Paul Hsieh - HWR Alum and National Hero

A national report on the response to the Macondo Well blowout and resulting oil spill was released yesterday by the Associated Press. The National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Response was released on Monday. Paul Hsieh a UA-HWR alum and USGS research scientist was instrumental in the decision to leave the well capped during July. Some had wanted to remove the cap but Paul's calculations based on a cell phone photo and a full night spent double checking calculations resulted in a decision to wait and see and then leave the cap on. The interim measure was key to minimizing the damage from the spill which was already the largest man caused disaster in US history.

From the AP article:
One scientist took a cell phone picture of pressure readings and e-mailed it to a government researcher in California for advice.

Just using that cell phone photo, Paul Hsieh, a U.S. Geological Survey scientist, created a model to explain what was happening under the cap and how - despite low pressure readings - there was no leak. He was convinced the containment cap wouldn't blow. He got more data, which bolstered his case.Hsieh, a research hydrologist who normally works with water, labored through the night without the aid of caffeine. He stayed up all night triple checking calculations, going on adrenaline.

"I just knew a decision had to be made the next day," he said. "I had participated in the conference call. I had sensed the tension everyone had and that just kind of kept me going."

Hsieh laid out his case and it persuaded the other scientists to wait.

The government waited six hours, then a day. Nothing happened. The cap held.

International Prize for Water Awarded to Prof Marek Zareda

Please join me in congratulating Professor Marek Zreda, a Professor in the UA Department of Hydrology and Water Resources (HWR), and Dr. Darin Desilets, his ex-grad student in HWR and now of the Sandia National Laboratory, on winning the International Prize for Water, worth $266,000 (US Dollars). The announcement is at:http://psipw.org/new/index2.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=261&pop=1&page=0&Itemid=26

HWRSA 2011 Calendar!

Get your brand new HWRSA calendar.

The HWR department calendars are ready to be ordered and printed!

Now you can have a look at the photos and designs and order as many calendars as you wish - be it for yourself or to give away. All the pictures were taken by our own HWR folks, so this calendar is really something special. And keep in mind, the profits go directly to the rather empty bank account of the HWR Student Association (SUDS, anyone?).

You have two options:

1. Desktop Calendar (4'' x 8''), $8 apiece

2. Wall Calendar (11'' x 8.5''), $12 apiece

Email Ingo Heidbuchel, ingohei@hwr.arizona.edu to order your calendar. If you pick up in person no extra charge if you want the calendar mailed to you it will cost $6 Shipping and Handling (USPS-prioirty - contact if overseas and Ingo will figure something out with you).

Andrew Binley October 27th Seminar

Dr. Andrew Binley ~ Lancaster University, Environmental Science “Hydrogeophysics: Opportunities and Challenges” Wednesday, October 27, 2010, 4:00 pm Harshbarger Building ~ Room 206 Detailed knowledge on the extent, hydraulic properties, and vulnerability of groundwater reservoirs is necessary to enable sustainable use of groundwater resources. Hydrogeophysical methods can allow, for example, large scale aquifer characterisation, previously unobtainable through conventional hydrogeological techniques. In addition, time-lapse deployment of appropriate methods can give useful insight into complex subsurface processes, aiding hydrological model development and the assessment of groundwater restoration strategies. New regulatory water policies, for example the European Water Framework Directive, demonstrates the demand for new technology to assist in water resource management, with clear opportunities for hydrogeophysical method development and application. Geophysical methods have been widely used to support groundwater investigations for many years. Geophysical borehole logging is commonly used within hydrogeological studies to provide data to support the development of conceptual models of groundwater processes. Much of these established methods, however, offer only qualitative information about hydrogeological parameters and processes and during the 1990s a re-emergence of geophysics in hydrology occurred as attempts were made to provide more quantitative information about subsurface hydrology. The field hydrogeophysics emerged as a multi-disciplinary subject that focuses on the use of geophysical methods for characterising subsurface features, determining hydrogeological properties and monitoring processes relevant to soil and groundwater processes. Over the past decade hydrogeophysics emerged due to the availability of new (or developing) geophysical techniques and the potential value in addressing the hydrological challenges that had emerged from recent research. Many geophysical methods may provide solutions to the problems above but it is essential that the expectations of the hydrologist are consistent with what the geophysicist can provide. Geophysical methods will be limited in what they can offer but provided these limitations are accepted at the outset then there may be enormous potential value to a hydrological study. Imaging of hydrological structure and processes are potentially valuable hydrogeophysical tools, however, in hydrological investigations one is often faced with subtle contrasts in some geophysical property. In such cases the application of conventional geophysical inversion approaches may have limited value due to limited resolution and effects of inappropriate regularisation schemes. In addition, there is a need to link the imaged geophysical property to some useful hydrological variable or parameter. This requires reliable petrophysical models, developed at an appropriate scale. The resulting image will be subject to uncertainty, the extent of which should be understood before any hydrological value can be drawn from the image. Recent attempts have been made to tackle some of these problems. Here we outline the limitations of current hydrogeophysical methods, identify specific challenges facing the community and exciting opportunities in this field.

Shlomo Neuman Oral HIstory Interview

Shlomo Peter Neuman is professor at the University of Arizona in Tucson. He is considered to be one of the scientists who changed the face of hydrogeology during the 20th century. In this series of 4 videos he is interviewed by Jesus Carrera, Alberto Guadagnini and Daniel Tartakovski. The interview covers some aspects of his life, his early work on well hydraulics as well as many aspects
of his research on aquifer characterization, inverse modeling, fractured media, stochastic methods, or multiscale analysis. To see this and other videos, just follow the link: http://timecapsule.ecodev.ch/

Peter Troch Honored with Dalton Award from EGU

Please join me in congratulating our colleague, Dr. Peter Troch, recipient of the 2011 John Dalton Medal. This medal was established by the Division on Hydrological Sciences in recognition of the scientific achievements of John Dalton. Other prestigious award recipients can been viewed at http://www.egu.eu/egs/award6i.htm. It will be awarded by the European Geosciences Union for distinguished research in Hydrology reviewed as an Earth science.

How Much Does A Hurricane Weigh?

Cute story on NPR this morning about how much a cloud and a Hurricane weighs. Those light and fluffy shade producers called clouds weigh a lot!

Five Questions for Ty Ferre

This week Arizona Hydro sits down with Ty Ferre Associate Professor of Hydrology and Water Resources.

1) Why the Department of Hydrology and Water Resources?
As a professor, it is really rewarding to work with so many top notch faculty and students. In particular, as a 'measurement guy' it is great to be surrounded by people with a broad range of interesting questions that can make use of improved measurement approaches and methods. Also, I don't like to shovel snow.

2) Best hydrologic insight you have ever had?

Either 1) how to build a refillable Mariotte bottle; or 2) how to describe what an instrument 'sees'; or see 4 below.

3) Favorite thing about being a hydrologist?

It is rarely uninteresting because such simple concepts lead to surprising outcomes.

4) Why is Sudoku like hydrology?
Actually, hydrology is like Sudoku. Essentially there are two similarities. First, both require integration of limited information, quantitative tools, and insight. Second, it can be a lot of fun; but, it should not be taken too seriously.

5) Favorite thing about Tucson?

Now that I have lived here long enough, there is only one answer ... It's not Phoenix.

First HWR Seminar Next Week September 1st

The first HWR seminar of the Fall 2010 semester is next Wednesday at 4PM in JWH 206.
For more information about future seminars please go to the HWR seminar calendar.

Hydrologic Risk Transfer Models as Adapting Strategies for Changing Scenarios of Water Vulnerability

Abstract –

"Strategies for sustainable development depict a learning transition from uncertainty analysis to uncertainty management, encouraging new rules, attitudes and scenarios capable of being profited in water problems" (Mendiondo & Valdes, 2002). Hydrologic risks play an important role in the management of predicted changes of the water balance of critical watersheds. These risks are expected to increase under exploding demands, land use and climate variability. At the South American scale, for instance, flood risk management performs an promissory niche of ca. R$ 80 billion a year. In the handling on these risks it is necessary to propose a pool of adapting measures which incorporate tradeoffs being accepted not only at scientific circuits but also in decision making steps with stakeholders. Adapting measures to hydrologic risks are particularly relevant at watersheds threatened by climate extremes, especially those rivers being highly impacted by progressive transformation, in North America and South America (Mendiondo & Valdes, 2002) with ungauged or poor gauged basins’ responses (Sivapalan et al, 2003). To further mitigate preventable water disasters, mitigate related catastrophes and transfer those growing water risks, new insurance models, herewith known as Hydrological Risk Transfer Models (HRTM), are proposed coupling hydrologic models with economic layouts regarding a scenario approach. Novel HRTMs are derived on long-term scenarios and modeling runs of possible climate and land use changes (Mendiondo et al, 2005). Other works with HRTMs relate to resilience and demonstrate how scientific methods can be merged into feasible strategies of risk transfer at the watershed scale with vulnerable sectors and stakeholders (Mendiondo, 2010). HRTMs are part of a whole concept of how resilience and vulnerability should be addressed by watershed’s societies who recognize that adapting measures to potential climate change risk are feasible. New challenges proposes more complete approaches to environmental insurance models through HRTMs and the way to assess the vulnerability-tradeoffs to the overall resilience within the river basin scale.

The objective of this Seminar is twofold: firstly, to link Global Circulation Model outputs to regional HRTMs at representative watersheds; secondly, to explore several how combinations of hypothesis testing on climate change and land-use scenarios should elicit water insurance models in order to propose new indexes of water vulnerability and resilience, adaptation thresholds of more vulnerable society’s sectors and mitigation policies of the whole economical system. The purpose is preliminary to approach case studies at representative biomes of Subtropical and Semi-Arid areas, thereby underpinning yardsticks of how to replicate intensive HRTM runs. Future scenarios from GCMs, with uncertainty intervals between period of years 2000-2050 and 2050-2100, will be the inputs to HRTMs, acting as a dynamic ‘fund tank’ of the insurance device. New climate change scenarios runs through Brazilian CPTEC-ETA model, globally-constrained by either HadCM3 or ECHAM4, from baseline scenarios A1B, A2 and B1 for the period 1960 2100, also include indexes of extreme precipitation, temperature and water scarcity indexes here used. To address resilience and vulnerability indexes, the insurance model emulate stochastically-based scenarios based upon ‘fund tank’ solvency as well as time-averaged efficiency throughout long-term scenarios of land-use. Then climate change and land-use scenarios could be tested as end-points or mixed situations which generate a wide range of possibilities. The methodology could be assessed at representative biomes with transboundary constraints in Latin and North America: (1) subtropical Piracicaba-Capivari-Jundiai watershed (PCJ, Brazil), (2) water scarce Sao Francisco watershed (SF, Brazil), (3) transitional Andean-Amazon biome of Vilcanota-Urubamba watershed (Machu Picchu, Peru) and discuss which possibilities for using at Salt River Basin USA. Consequently, the approach outlines replication steps for: (a) the adaptation of different society's story-lines scenarios of Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, (b) a stochastic bootstrapping of M-scenarios, (c) climate change scenarios, (d) fuzzy-level risk coverage of insurance for water scarcity, (e) a prospective window timeframe horizon per scenario run, encompassing a great amount of combinations of flexible, adaptive insurance schemes exploring HRTMs either at a lumped or distributed scale of the watershed. Finally, institutional and logistical facilities are being presented to support twinning graduate programs of water resources between of University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, and SAHRA/UnivArizona, USA, with exchange of scholars and students to study and visit Brazilian demonstrative pilot projects of water resilient events of World Soccer Cup 2014 and Olympic Games 2016, profiting from global networks of IPCC, WMO, UNEP-FI and UNDP-CapNet.


Short CV

EMM, 42, Water Resources Engineer from Universidad Nacional del Litoral, Argentina. Master of Science in Civil Engineering and Doctor in Water Resources and Environment of Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Senior Researcher at Center for Environmental System Research at University of Kassel, Germany. Since 2002 he is lecturing professor at Department of Hydraulics and Sanitation of Sao Carlos College of Engineering, University of Sao Paulo at Sao Carlos, Brazil. R&D missions in Asia, Europe, Africa and Latin America. Experiences and vivid works on adaptation strategies of water resources systems, emerging hydrologic theory and prediction in ungauged basins, urban waters, hydraulic uncertainties, ecohydrology, river restoration, future scenarios of water extremes, flood insurance, radar-based flash-flood nowcasting, water vulnerability at semi-arid regions, water pricing related to water footprint. Invited fellow of international and regional inititatives: Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, Brazilian Panel of Climate Change, Reviewer of AR5/Braz IPCC, Academic Member of UNEPFI and Board Member of Brazilian Network of Capacity Building on Water Resources, CapNet Brazil. Hobbies: field hydrology during travels and coaching students for water innovation.

Field Camp 2010 Photos

The one week field camp experience at Dead Horse Ranch State Park, this past May, was a success as always. Enjoy the pictures of some of the classes work.Installing a Parshall Flume on the parks irrigation ditch.Ty Ferre in a typical professorial Socratic pose.

Dennis Scheall discussing the practice of field hydrology.

Maite Guardiola Wins Best Student PResnetation at Fall AGU 2009

Maite Guardiola-Claramonte recently received her PhD in Hydrology under the advising of Dr. peter Troch. At the 2009 Fall AGU meeting she also received a an award for best student presentation for her oral presentation Regional vegetation die-off alters hydrological partitioning.

Jim Shuttleworth on UA front page

A great video clip on Jim Shuttleworth's research was just posted on the UA web page. Video does a great job of showing Jim for his genius and humanity.

Dr. McIntosh Research - Bacteria Turn Coal and Oil Into Renewable Energy

Jennifer McIntosh's research was recently featured in Discovery News for work she has done with the USGS on microbial methane production in coal beds. Congratulations on the press coverage Dr. McIntosh.

Another Successful year for HWR

As always Terrie Thompson has compiled the long list of awards to students, faculty and staff in the Hydrology and Water Resources Department.

Enjoy perusing the list.

Great Economist Special Issue on Water

The Economist recently had a really good special issue on Water. The special report outlines the man of the the major issues facing water resources management today.

The report starts off with a thorough plea that water needs to be managed in order to properly address ongoing and worsening water shortages around the world. This is followed by good coverage of the problems of sanitation and the significant gains in human well being and economic growth that could come from better access to toilets and basic sanitation. There is then a deft side step to the public versus private utility debate wherein the author argues that the need is for responsive utilities sometimes these are public sometimes they are private. There is then a somewhat muddled coverage of the need for better farm water management that touches on groundwater management as well. There is a decent profile on Singapore with an allusion to how better water resources management has led to a clean water industry in Singapore.

The report then moves to a discussion of the efforts to improve water "efficiency" in China but notes that drives towards efficiency often have the counter intuitive result that efficiency often times does not actually "save" water. Following the concundrum of efficiency the authors focus on the fact that often times small dams are more useful and profitable than big dams but that politicians like big projects because no-ones names a rainwater cistern after anyone. This problem rings true to anyone who has read Sol Resnick's Irrigating India.... Next is a rather deft essay on the importance of a proper price on water to make its use efficient and also allow realistic production of tradeable commodities where water is most available.

No coverage of water would be complete in the modern media without coverage of water wars and this report is no exception it covers ongoing international disputes well. It goes further and posits that water disputes are generally resolvable when conflicting parties find ways to maximize benefits among the participants. The report finishes with a plea for reasonable pricing of water, better management and a continued drive for efficient use of water.

Friday Blogs and Posts on Water

Occasionally on Fridays I like to highlight some valuable content out there on internet that might be of interest to people connected to the department.

Today I highlight these 4-

1) From the New York Times affiliated blog Green. We have a nice post about New York City's Water Resources Poetry contest. Some nice lines for public talks in the future.

My Favorite-
Treatment at wastewater plants must be quite quick,
To remove the pollutants so you don’t get sick.
In a mere seven hours, the job is complete,
Compared to weeks in nature to perform the same feat!

2) From American Rivers a concern that the recently introduced Kerry-Lieberman Climate
Bill does not do enough to provide resources to cities, towns and states to adapt to the climate change that is highly likely over the next 30-50 years.

3) From an HWR alum - Michael Campana on his storied blog WaterWired, today brings us a nice entry on Peter Gleick's new book on Bottled Water - Bottled and Sold.

4) Another Alum- Bob Sobczak runs a great blog about the water resources issues and variable hydrology of southwest Florida.

ADWR and ADEQ cuts profiled in Arizona Republic

Due to the severe budget situation in Arizona many areas of the state budget have taken severe hits. Among the agencies hardest hit has been the two resource agencies for water and the environment. Cuts to Arizona Department of Water Resources and Arizona Department of Environmental Quality profiled in Arizona Republic today May 4th, 2010. The article does a good job of going over the hit this action will cause to robust monitoring of water resources and the environment in the state.

Martha Whitaker wins a National Advising Award

The National Academics Advising Association has name Martha Whitaker as their Outstanding New Advisor for 2010. The honor is well deserved for Martha.

Some background on why she won this award-

Martha has served as the Department of Hydrology and Water Resources academic advisor for the undergraduate program for just over two years. At first she assisted Don Davis and then later by herself after he died from complications of cancer. In her role Martha has been simply superlative. Our undergraduate program has grown from 8 to 44 students.

Her excellence is not simply a function of the growth she has overseen however. Students in the program are enthusiastic about their futures and about the department. This enthusiasm has been encouraged and stoked by Martha’s dynamic personality and her passion for hydrology. She has also been a careful mentor to undergraduate students. Even as she has been successful at increasing majors in our department Martha has discouraged students from the major who simply do not have the background or would be better served in other majors. Still the students she has recruited are diverse in life and educational background and they are generally hard working and meet the caliber of undergraduates the department has traditionally had. Several undergraduates have indicated to me that Martha’s advising is detailed and important. According to them her advising has changed the course of their lives not just by encouraging them to major in Hydrology but also by encouraging them to get work and research experience. These experiences have proven critical as they have sought work in the field and pursued their careers.

Martha has been a truly excellent adviser and deserves the national recognition she has received for her superlative work.

Stephen Osborn - Best TA 2010 in UA College of Science

Members of the department have done a great job this year in garnering awards for their excellent work. One recent awardee was Stephen Osborn a PhD student who has been a TA for introduction to Hydrology. Stephen was honored as the best TA in the College of Science in 2009. The award was in part for his excellent efforts at TA'ing introduction to hydrology.

Stephen's research interest broadly consist of utilizing elemental and isotopic analyses of multiple substrates (gas, rock, and formation water) to address fundamental questions of fluid and solute migration, biogeochemistry of solutes and radionuclides, microbial processes, and diagenetically induced water-rock reactions in subsurface environments. This research could have important implications for understanding the chemical evolution of deep seated formation waters as ore forming fluids, controls on microbial processes (e.g., methanogenesis and sulfate reduction), and large scale fluid migration during orogenesis. With his TA ward and a post-doc lined up at Duke University on carbon sequestration Stephen appears to have a bright future ahead.


Stephen already has his super-hero persona selected -

Hydrogeo man-

Former UA Hydrology Professor on Colbert

Last Night Brenda Ekwurzel a former professor in the Department of Hydrology and Water Resources was on the Colbert Report for a "Science Catfight" with Joe Bastardi of Accu-Weather over why can't meterologists and climate scientists agree on the cause of global warming. Brenda does well in holding up her half of the fight. See for yourself-

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Science Catfight - Joe Bastardi vs. Brenda Ekwurzel
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Reform

Wednesday April 7 Seminar - Larry Winter

Today's HWR seminar will be given by Larry Winter.

"A Reduced Complexity Model for Probabilistic Risk Assessment of Groundwater Contamination"

Abstract:

I'll discuss a model of reduced complexity for assessing the risk of groundwater pollution from a point-source that Daniel Tartakovsky and I have been developing. An important feature of the model is that it's based on observable parameters like solute concentration at an observation well. The progress of contamination is represented as a sequence of transitions among coarsely resolved states corresponding to simple statements like "a spill has occurred", "natural attenuation has failed", etc. Transitions between states are modeled as a Markov jump process. This introduces the element of time in the state transition model which is missing in many risk assessment models. A general expression for the probability of aquifer contamination is obtained. I'll discuss the assumptions the model is based on and the data it requires, and I'll apply the model to a simple example to illustrate the method and fix ideas. I'll also say something about the uses of models, and the restrictions that sparse data imposes on them, to motivate the usefulness of reduced models.

Galileo Circle Scholars

Congratulations to David Bernard (undergraduate) and Andrew Somor (graduate) for being selected by the College of Science as 2010 Galileo Circle Scholars!

The Galileo Circle is a society of individuals who support excellence in the sciences at the University of Arizona. The scholarships for HWR students were made possible through the generous support of Galileo Circle members Charles and Elena d'Autremont. David and Andrew will each receive a $1,000 scholarship award and are invited to attend the Galileo Circle Celebration dinner with Circle members and patrons later this month. Congratulations and well done!

El Dia Del Agua winners

Last week, March 31st, was the annual El Dia del Agua. This annual student research conference is a tradition in the department. It is an opportunity for students to see what everyone is doing. It also a day for socializing and discussing everyone's favorite Aristotelian element water. As part of the days festivities awards are handed out for best oral and poster presentations. This years winners were -

Montgomery Prize $2,000 ~ Best Oral Presentation

Erika L. Gallo

Hargis Awards $1,000 ~ First Place Poster

Phoolendra Kumar Mishra

Hargis Awards $400 ~ Second Place Poster

Andrew K. Borden

Hydrology & Water Resources Awards $400 ~ Best Speaker

Matthew Narter

Hydrology & Water Resources Awards $400 ~ Best Poster

Andrew Neal

Donald R. Davis Undergraduate with Distinction Award $400

Philip Calabrese

More to follow in the next several weeks about these winners and their presentations.

Five Questions for Dave Kreamer

In preparation for Wednesday March 31st's El Dia Del Agua, it seemed like a good idea to ask our keynote speaker - David Kreamer of the University of Nevada Las Vegas our 5 questions for hydrologists. Dave is an alum of the dpeartment receiving his MS in 1976 and his PhD in 1984 (I guess he just could not get enough). So without further ado here are Dave's answers.

1. Why the Dept of Hydrology and Water Resources?

I was rock climbing in the Catalina Mountains outside Tucson, and began conversing with another climber on a parallel route next to me. I told him that I was an undergraduate in Microbiology, minor chemistry (pre-med), but I was thinking more about the out-of-doors for a job choice. The climber, a guy named Ted Petronoff, said he was in hydrology, and he was doing work in the Grand Canyon on water quality. And by the way, there was a high amount of Shigella, (a type of bacteria that can cause digestive problems) in a side drainage to the Canyon, Kanab Creek, and would I be interested in rafting down the Colorado River taking water quality samples? After a couple of milliseconds thought, I said "sure", and asked him the name of his major professor in the Dept.

The next week I was in an office in the Hydro Dept. It didn't hurt that the U of Arizona has the best dept. in hydrology in the nation, and I am constantly happy about the circumstances, professors and people that shaped my career and life. I am grateful for the experiences, fellowship and training I received at Arizona.

2) Best hydrologic insight you have ever had?

I have several favorite hydrologic insights. As an invited, independent peer reviewer for Yucca Mountain I discovered that politically driven science wasn't always optimal. With the encouragement of Stan Davis, I offered suggestions for improvement of the scientific studies beng conducted. At a low level nuclear waste site in South Carolina I found out that I could make gaseous tracer tests work and be able to be modeled in the vadose zone. With the advice of Paul Hsieh, I put forward a gaseous diffusion model for those tracer tests, which in a strange way was analogous to the inverse, curve-match Theis equation. In the Grand Canyon I found that high uranium concentrations we discovered in spring water, coupled with unusual uranium disequilibrium ratios and other groundwater tracer values could start a major Superfund cleanup. And in Africa I realized that the quality of human life and ecosystem health could be advanced in some basic ways I didn't learn about in school.

3) Favorite thing about being a hydrologist?

My favorite thing about being a hydrologist is to do such varied work involving travel to new places, making a difference in the lives of others, figuring out hydrologic intellectual riddles, working in the lab, modeling on all scales, teaching, and being in beautiful outdoor areas. My favorite thing about being a professor is working with students - they're the best!

4. Why hydrophilanthropy?

I think every hydrologist I've met is proud that in some way they are working for the advancement of the world. For me, hydrophilanthropy is a way to extend academic studies to real-world and immediate, human and ecosystem benefit, while at the same time seeing the world through different eyes and fundamentally challenging you own pre-conceptions about the planet.

5) Favorite thing about Tucson?

I love Tucson and it's hard to choose. My favorite thing about Tucson perhaps might be some quiet, not-often-visited, pools in the polished granite canyons of the Santa Catalina Mountains where you can swim and linger next to saguaro forests.

Earth week 2010

Despite the ominous sound of Earth week 2010 it promises to be a celebration of graduate and undergraduate research in the Earth and Environmental Sciences. Seen as a way to stitch together the new School of Earth and Environmental Sciences (SEES) at the University of Arizona this event integrates Tree Ring Day on March 29th, GRATIS (Graduate Research oin Atmospheric Sciences) on March 30th, El Dia del Agua on MArch 31st and GeoDaze on April 1st and 2nd.

For more information see below where I have copied an announcement from Karl Flessa Chair of SEES and head of Geosciences at the University of Arizona.

-----------------------------------

EarthWeek is next week! Come to the Arizona History Museum Auditorium March 30-April2 to see and hear about student research, hear keynote talks by leaders in our field, hear plenary speaker Randy Olson talk about science communication and on Wednesday night, come to The Loft Cinema to see SIZZLE.

Each day of EarthWeek features one or more of the School’s units, so be sure to attend more than one day! Our students have worked hard to pull all of this together and our sponsors have donated cash and other prizes. So show your support by showing up.

Details below.

EarthWeek Features Student Research Plus 'Sizzle: A Global Warming Comedy'

EarthWeek, March 29 through April 3, is a student-run event that features research presentations by graduate and undergraduate students in a range of environmental sciences.

By Mari N. Jensen, College of Science March 24, 2010

EarthWeek, a showcase of research by undergraduate and graduate students in the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Arizona, will be held Monday, March 29 through Saturday, April 3.

The student-organized event features research presentations by students from the departments and units within the school: the Arizona Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Laboratory, atmospheric sciences, geosciences, hydrology and water resources, the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, and soil, water and environmental science.

The weekday events include presentations and posters to be held in the Arizona History Museum auditorium, 949 E. Second St. All of the scientific presentations are free and open to the public.

Randy Olson of Prairie Starfish Productions and the University of Southern California will deliver the plenary lecture, "Don't be Such a Scientist: Talking Substance in an Age of Style," on Wednesday, March 31, at noon.

Olson, marine-biologist-turned-independent film director, will talk about how scientists can do a better job of grabbing the public's attention by changing their communication style.

Randy Olson, marine-biologist-turned-independent-film director, will be the plenary speaker at the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences' EarthWeek.

As part of EarthWeek, Olson's movie, "Sizzle: A Global Warming Comedy," will be shown at The Loft Cinema at 3233 E. Speedway Blvd. on Wednesday, March 31, at 7 p.m. Writer-director Randy Olson will do a Q&A with the audience following the screening. He will be joined by UA professors Julia Cole of geosciences, Diana Liverman of the Institute of the Environment, Brian McGill of the School of Natural Resources and the Environment and Jacqueline Sharkey of the School of Journalism. An admission fee will be charged for the film.

The week culminates with a field trip on Saturday, April 3, to Mt. Lemmon in the Santa Catalina Mountains. The trip will examine geological features along the General Hitchcock Highway.

Schedule of Research Presentations

Monday, March 29, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Tree-Ring Day

Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research

1:30 p.m. Keynote: Who Needs the Medieval Warm Period?

Malcolm Hughes, UA

Tuesday, March 30, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

GRATIS -- Graduate Research in Atmospheric Sciences

Departments of atmospheric sciences and soil, water and environmental science

11:00 a.m. Keynote: Career Opportunities after Graduation

Martin Murphy and Nick Demetriades of Vaisala

Wednesday, March 31, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

20th Annual El Dia Del Agua Student Symposium

Departments of hydrology and water resources and soil, water and environmental science

3:30 p.m. Keynote: Hydrophilanthropy

David Kreamer, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Thursday and Friday, April 1 and 2, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

GeoDaze: 38th Annual Geoscience Symposium

Departments of geosciences and soil, water and environmental science

Keynote on Thursday, April 1, 4 p.m.

The California River and its role in carving the Grand Canyon

Brian Wernicke, California Institute of Technology

Saturday, April 3

GeoDaze Field Trip to Mt. Lemmon

Leader: Paul Kapp, UA associate professor of geosciences

The scientific focus of the trip will be the history and significance of Cretaceous to Miocene magmatism and deformation.

There are still some spaces available for the field trip. Register at

http://earth.geo.arizona.edu/geodaze/2010/register.html

George Davis (left), UA Regents' Professor of geosciences, leads the GeoDaze 2008 field trip. Participants at a stop on the west side of the Catalina Mountains, in the Cargadero Canyon area. (Photo credit: Lepolt Linkimer)

EarthWeek, organized by the graduate students in the UA's School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, provides a forum for students to present their research and receive feedback from faculty, alumni and peers. The annual event also provides an opportunity for students and faculty to interact with interested community members and representatives of industry and government agencies.

EarthWeek is supported by the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences and corporate sponsorship and donations from alumni, faculty and friends.

• What | EarthWeek 2010
• When | March 29 through April 3
• Where | Arizona History Museum auditorium, 949 E. Second St., Tucson

Jim Yeh seminar - Active and Passive Hydrologic Tomography: a revolution in subsurface hydrology

Today (March 24th's) Hydrology and Water Resources Seminar will be presented by TC "Jim" Yeh on his recent and future work on hydraulic tomography. Title and Sumamry to follow.

"Active and Passive Hydrologic Tomography: a revolution in subsurface hydrology"

Wed March 24
4pm Harshbarger Rm 206

Abstract:
Aquifers are inherently heterogeneous at multiple scales. Limitations of analytical mathematics and our inability to sample aquifers at high density however have dictated adoption of aquifer homogeneity assumption. As scales of our interests become finer and computation and sensor technologies advance, we have developed methods for integrative analysis of multiple pumping tests (i.e., hydraulic tomography or active hydrologic tomography) for characterizing aquifers of tens and hundreds of meters in size at high resolutions. While more field assessments are needed, recent validations of the active hydrologic tomography based on numerical, laboratory and field experiments are promising. They show that not only is the tomography capable of detecting the pattern of hydraulic heterogeneity but also a groundwater flow model with the estimated heterogeneity can accurately predict flows under excitations different from those used in the tomography analysis. As a consequence, model calibration or inverse modeling effort should no longer be viewed as a history or curve matching exercise.

Promising results of active hydrologic tomography encourage the development of basin-scale hydrologic tomography. Basin-scale tomography requires energy sources of great strengths. Spatially and temporally varying natural stimuli are ideal energy sources for this purpose. In our recent study, we explored the possibility of using river-stage variations for basin-scale hydraulic tomographic surveys (i.e., passive hydrologic tomography). Specifically, we use numerical models to simulate groundwater level changes in response to temporal and spatial variations of the river stage in a hypothetical groundwater basin. We then exploit the relation between temporal and spatial variations of well hydrographs and river stage to image subsurface heterogeneity of the basin. Results of the numerical exercises are encouraging. In addition, preliminary analysis of hourly groundwater, river stage, and precipitation data collected by a densely distributed monitoring network in Zhoushuixi alluvium fan (3,000 km square), Taiwan supports the concept of passive hydrologic tomography for characterizing basin-scale aquifers and provides insights to the interaction between streams and groundwater at basin
scales.

Stewart Udall has passed

Stewart Udall has passed away. Udall served as a congressman from Tucson before being named Interior Secretary under Kennedy and then Johnson. Udall also received both his bachelors and law degress form the University of Arizona. Udall played a key political role in the growing US conservation movement in the 1960's and helped preserve wide swaths of federal land including Point Reyes and Cape Cod National Seashores along with Canyonlands, Redwood and North Cascades National Parks, among others. Udall was also key in helping protect air, land and water resources throguh the passage of the Clean Air and Water Acts as well as the National Environmental Protection Act.

Matt Garcia over at Hydro-logic has a nice tribute to Udall and the New York Times as always has a thorough obituary of Stewart Udall, his life and his contributions.

World Water Day

Break out the balloons and the streamers. Raise a glass of the clear quenching healthy beverage that is water. Today is world water day. This day was set aside to remember and conduct activities to advocate for better management of our renewable water resources. I the United States activities vary from festivals and government lobbying to simple education events. Learn more here. In Tucson this year there is a water festival to celebrate our most precious resource.
So remember to celebrate water today and raise a glass of the clear stuff for one an all.

An additional link from Matt Garcia on World water day here.

Blog of the week - Water Use it Wisely

As hydrologists we all get questions about how to best conserve water one of the best resources out on the web is the site Water Use it Wisely . If you are just getting started in being water wise you can check out the sites 100 ways to conserve. Of course many who find their way to this blog are probably a little more savvy and thus should maybe check out - their water harvesting links section. The site is supported by water utilities and municipalities across the country. So if you have never visited the site it is one of the better ones out there on conserving water.

Improving Seasonal Predictions of Climate Variability and Water Availability at the Catchment Scale

This paper by Switanek, Troch and Castro (2009) highlights using the entire field of sea surface temperatures to predict future precipitation in a river basin. The study focuses on the Little Colorado and Gunnison river basins in the Western United States. It is well known that seas surface temperatures influence ocean-atmosphere-land interactions and this coupling has been commonly used to look at the effects of specific sea surface temperature anomolies such as the El Nino SOuthern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). Both the PDO and ENSO are well studied but use a broad region to identify climate prediction links for these anomalies. This current study uses broad based correlational studies to identify specific regions of correlation to look at seas surface temperature links to future precipitation in the two river basins studied. Once the correlation structure is known the authors then demonstrate that using their method results in greater predictive skill for hydrologic flows over traditional climate prediction methods.

Five Questions to Thomas Meixner

The following is meant to be a regular Monday feature of this blog where an alum, faculty member, student or staff member answers five questions related to the department.

Today's victim is the editor of the blog Tom Meixner. Who from here on out will be writing this blog in the first person.

1) Why the Department of Hydrology and Water Resources?
I attended the University of Arizona for my graduate education. Roger Bales was my adviser. He recruited me by letting me work on the topic that I wished to pursue the coupled modeling of nitrogen and water. This topic continues to be an area of my research. Upon arriving at Arizona for my graduate education I also learned of the unique nature of the department, because we are a department of hydrology and not geosciences or environmental sciences or engineering everyone focuses on the different aspects of water in the earth system. this focus enables a cogency to develop among students and faculty. After I got my PhD I was hired at the University of California Riverside as an assistant professor. i was a professor there for 6 years before being lucky enough to be hired as an associate professor in the Hydrology department. Upon returning I remembered the joy of being surrounded by hydrologists again. At Riverside when people had a hydrologic question they came to me. this helped me broaden my understanding of hydrology but truly there are indeed many topics in hydrology on which I am less than an expert. At Arizona I have the luxury of getting hydrologic science advice from the bets oin the world both in the department, through our joint faculty and across our wonderful campus.

2) Best hydrologic insight you have ever had?
As with most of my scientific effort it has been a joint process to discover and quantify the importance of floods for the rivers and aquifers of the southwest. These floods connect rivers and their aquifers intimately either by forcing recharge though change in stage (Baillie et al 2007 and Simpson 2007) or by inducing scour and removing clogging layers in the subsurface of effluent dominated rivers (Treese et al 2009).

3) Favorite thing about being a hydrologist?
I get to work in the field on problems that important to society for its survival and its growth both economic and spiritual.

4) Why start this blog?
Seemed like it would be a good way to connect the folks in the department in a virtual way by highlighting, people, projects, papers and events that are of import to the Hydrology and Water Resources Family.

5) Favorite thing about Tucson?
In the words of Ty Ferre Tucson is the largest city that embraces its the desert as the place that it is. So many other Southwest US cities live in opposition to the desert while Tucson lives in communion with its desert at least as much as any city can.

Andrew Somor wins cool MacBook

Andrew Somor a second year Masters student in Hydrology and Water Resources has been rewarded with a MacBook for writing the best essay to the University of Arizona's MacBook scholarship essay contest. I am sure Andrew will soon be using the MacBook to complete his thesis and apply for positions. Anyone out there hiring?

Bigelow Tower and Snow Videos

The work of Shirley Papuga and Paul Brooks was recently featured on Channel 13 KOLD news here in Tucson as part of KOLD's 60 second science feature. The video story features a time lapse video from a remote repeat photography camera near the Mount Bigelow tower site in the Santa Catalina Mountains above Tucson. Dr. Papuga's group installed the camera as part of science efforts by Biosphere 2 and the Santa Catalina Mountains Critical Zone Observatory. Paul is caught on camera talking about the importance of snow and the way the tower is used to better understand the meteorology of the southwest.

The video is embedded below-

COSMOS project

A team of researchers led by Marek Zreda in coordination with Jim Shuttleworth and Xubin Zeng was recently funded to build a network of soil moisture probes for meteorological measurement across the United States. The project has previously been featured by the UA News service here. As with all NSF funded projects the investigators project summary can be viewed by the public. The project relies on deploying a set of probes that count neutrons using a portable detector. The concept is similar to the classic neutron probe but instead of using a live neutron source the device counts neutrons that are excited by natural cosmic rays similar to classic neutron probe methods the presence of water slows down these naturally occurring neutrons and thus the fewer neutrons counted the greater the water content (Zreda et al 2008). A key attribute of the probes is the relatively large area that affects the neutrons that are counted. The observational footprint of the device has a radius of 330 m and is most sensitive to soil moisture near the surface (up to a depth of 50 cm). This footprint and depth profile makes the device ideal for soil moisture observations in and around meteorological stations. this application was one of the keys to getting the project funded by NSF. The field deployment of these devices promises to revolutionize our understanding of the role that soil moisture plays in land surface atmosphere feedbacks.