Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2014DC155B

Development of software Analytical Tool to conduct storm Event Analysis

Institute: District of Columbia
Year Established: 2014 Start Date: 2014-03-01 End Date: 2015-02-28
Total Federal Funds: $12,400 Total Non-Federal Funds: $38,512

Principal Investigators: Pradeep Behera

Project Summary: Since the publication of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change documents (IPCC, 2007), there has been a growing interests among scientists, engineers, governments and public to understand climate change issues and its associated impacts. Climate change and water resources management are closely related because climate change affects the hydrologic cycle directly. The potential climate change can have significant impacts on our water resources and related sectors such as water availability, flooding, urban infrastructures, water quality, ecosystems, coastal areas navigation, hydropower, economy and other energy (USGS, 2009). As a results water resources managers who play an active role in planning, designing, operating and maintaining these water resources related systems will also be impacted by climate change (Brekke, et. al, 2009). To understand and in support of informed decision for adaptation climate change related issues, a number of federal, state and local government agencies have launched several evaluations of vulnerability of their critical infrastructures to the potential climate change. Climate change has the potential to increase the variability in extreme weather events. In this regard, the evaluation of impact of climate change on our critical aging infrastructures, most importantly water infrastructures (i.e., water supply systems, sewer systems, drainage systems, hydraulic structures including bridges, culverts and dams) of the nation’s capital, Washington DC, is very important because the city houses a significant number of federal agencies, several national monuments, international embassies and serves as a major economic center for the Washington Metropolitan area. To support the information on climate change to the water resources professionals, engineers and other officials, this project proposes to create a computational infrastructure that will provide storm event analysis of the long-term point rainfall data. Based on the previous research work conducted by PIs at UDC, this project proposes a database server system that will be located within UDC and nationwide users can use the software tool to conduct storm event analysis. The current proposal is built upon the previous works conducted by the PI and supported by DC WRRI. Such information is very critical for our water resources professionals, engineers and regulatory authorities.