Industrial ecology of earth resources EAEE E4001

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Industrial ecology of earth resources EAEE E4001
MANAGING THE WATER RESOURCES INVITED LECTURE BY
PROF. UPMANU LALL  
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Decision Analysis Tools for Total Maximum Daily
Loads - EPA's Water Quality Management Program
Presentation by Prof. Upmanu Lall, Earth and
Environmental Engineering
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Outline

• The Playing Field
• The Clean Water Act, Water Quality and the EPA
• The Problem
• Management or Regulation ? Data, Science, Problem
  Scale and Decisions
• An Approach
• Emphasis on Science to support Decision Process
• Bayes Networks Packaging

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http//www.cnn.com/NATURE/9906/22/saving.cuyahoga/
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Key Legislation mandating EPAs role in Water
National Environmental Policy Act, 1969
Environmental Assessments (EA's) and
Environmental Impact Statements (EIS's) for all
federal activities Federal Water Pollution
Control Act 1972 Regulates discharges of
pollutants to waters Endangered Species Act,
1973 Conservation of threatened/endangered
plants and animals and the habitats in which they
are found The Safe Drinking Water Act, 1974,
1996 Protect the quality of all waters actually
or potentially designed for drinking use, whether
from above ground or underground sources. EPA to
establish safe standards of purity and required
all public water systems to comply with primary
(health) standards. State governments, also
encourage attainment of secondary standards
(nuisance). The Clean Water Act 1977 Focus on
toxics. EPA gets authority to set effluent
standards on an industry basis (technology-based)
and water quality standards for all contaminants
in surface waters. The CWA makes it unlawful for
any person to discharge any pollutant from a
point source into navigable waters unless a
permit (NPDES) is obtained. Comprehensive
Environmental Response, Compensation, and
Liability Act, 1980 Federal Superfund to clean
up uncontrolled or abandoned hazardous-waste
sites as well as accidents, spills, and other
emergency releases of pollutants and contaminants
into the environment The Clean Water Act 1987
authorized citizen suit provisions, and funded
sewage treatment plants (POTW's) under the
Construction Grants Program. EPA can delegate
many permitting, administrative, and enforcement
aspects of the law to state governments.
Resource Conservation Recovery Act, 1976,
1986 Underground Storage Tanks, Non-Haz Waste
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EPA
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Assessed Rivers, Lakes, and Estuaries Meeting All
Designated Uses 1994/1996 Using Latest State
Information Reported - EPA
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Percent of Impaired Waters - 1998
-EPA
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Major Water Quality Concerns Today

• Non-point source Pollution (e.g., Agricultural
  Sources, Urban Runoff)
• Nutrients (P, N), Sediment, Stream temperature,
  Dissolved Oxygen, Pathogens, Pesticides
• Organics in Urban Runoff
• Eutrophication
• Endangered Species/Habitat/Riparian Zone,
  Recreation Impacts
• Climate Variability and Dynamic Range of
  Biophysical Processes
• Rapid Urbanization/Shifts in Land Use
• Competition between Environmental and
  Agricultural/MI demands
• Paucity of Data in Space and Time
• Limited Understanding of Long Term Impacts in
  Ephemeral Streams

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-EPA
Sediments Nutrients Pathogens Dissolved
Oxygen Metals Habitat pH Suspended
Solids Temperature Flow Alterations Pesticides Nox
ious Plants Turbidity Fish Contamination Ammonia
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0
of Water Segments
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Sediment Runoff Potential - 1990-1995
Nitrogen Runoff Potential - 1990 -1995
Pesticide Runoff Potential - 1990 -1995
Fish Consumption Advisories - 1997
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Key Points

• TMDLs - legal domain dominates process - policy
  or science issue ?
• Major Public Sector Expenditures and Urgency -
  Legal Impetus
• 40,000 TMDLs _at_ 100k each 4 billion EPA
  expense in 10 yrs
• There are significant data gaps to even evaluate
  existing conditions
• Natural climatic variability leads to short and
  long range effects on the landscape that
  complicates the assessment of sediment, nutrient,
  and other inter-related loads that result from
  modified land use practices
• Various best management practices have been
  proposed. Little is known about their efficacy
• How does one develop management/regulation plans
  for specific watersheds in this environment ?
• Scale of watershed, location of source, Equity

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The Local Decision Problem

• Collaborative Decision Making as a Watershed
  Management Approach
• - The Physical Scientists Role

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TMDL Total Maximum Daily Loads

• Key aspects
• For each stream reach listed for a specific
  pollutant
• Identify Beneficial Use
• Identify Sources (point and non-point)
  Background Loading
• Allocate Loads to all Point and Non-Point Sources
  Margin Of Safety
• such that water quality standard(s) relative to
  beneficial use designation are met

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Natural State
Desired State
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Typical Stakeholders

• Regional EPA Offices
• State Departments of Environmental Quality, Water
  Rights, Fish and Wildlife, Natural Resources,
  Agriculture, Planning and Budget
• The Western Governors Association (WGA)
• Federal Land and Resource Managers e.g., USFS,
  BLM, USBR, NPS, USFWS, NRCS, USDA, DOE, DOD
• Association of County Governments and County
  Planners, Irrigation and Water Conservation
  Districts, Major Industries and Utilities
• Environmental Organizations and Action Groups,
  Farm Groups
• Information Suppliers The scientific community -
  Universities and other Researchers

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THE TMDL EQUATION as per EPA
TMDL Sum of WLA Sum of LA MOS

• TMDL WQ Standard for Beneficial Use
  Designation
• WLA Waste Load Allocation for each point
  source
• NPDES Permits
• LA Load Allocation for each non-point source
• BMPs
• MOS Margin of Safety (e.g. 20 of TMDL)
• Socio-Economic Factors ? Uncertainty ?
  Variability ?

Develop for each reach. Watershed Sequencing ?
Trading ?
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Current Modeling Approaches

• Lumped, and spatially distributed simulation
  models for overland and channel flow generation
  given landscape information and climatic time
  series
• Associated models for modeling the transport,
  reactions, decay and mixing of contaminants in a
  river channel and/or non-point source load
  generation
• Lumped and spatially distributed discrete time
  simulation models for groundwater flow and
  transport and surface-water exchanges
• "GIS Models" that use spatial landscape data and
  simple physics or statistical approaches to
  estimate mean fluxes at a point or perform
  discrete time simulations of the system given
  assumptions on exogenous climate and pollutant
  application
• Statistical approaches based on linear or
  nonlinear (including neural network) regressions
  to provide estimates of the mean value (and
  variance) of loads and fluxes given specific
  indicators.
• Statistical indicators of ecological condition of
  the watershed
• Ecological models of habitat dynamics conditional
  on exogenous forcings
• Statistical and dynamical models of economic
  markets and user preferences

Focus on data and decision questions or on unit
process modeling ? Do decision makers react to
results of process simulations or to the chance
of key outcomes ?
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Source Jarrell (1999)
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Approach

• TMDL Management Plan translate regulatory
  needs, competing stakeholder objectives into
  monitoring system design and watershed
  operation strategy given evolving data and
  goals
• Focus on Variables/Processes needed for decision
  analysis and their interconnections - represent
  as a directed network
• Recognize that unit process models provide means
  to connect variables on network
• Explicitly consider role of natural variability
  and ignorance in defining uncertainty - Bayes
  network
• Communication - Visualization / Presentation
  Tools
• Simcity/Simearth motif with BayesNet providing
  SimRules
• Limiting Probabilities vs Time Simulation ?

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The NPS (Ranch) has a higher FS than Beet
Factory, but worse risk of violation of the
standard For the case with both the beet factory
and the ranch, we have a FSgt1, but the TMDL is
violated 23 of the time. Is this acceptable for
ecological impacts ?
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The 2 treatment options individually lead to the
same FS, but the Riparian buffer leads to a lower
risk of TMDL violation. Trading ? Is a 5 risk
acceptable or do we need both options to reduce
the risk to 1 ?
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The Bayes Network can be reduced to focus on key
items of interest
Conditional Probabilities are evaluated from data
or simulation models or can be specified by an
expert
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East Canyon Reservoir, UtahA case study
Lost Cr.
Echo Cr.
Chalk Cr.
Echo Res.
Rockport Res.
Silver Cr.
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Concerns

• Current problems
• loss of cold water fisheries (stream and flat
  water)
• reduction in use of State Park at East Canyon
  Reservoir
• Annual Visitors (300K in 1986, now lt100K)
• periodic low dissolved oxygen in stream
• eutrophication of reservoir
• Future concerns
• development - population to grow 400 in 20-30
  years
• conversion of agricultural to urban lands
• interbasin water transfers that may reduce
  flushing

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Goals

• Control of Contaminant Discharges into East
  Canyon Cr. and Reservoir
• Determination of total loading of a particular
  pollutant into a water body
• point and non-point sources
• overland flow
• ground water
• Need for discharge management to achieve water
  quality goals

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Approach

• Analysis of data
• identification of data sources
• U.S. EPA STORET repository, USGS repository,
  State of Utah, Results of university and other
  studies, data held by stakeholders
• probability distributions for hydrologic, water
  quality, and contaminant source inputs
• exploratory data analysis, parametric
  distribution fitting, non-parametric distribution
  fitting
• methods for finding probability distributions of
  outputs
• Bayes nets, deterministic models

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East Canyon Conceptualization
East Canyon Reservoir
Snyderville Basin WWTP
Kimball Junction
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Models to route probabilities

• Input Variables from Historical Data
• QUAL2E/UNCAS - EPA developed and maintained
• stream water quality and temperature
• BOD/DO
• nutrients
• algae/Coliform bacteria
• user-defined constituents
• detailed representation of stream hydraulics
• error propagation integral to model

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Results - Reservoir Inflow
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Results
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A future TMDL Strategy as a Bayes Net
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An Approach to the Analysis of Sediment Loads
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Questions Addressed

• Where are the most erodible soils located within
  the watershed?
• Where do the eroded materials move to i.e., what
  stream segment?
• What are the high priority areas to address
  erosion/ sedimentation for the watershed?
• What stream segments are at greatest risk from
  sedimentation?
• How would implementation of BMPs in selected
  areas of the watershed affect the erosion rate,
  mass, and loading into the receiving streams?
• How is the amount of eroded material attenuated
  as it moves over and through different areas with
  varying land cover/use, soils, and slope?

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GIS input data

• 30 m DEM based on USGS data
• River Reach Files
• SSURGO soils data (USDA-NRCS)

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Hierarchical Estimation of Sediment Load
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A Bayesian Framework
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Functional Elements of Computer Package
Database Spatial, Environmental, Economic and
Regulatory Electronic Library Case studies,
beneficial uses, stakeholder information Decision
Process Guide Walk through decision process, flag
data, prescribe analyses System Representation
Tools Physical representation of the landscape
and control points, pollution sources and sinks
Process representation using Bayes
networks Analysis Tools Statistical and
Mechanistic Models
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Using the System to Develop TMDLs

• Project Setup
• Identify sub-basin
• Organize reaches by stream order
• Determine listing status
• Select pollutant for TMDL
• Organize data sets

• Sub-basin assessment
• For each reach in sub-basin
• Determine beneficial use designation
• Determine standards for selected pollutant
• Identify sources
• Characterize loads from each source
• Generate probabilities from data
• Identify management options
• Evaluate management options

• Information
• Deterministic Models
• Regional statistical analysis

• Load allocation
• Visualize system interconnections
• Display causal network
• Apply management options
• Assess optimal economic load allocation strategy

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Project Environment
A standalone Windows-PC application (no extra
software required). Live links to local or
Internet-based data sources, GIS capabilities and
a guidance system that walks the user through the
data analysis, modeling and decision-making
processes.
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Internal Data Processing -Graphical Scripting
A schematic-based data processing interface
provides the user with an intuitive drag and
drop ability to process and prepare both
temporal and spatial data for use in the system.
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External Data Processing-Regional Analysis
Commercial GIS products such as ArcView are used
to conduct a regional data analysis of all water
quality stations in similar watersheds.
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Regional Statistical Analysis
A conditional probability table is generated from
monitoring stations throughout the adjoining
ecoregions.
This table is used to provide estimates of
nonpoint source loadings.
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GIS-Based Interaction
User selects a sub watershed by clicking on the
map. A recursive algorithm selects connected
streams and builds a topological network.
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Data Extraction and Manipulation
Extracted data include stream network, point
sources, monitoring stat-ions, land use, soil
type, contributing area, average slope, mean
annual precipitation and elevations.
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Nonpoint Source Modeling
These data will be used to generate nonpoint
source loadings for the reaches based on the
conditional probability table developed from the
ecoregion-wide causal relationship analysis.
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