledge useful to policy makers and resource managers. Second is the flawed judging of science. Journal citation statistics are the main criteria for career advancement in universities and strongly influence who receives research funding, resulting in funding of established ideas, not new ones. Pressure to publish has caused the fragmented groundwater literature to become immense, making synthesis incredibly challenging. The third limitation is financial. Research is conducted using primarily public resources through university and government salaries supporting the researchers, journal editors, and reviewers, yet to finance the journal, the journal's copyright restricts access to only those who are willing to pay. The unintended consequence is that science created using public money for the public good is severely restricted in serving its constituency, the public. The fourth limitation is lack of incentives for conversion of the journal outputs into synthesized knowledge for understanding beyond the narrow expertise of its origins. Time spent on writing a book or article of long‐term benefit to the broader scientific community, users of science (policy makers, managers), and benefactors of science (the public) does not get administrative support and can restrict career advancement. The fifth limitation, a corollary from the previous ones resulting from the ignorance of groundwater benefits to humans and ecology, is lack of funding for field testing of many of the new concepts, models, and technologies to assess advantages to serve societal needs.

As a giant step toward overcoming these impediments to democratization of groundwater knowledge, The Groundwater Project(GW‐Project) has been initiated, which is an online platform for groundwater knowledge. At its core is a comprehensive and living e‐book series, free to all, in many languages, to represent quality syntheses from elementary to advanced levels for our state‐of‐knowledge on all aspects of groundwater science and engineering, with regular updating as the knowledge grows and evolves. It is written and edited by expert scientists and practitioners with many decades of experience volunteering their time to realize a noble shared vision: knowledge should be free, and free knowledge should be the best knowledge synthesized in a unifying framework.

Motivated by the textbook Groundwater(Freeze and Cherry 1979), and with more than 300 participants from 14 countries on 6 continents, the GW‐Project is ushering in a new era for understanding groundwater and its vital role in the freshwater cycle. The team is answering humanity's call to service, to transcend college campuses, national boundaries, language barriers, and socioeconomical ladders, enabled by the Internet. To help facing our global water crisis, we invite you to join our community as we embark on our journey. Check https://gw‐project.org for more information.

The author appreciates the contributions of Ying Fan, Allan Freeze, Ineke Kalwij, Doug Mackay, Stephen Moran, Everton de Oliveira, Beth Parker, Eileen Poeter, Warren Wood, and Yan Zheng to this vision, in alphabetical order.

Read my blog post on the project. Consider a donation: click here.

Enjoy!

“Those who can, do; those who understand, teach.” - Aristotle

UC-Davis Report: 'Sustainable for Whom? The Impact of Groundwater Sustainability Plans on Domestic Wells'

Very relevant work on domestic wells released on 2 September 2020.

The full report and its Executive Summary are from the UC-Davis Center for Regional Change. 

Download Sustainable-for-Whom_UC-Davis_Sept-2020

Download Sustainable-for-Whom_Exec_Summary_UC-Davis_Sept-2020

From the website:

Sustainable for Whom? The Impact of Groundwater Sustainability Plans on Domestic Wells

Authors: Darcy Bostic, Kristin Dobbin, Rich Pauloo, Jessica Mendoza, Michael Kuo, Jonathan London.

Studies estimate that 1.5 – 2.5 million Californians rely on domestic wells to meet their household water needs (Johnson and Belitz 2015; Dieter et al. 2018; Pace et al. 2020). But because domestic wells are often shallow, they are also often sensitive to changes in groundwater levels. As such, sustainable groundwater management has an important role to play in safeguarding the health and safety of residents and the achievement of California’s recognized Human Right to Water. 

This report analyzes 41 Groundwater Sustainability Plans in 19 critical priority subbasins in California (in the San Joaquin Valley, Central California, and the Central Coast) to assess monitoring network coverage and the vulnerability of domestic wells to minimum thresholds (MTs), or the lowest groundwater level considered sustainable. We find that GSPs range in lateral spatial coverage (33 - 100 %) and coverage of domestic wells (43 - 100%) within their boundaries. Overall, estimated domestic well failure rates are on par with a management regime of “business as usual” or status quo groundwater extraction (Pauloo et al. 2020). Results suggest that 1,000 - 6,000 wells are at risk of failure in critical priority basins under proposed MTs. In what follows we present the research methodology, key results, and a set of policy recommendations to assist the achievement of sustainable groundwater management in California that is compatible with the state's efforts to achieve the human right to water.

This research was supported through a generous grant from the Water Foundation.

Enjoy!

“If surface water can be compared with interest income, and non-renewable groundwater with capital...California was milking interest and capital in about equal proportion." - Marc Reisner, Cadillac Desert, p. 457 (1986)

My Ten Cents: 'Rethinking Groundwater Age', RTDs, and More!

Groundwater age. More so than nuclear waste issues, thinking about groundwater age, residence times, and the like really floats my my boat. I haven't done much of this work in recent years (like the past 25 or so) but I still enjoy it.

That's why I was drawn to a recent (a few days) 2+ page paper ('comment')  in Nature Geoscience, Rethinking groundwater age by Grant Ferguson, Mark O. Cuthbert,Kevin Befus, Tom Gleeson and Jennifer C. McIntosh. 

Download Ferguson_et_al-2020-Nature_Geoscience

Here is how they begin:

It is commonly thought that old groundwater cannot be pumped sustainably, and that recently recharged groundwater is inherently sustainable. We argue that both old and young groundwaters can be used in physically sustainable or unsustainable ways. 

Then some important definitions:

And a nifty graphic:

After these, the authors proceed to disabuse my 'favorite' groundwater fictions': the water budget myth - that sustainability is the balance between pumping rate and predevelopment recharge. They cite John Bredehoeft's (2002) paper; my favorite version is the Bredehoeft et al. (1982) publication (although you can go back to C.V. Theis (1940) a paper that has stood the test of time although you probably won't find  many hydrogeologists who discuss it in class. I am starting to digress; you can read my take on the water budget myth here.

The authors correctly state that pumping old groundwater versus young groundwater does not necessarily indicate unsustainability. Most people assume that the pumping of fossil groundwater (>12,000 years old) is not sustainable. But if the pumping is occurring 'far away' from the recharge area and recharge continues to occur, then the well may is extracting groundwater that has traveled a long way from the recharge area. I have encountered fossil groundwater from springs in the carbonate aquifer of the Nevada portion of the Great Basin. Recharge is complicated but has likely occurred more or less continually over time scales of tens of thousands of years.  

The authors note, and I concur, that groundwater residence time distributions (RTDs) are more useful and informative than simply groundwater residence times by themselves. 

In summary the authors have produced a very informative comment that contains more information than the 2+ pages would indicate. I expect we will be seeing more work on groundwater ages, sustainability, RTDs, etc., from the authors - individually or as 'The FabmFive'. Excellent job!  

Read it!

Enjoy!

"These concepts must be kept in mind to manage groundwater resources adequately. Unfortunately, many of our legal institutions do not adequately account for them." - Bredehoeft et al., 1982, p 57.

Thursday Twofer! The GGG Opines: Groundwater Visibility, Invisibility and More!

So who should email me about yesterday's post? One of my favorites - friend and colleague Sharon B. Megdal, Director of the Arizona Water Resources Research Center. We get along unlike most New Jerseyites (she) and New Yorkers (me) do. 

But GGG? What? Groundwater Governance Goddess/Guru - that's the moniker I gave her a few years ago. We've got two papers from her today.

 

1) Here is a one-pager article she wrote in 2016, The Invisible Water:

Download The Invisible Water

The first two paragraphs:

Water policy discussions around the globe are focusing on groundwater and how to improve its governance and management. Growing water demands and changing climate’s influence on temperature and precipitation patterns have underscored the importance of groundwater – the invisible water.

Groundwater meets about 40 percent of Arizona’s annual water uses. While the Colorado River, which also satisfies about 40 percent of Arizona’s annual needs, is receiving a lot of attention, with the Central Arizona Project’s “Protect Lake Mead” campaign and other efforts to raise awareness of work being done to forestall and maybe even avoid shortage, efforts to manage our groundwater resources wisely deserve at least equal attention. Those of us who work in the water sector in Arizona know how important groundwater is to communities and economic activities throughout the state. We regularly cite the centrality of Arizona’s 1980 Groundwater Management Act, which implemented a strong regulatory framework for groundwater utilization in designated Active Management Areas. But because these provisions do not apply statewide, even here in Arizona, where groundwater management seems second nature, groundwater overdraft continues to be a challenge.

Cutting to the chase...

Finally, I would be remiss if I did not mention the important work on groundwater assessment being carried out along the US-Mexico border. The binational Transboundary Aquifer Assessment Program has produced a report on the San Pedro Aquifer in English and Spanish and is completing a similar report for the binational Santa Cruz Aquifer.

Groundwater is a critically important resource for Arizona and much of the world. People are coming together to emphasize the need to understand this resource and manage it better. At the University of Arizona Water Resources Research Center, we endeavor to contribute to efforts to share best practices for groundwater assessment, governance, and management. Please visit http://wrrc.arizona.edu/programs-research to find out more.

2) She also sent me this excellent open-access paper: Invisible Water: The Importance of Good Groundwater Governance and Management, npj Clean Water, Volume 1, Article number: 15 (2018). It was published in the online journal npj Clean Water. I posted it about 2 years ago. Click on the graphics to enlarge them.

Download Megdal FINAL Invisible Water npj Clean Water

Abstract
This paper summarizes the results of efforts to bring attention to the importance of understanding and improving groundwater governance and management. Discussion of survey work in the United States and global case studies highlights the importance of focusing attention on this invisible water resource before pollution or depletion of it causes severe economic, environmental, and social dislocations. Better governance and management of groundwater are required to move toward sustainable groundwater use.

Introduction
The growing population’s increasing demand for water for food, energy, and other human uses and changing climate’s impacts to both water supplies and demands are resulting in increasing reliance on groundwater. In many places groundwater is being depleted faster than nature replenishes it, and its quality is being compromised. Groundwater “mining” can have negative implications for meeting long-term water needs of people and natural systems. At the same time that groundwater from deeper and saltier aquifers is eyed for meeting future drinking water needs, aquifers are being identified as repositories for waste streams from desalination and energy processes as well as carbon sequestration sites. As dependence on groundwater increases, water managers and policy makers must pay careful attention to both groundwater quality and quantity. This paper focuses on efforts to bring attention to the importance of understanding and improving the governance and management of this invisible and increasingly relied-upon resource. It is essential that water users focus attention on this invisible water resource before pollution or depletion of it causes severe economic, environmental, and social dislocations. Better governance and management of groundwater are required to move toward sustainable groundwater use.

Cutting to the chase...

Concluding Remarks
Groundwater, the invisible water supply, is becoming more visible in dialogues on the challenges of meeting the world’s food, energy and water needs. The governance and management of this resource will often be at the scale of the source aquifers. Many across the globe are working hard to bring greater attention to the importance of good governance and management of this oftentimes non-renewable resource. As the state-level survey work demonstrates, quality considerations are paramount to those responsible for regulating groundwater. Along with other factors, quality considerations will determine groundwater’s usability. The case studies discussed underscore that groundwater is largely a local resource, with its governance and management vital to the livability and productivity of regions around the globe. Water policymakers, users, researchers, and citizens must focus attention on this invisible water resource before pollution or depletion of it results in severe economic, environmental, and social dislocations.

I jokingly refer to Sharon as the Groundwater Governance Goddess (or Guru). But it's no joke; she is! Read more of her work here and here and here. 

Enjoy!

"We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. " - Carl Sagan