Shu-Liang Liaw

Information policy and management framework for environmental protection organization with ecosystem conception.

Rapid development of information technology has changed people’s attitudes towards information usage. To tender to the public’s expectation, information system must feature facilities to increase the efficiency of information usage using modern information technology. Facing this challenge, it is necessary to establish a sustainable information environment, including information policy, data quality regulations and information management framework to deal with the rapidly increasing environmental data and changing behavior related to data/information usage except upgrading the hardware and software devices. Taking the uniqueness and complexity of environmental data into account, this study proposes a systematic framework based on the principle of life cycle assessment to outline the elements and its associated guidance required for a sustainable information environment. Simultaneously, the concept of information ecology is also embedded into such a planning for the purpose of establishing a self-evolutional information environment. Finally, the environmental protection administration of Taiwan is used as a case study to explain the practice of proposed framework.

Simulation model for investigating effect of reservoir operation on water quality

Abstract This paper investigates the effect of reservoir operation on downstream water quality. This is accomplished by the following procedures. An automated channel network extracting system, C-NES, is used to extract channel network from Digital Elevation Model and a distributed rainfall-runoff model is adopted to estimate the streamflows. The relationship between water quality and streamflows is established. Subsequently, a reservoir water quality model, WASP, is employed to predict water quality under several sedimentation conditions and operation policies. Different reservoir operation rules are simulated to address the possibility of maintaining water quality through proper operation. The watershed of Ta-Chi Reservoir in Taiwan is chosen as a case study. The simulation results show that an appropriate operation rule can improve outlet water quality by releasing water from a certain depth in the reservoir. This is because the flow field that influences the bio-chemical reactions is altered. It is suggested that careful consideration of the outlet positions should be included in the future design and operation of a reservoir.

A STUDY ON ESTABLISHMENT OF EIA SYSTEM IN THE TAIWAN REGION

The purpose of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is to systematically, objectively, scientificly and comprehensively collect data, analyze infromation, predict and assess the potential environmental effects of a development proposed by a private organization or a planning strategy developed by government, to make environmental management decisions. EIA process should be transparent, reasonable and allow relevant organizations, groups, local residents and other stakeholder to participate and to make comments. The developer and competent authority should ensure that the suggestions, comments, conclusions and consensus in the EIA process be implemented in the actual construction/application stage. The Environmental Impact Assessment Act for Taiwan Region was formulated and came into force in 1994. The scope of this study is to introduce the background of formation of EIA system in Taiwan Region and the concepts and features of the EIA regulations and legislations. The problems encontered in the implementation are discussed and measures to improve EIA procedures and targets and strategies of EIA applications are suggested. The experiences and suggestions may beneficial to those developing countries in developing their own EIA system.

An optimization model for urban sewer system hydraulic design

Abstract A gravity sewer system is a multi‐stage multi‐option system composed of a series of pipes and manholes. For each sewer pipe stage, there are several different commercial pipe sizes available as options. A comparison of optimum design alternatives thus becomes very complex, due to the number of combinations of commercial pipe sizes and slopes that must be evaluated in terms of hydraulics. Therefore, a Sewer System Optimization Model (SSOM) for hydraulic designs is developed. The model uses 0–1 mixed integer programming (MIP) and an efficient screening algorithm, the bounded implicit enumeration (BIE) algorithm. The first consideration is to provide a set of design variables for urban sewer system design problems corresponding to the various construction modes. A 73‐manhole open‐cut method model is tested. The results indicate that this approach is more cost‐effective than other previously developed optimization models and techniques. As well, a practical sewer system construction case in Taipei is selected, to compare with the traditional design approach. The obtained design results show that the SSOM program, based on tunnel jacking construction, can be used for this practical design. It has the effect of saving 12% on piping and 40% on pumping heads during construction.

Development of the systematic object event data model for integrated point source pollution management

Previous works on database integration focused mainly on the creation of transformation interfaces between incompatible databases built up by different departments of the Taiwan Environmental Protection Administration, ignoring the demands of systematically and flexibly integrated information for advanced pollution control of point sources. To provide a systematic framework for flexible integration of distributed data, this paper presents a general model as the systematic object event data model based on systems thinking, to improve the integration capability of databases. The conceptual database framework for integrated pollution control was proposed as a result of the application of the systematic object event data model. The fundamental part of the systematic object event data model, creation of the object registry database, was put into practice from the year 2008. The object database of pollution source is available to factories in 2009, which helps factories to create and Taiwan environmental protection administration to maintain the consistent object data through the electronic application processes of permits. To construct various event databases that systematically connect to object database would be the following step to more efficiently provide systematic information from systematic data integration.

A microcomputer program for interactive water quality analysis and management

Abstract This paper contains a description of an interactive computer program developed for use in water quality analysis and management of a river basin. This Interactive Water Quality Analysis And Management (IWQAM) program is written in FORTRAN and designed for use on an IBM or compatible Personal Computer. The IWQAM program consists of: 1) a simulation model to calculate dissolved oxygen (DO) concentrations in a river basin (the model is based on the Streeter-Phelps equation); 2) a utility subroutine to formulate a least-cost linear programming model to meet a specified DO standard for the river basin; 3) a subroutine with a Simplex algorithm to search for the least-cost treatment solution for the formulated model in part 2; and 4) a main program to handle the user-computer interactions. This program was developed originally for the use by students in a water quality management course. Because of the interactive nature of the program, it can be used by students who have limited experience in programming. Its major feature is that it can be used to conduct sensitivity analyses on parameters that affect the DO concentrations in the river. Furthermore, it permits the interface between the DO simulation model and the least-cost optimization model, so that various management alternatives can be examined with respect to treatment costs and the DO levels in a river basin.