NEW YORK STATE WATER RESOURCES INSTITUTE Department of Biological & Environmental Engineering B60 Riley-Robb Hall, Cornell University Tel: (607) 254-7163 Ithaca, NY 14853-5701 Fax: (607) 255-4080 http://wri.cals.cornell.edu Email: nyswri@cornell.edu Assessment, Management, and Planning of Water Resources and Infrastructure in New York State September 21, 2020 The New York State Water Resources Institute (NYS WRI), with funding from the United States Geological Survey (USGS), and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Hudson River Estuary Program (HREP), has undertaken coordinated research, outreach, and education efforts on the assessment, management, and planning of water resources and infrastructure in New York State, with a focus on the Hudson and Mohawk River basins. The primary objective of WRI is to bring innovative research and analysis to watershed planning and management and to share expertise with various stakeholders. In particular, WRI-HREP is working to address the related topics of water infrastructure, environmental water quality, and economic vitality, especially as they pertain to land use planning and management in the Hudson and Mohawk watersheds. The WRI-HREP program coordinates individual research efforts to fit within the context of, and be responsive to, NYS’s growing concerns with regards to aging public infrastructure, economic constraints on public investment, and resilience to emergent water resource and community threats. Part A: Research Themes In this part, we present the progress made through funding provided in FY 2018. Individual projects are discussed within the following broad themes: 1. Urbanization and Infrastructure – Evaluation of the state of water-related infrastructure at providing safe drinking water, adequate sanitation, and other environmental services 2. Watershed Management - Comprehensive land management and water use practices aimed at protecting and improving the quality of the natural resources within a watershed 3. Water Quality Monitoring and Assessment - Detection and characterization of surface and ground water contaminants related to land use and wastewater discharge 4. Climate Change and Resilience - Assessment and management of the risks of climate change on water-related infrastructure and communities Part B: Training and Education – The Intern Program In addition to the key elements of research and outreach characteristic of these broad themes, WRI engages in training and education of young water resource professionals. Each year, WRI staff administer and manage an 8- to 10-week summer “Intern Program” available to undergraduate and graduate students from Cornell University. A summary of projects from 2018 is presented next. Part C: Upcoming Research Projects Finally, we look to FY2019 and provide a list of upcoming funded projects. For a copy of previous summary reports, please contact Brian Rahm (bgr4@cornell.edu), or go to our website at: https://wri.cals.cornell.edu/grants-funding. For more information on the HREP and the Mohawk River Basin (MRB) Action Agendas, visit: http://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/5104.html and https://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/water_pdf/mohawkactionag.pdf, respectively. Cover images are courtesy of Suresh Sethi, Zhenduo Zhu, and David Richardson. 2 Part A: Research Themes A. A New Tool for Automatic Calibration of the Storm Water Management Model (SWMM) (Behrouz et al., 2020, retrieved from: 1. Urbanization and Infrastructure https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2019.124436) Infrastructure to collect, treat and distribute drinking The United States Environmental Protection Agency’s water, wastewater and stormwater is critical to (USEPA) Storm Water Management Model (SWMM) maintaining public health, economic vitality, and was integrated with the Optimization Software Tool healthy well-being. Despite the availability of for Research Involving Computational Heuristics adequate water and the associated infrastructure, (OSTRICH) to perform single- and multi-objective states like New York face numerous challenges, which automatic calibration. The newly developed OSTRICH- are symptomatic of broader challenges faced SWMM is an open-source tool with dozens of nationally. Funding for water-related projects has parallelized optimization algorithms. A catchment in declined, while the needs have gone up. Newer Buffalo, NY was selected as a case study and was regulations, extreme weather events, and changing calibrated according to two competing criteria: (1) demography will continue to shape the management, minimizing errors in simulated peak flow, and (2) planning, and policy related to sustainable water minimizing errors in total flow volume. The results infrastructure. demonstrate that OSTRICH-SWMM is a promising tool for automatic calibration of SWMM models. Key The goal of WRI under this theme is to investigate the highlights: effectiveness of government infrastructure programs • A new open-source tool was demonstrated for to determine whether intended benefits are being automatic calibration of SWMM realized and to generate insight into the strategic • Minimizing errors in peak flow and flow volume management of public funds. WRI is also evaluating predictions can be competing the state of public “green” and “grey” infrastructure • Multi-objective calibration allows for evaluating with the goal of helping planners and decision-makers tradeoffs between objectives at various levels of government. Overview of Relevant Projects Project Title: Turning Vacant Lots into Green Infrastructure: Application of a Multi-objective Optimization Tool in the City of Buffalo PI: Zhenduo Zhu (University at Buffalo – Civil, Structural, and Environmental Engineering) Scope: Research Funding Source: USGS As rust belt cities grapple with the critical problems of outdated stormwater infrastructure and combined sewer overflows (CSOs), a popular strategy has been to propose “green” infrastructure (GI) installations that can both reduce stormwater runoff and improve surface water quality. A state-of-the-art multi- The map of study domain: a drainage basin in Buffalo, New objective optimization tool for storm water York, USA (Behrouz et al., 2020) management has been developed in Buffalo recently for optimizing both stormwater management and GI planning. Key findings of this project are highlighted in the following two peer-reviewed papers. 3 B. Modeling the Transport of Titanium Dioxide Project Title: Is Bigger Better? Driving Factors of Nanomaterials from Combined Sewer POTW Performance in New York (Rahm et al., Overflows in an Urban River 2018, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2018.02.024) (Saharia et al., 2019, retrieved from: PI: Brian G. Rahm (WRI – Cornell University) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.133904) Scope: Research Funding Source: WRI This study developed a new integrated model that links an urban hydrologic-hydraulic model, using NYS faces challenges in meeting wastewater USEPA’s SWMM, with a three-dimensional treatment quality standards because of aging hydrodynamic and water quality model of rivers, infrastructure, limited funding, shifting using the Environmental Fluid Dynamics Code (EFDC). demographics, and increasingly stringent The modeling framework was applied to predict the environmental regulations. We examined the role of concentrations of titanium dioxide (TiO2) engineered size and capacity utilization on wastewater treatment nanomaterials (ENM) in the Buffalo River in Buffalo, effectiveness with respect to critical effluent New York, as a result of CSO events. CSOs are shown parameters, and additionally explored which common to have a potential for transient high concentrations of facility engineering controls influence water quality ENMs and thus potentially high localized risk near the treatment using a unique dataset of descriptive CSO outfalls and deposition zones in the river. The information. Key highlights: present approach provides a promising modeling • In NY, small POTWs often achieve lower effluent framework to simulate ENM fate and transport in contaminant concentrations urban waterways. The model presented in this study • Medium-sized POTWs routinely perform the best can help build a management tool to predict in terms of water quality temporally and spatially varying concentrations of • Drivers of performance for small facilities are ENMs introduced into receiving waters through CSOs. different than for larger facilities Key highlights: • The largest facilities maintain effluent • Combined sewer overflows result in transient concentrations closer to regulated limits. peaks of TiO2 nanomaterial concentrations in an urban river Project Title: Mapping Water Infrastructure for • The coupling of a 3D river model with an urban Resilience in Hudson Valley River Communities: A drainage model is used for nanomaterial fate and Pilot Project in the Town of Stony Point transport in surface water Contact: Greg Yetman (Columbia University – Earth • The effect of settling velocity becomes more Institute) prominent with greater distance downstream Scope: Research, Outreach Funding Source: HREP The Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) at Columbia University worked on this pilot project to assist the Town of Stony Point with the mapping of their wastewater infrastructure to create data suitable for use in flood resilience planning. The information in GIS format allows for improved knowledge management, routine inspections, and increased interoperability with county, state and federal data,
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