Yih-Chi Tan

Using mems sensors in the bridge scour monitoring system

Abstract Scour failures tend to occur suddenly and without warning. Hydraulic scouring is one of the major factors in bridge failure. Bridges that are subject to periodic flooding should be monitored during high‐flow seasons for the safety of the public. Wireless sensor networks have been applied widely, and in many fields. In this study, micro‐electro‐mechanical system (MEMS) pressure sensors are integrated with the wireless Zigbee network on a sensor board for real‐time bridge scour monitoring. A wireless MEMS scour monitoring system has been developed and tested in the laboratory. This system can measure the scouring/deposition process and the variations of water levels at a bridge pier. A scour model is employed to calculate the scour‐depth evolution and validated with real‐time measured data. The results indicate that the proposed system has potential applicability to monitor scour evolution in the field.

Development of a 3D virtual environment for improving public participation: Case study - The Yuansantze Flood Diversion Works Project

The hydraulic design of the Yuansantze Flood Diversion Works (YFDW) project was considerably important for flood mitigation in Taiwan, and positive outcomes of the public hearings played a major role in the success of the project. In the beginning of the project, communication between decision makers, engineers and the public was tenuous due to excess engineering details and a lack of integrated presentations during the public hearings. An ideal solution was then proposed and developed whereby a 3D virtual environment was used to present. In this paper, experimental data obtained from the physical model of the YFDW under design flood conditions was used to validate a 3D flow numerical model. The verified 3D flow numerical model was applied to simulate water surface variation and flow velocity field. The simulated outcomes were used as input data to build an interactive 3D virtual environment, which required the integration of 3D modelling, virtual reality, and human computer interaction techniques. The 3D virtual environment possessed engineering accuracy and overcame challenges in flood flow visualization. An implementation in some public hearings resulted in increased interactivity between stakeholders and improved communication efficiency from public participation. Finally, the YFDW project was concluded smoothly, largely thanks to strong public support.

Coupling typhoon rainfall forecasting with overland-flow modeling for early warning of inundation

Taiwan suffers from an average of three or four typhoons annually, and the inundation caused by the heavy precipitation that is associated with typhoons frequently occurs in lowlands and floodplains. Potential inundation maps have been widely used as references to set up non-structural strategies for mitigating flood hazards. However, spatiotemporal rainfall distributions must be addressed to improve the accuracy of inundation forecasting for emergency response operations. This study presents a system for 24-h-ahead early warning of inundation, by coupling the forecasting of typhoon rainfall with the modeling of overland flow. A typhoon rainfall climatology model (TRCM) is introduced to forecast dynamically the spatiotemporal rainfall distribution based on typhoon tracks. The systematic scheme for early warning of inundation based on the spatiotemporal downscaling of rainfall and 2D overland-flow modeling yields not only the extent of inundation, but also the time to maximum inundation depth. The scheme is superior to traditional early warning method referring to the maximum extent and depth of inundation determined from conditional uniform rainfall. Analytical results show that coupling TRCM with an overland-flow model yields satisfactory inundation hydrographs for warning of the extent and peak time of inundation. This study also shows that the accuracy of forecasting spatiotemporal rainfall patterns determines the performance of inundation forecasting, which is critical to emergency response operations.

Estimating Pumping Rates and Identifying Potential Recharge Zones for Groundwater Management in Multi-Aquifers System

Agricultural, aquaculture, industrial and domestic activities have placed enormous demands for water, which sometimes results in the over-pumping and associated continually declining groundwater levels. This in turn has led to land subsidence and soil salination. Therefore, it’s important to understand the local pumping activities or the pumping rates in order to implement appropriate water management. The distribution of pumping rates varies spatially and temporally due to the availability of surface water and seasonality. In addition, to have correct estimate of the pumping rates, both the hydrology and geology should be consider. SWAT and MODFLOW are employed and run separately to acquire certain hydrologic components such as the recharge, boundary flow and change of aquifer storage in multi-aquifers. The water balance method (WBM) is then adopted to estimate pumping rates with these components. To validate the proposed model the results of WBM and the official records are compared. Besides, in view of the serious land subsidence occurred, artificial recharge is regarded as an effective tool to alleviate and mitigate the subsidence. Nevertheless, the location of conducting artificial recharge needs to be identified first. The potential recharge zones are assessed based on the simulated recharge rates from SWAT and the spatial distribution of hydrological characteristics of the unconfined aquifer. Ultimately, an optimal recharge zone will be suggested. The proposed methodology is proved capable of estimating the pumping rates and locating the potential recharge zone.

Improvement of a drainage system for flood management with assessment of the potential effects of climate change

Abstract Runoff discharge in the Tuku lowlands, Taiwan, has increased with land development. Frequent floods caused by extreme weather conditions have resulted in considerable economic and social losses in recent years. Currently, numerous infrastructures have been built in the lowland areas that are prone to inundation; the measures and solutions for flood mitigation focus mainly on engineering aspects. Public participation in the development of principles for future flood management has helped both stakeholders and engineers. An integrated drainage–inundation model, combining a drainage flow model with a two-dimensional overland-flow inundation model is used to evaluate the flood management approaches with damage loss estimation. The proposed approaches include increasing drainage capacity, using fishponds as retention ponds, constructing pumping stations, and building flood diversion culverts. To assess the effects on the drainage system of projected increase of rainfall due to climate change, for each approach simulations were performed to obtain potential inundation extent and depth in terms of damage losses. The results demonstrate the importance of assessing the impacts of climate change for implementing appropriate flood management approaches. Editor Z.W. Kundzewicz Citation Chang, H.-K., Tan, Y.-C., Lai, J.-S., Pan, T.-Y., Liu, T.-M., and Tung, C.-P., 2013. Improvement of a drainage system for flood management with assessment of the potential effects of climate change. Hydrological Sciences Journal, 58 (8), 1581–1597.

Stochastic series lumped rainfall-runoff model for a watershed in Taiwan

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to develop a stochastic differential equation (SDE) for a lumped rainfall–runoff model and apply it to a watershed that consists of a number of subwatersheds in a series structure in Taiwan. Each subwatershed unit is treated as a two-part tank model. One part is for converting rainfall excess within the subwatershed into outflow at the subwatershed outlet. The other part converts subwatershed outflow into inflow at the next connecting subwatershed inlet. The measured values of rainfall excess are treated as random variables, and are used as input to the rainfall–runoff model. The development of the moment equations of simulated outflow is based on a SDE. The outflow hydrograph is obtained by applying the Laplace transform method to the equations that describe rainfall excess.

Sensitivity analysis of the hydrological response of the Gaping River basin to radar-raingauge quantitative precipitation estimates

Abstract The generation of reliable quantitative precipitation estimations (QPEs) through use of raingauge and radar data is an important issue. This study investigates the impacts of radar QPEs with different densities of raingauge networks on rainfall–runoff processes through a semi-distributed parallel-type linear reservoir rainfall–runoff model. The spatial variation structures of the radar QPE, raingauge QPE and radar-gauge residuals are examined to review the current raingauge network, and a compact raingauge network is identified via the kriging method. An analysis of the large-scale spatial characteristics for use with a hydrological model is applied to investigate the impacts of a raingauge network coupled with radar QPEs on the modelled rainfall–runoff processes. Since the precision in locating the storm centre generally represents how well the large-scale variability is reproduced; the results show not only the contribution of kriging to identify a compact network coupled with radar QPE, but also that spatial characteristics of rainfalls do affect the hydrographs. Editor Z.W. Kundzewicz; Guest editor R.J. Moore Citation Pan, T.-Y., Li, M.-Y., Lin, Y.-J., Chang, T.-J., Lai, J.-S., and Tan, Y.-C., 2014. Sensitivity analysis of the hydrological response of the Gaping River basin to radar-raingauge quantitative precipitation estimates. Hydrological Sciences Journal, 59 (7), 1335–1352. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2014.923969

Measurement of solid suspension concentration and flow velocity with temperature compensation using a portable ultrasonic device

Abstract Ultrasonic spectroscopy is highly suitable for real-time measurement, in particular for dense particle systems. In the present study, a novel measurement device, namely a portable ultrasonic device (PUD), is designed and manufactured for measuring solid suspension concentration and flow velocity simultaneously with respect to the propagation of ultrasound waves in a solid–liquid mixture at different temperatures. A series of experiments were conducted in the laboratory to obtain the ultrasonic attenuation of kaolin and reservoir sediment solutions within a wide range of concentrations (1000–300 000 mg/L) at various temperatures (15–27°C). The resulting data were regressed to establish linear functions of attenuation and temperature for concentration. The experimental data were compared with theoretical simulated results to show the effect of particle size distribution on concentration measurement. The flow meter part of the PUD was verified by a standard-speed carriage in the towing tank. According to experimental tests by PUD, it was demonstrated that the accuracy for concentration in full scale is ±5%, and the accuracy for flow velocity is ±2%. Compared with sampled data, good agreements were also found by employing the PUD for sediment concentration and flow velocity measurements in turbidity currents during typhoon floods in a reservoir, which demonstrates that the PUD is operable and reliable on site. Editor D. Koutsoyiannis; Associate editor K. Heal Citation Huang, Y.J., Sung, C.C., Lai, J.S., Lee, F.Z., Hwang, G.W., and Tan, Y.C., 2013. Measurement of solid suspension concentration and flow velocity with temperature compensation using a portable ultrasonic device. Hydrological Sciences Journal, 58 (3), 615–626.

Estimation of effective hydrogeological parameters by considering varying heterogeneity and pumping rates

Darcy’s law and pumping tests, Tabu searches (TS) integrated with the Adjoint State Method (ASM), are two upscaling approaches used to transform local hydrogeological parameters at the scale of measurement into effective parameters on larger scales. This study proposed the above methods in order to estimate the effective parameters of heterogeneous and anisotropic aquifers at different degrees of heterogeneity (variances and correlation lengths). The results revealed three important principles: (1) the means of the effective transmissivities by Darcy’s law under different Dirichlet boundary conditions are used as the real ones in this study, because the optimal values under different Dirichlet boundary conditions are very close to each other at the same level of heterogeneity; (2) the estimations by TS integrated with ASM at low degrees of heterogeneity are much closer to the means of optimums by Darcy’s law than the estimations at high degrees of heterogeneity. Regardless of the pumping rate, the optimum at high degrees of heterogeneity is not good enough to represent the total study field. In considering the estimations at low degrees of heterogeneity, the drawdown caused by a low pumping rate is not sufficient to identify the effective parameters, while the drawdown caused by a higher pumping rate is useful for estimating the effective parameters. This suggests that the range of pumping rates influences the results estimated by TS and ASM, and the effective parameters identified using the effective range of pumping drawdown are more than enough to represent the whole study aquifer. With a larger variance of heterogeneity, the range of the pumping rate becomes smaller, leading to results closest to those estimated by Darcy’s law; (3) the estimations are influenced by the variances of heterogeneity more than the correlation lengths of heterogeneity.

Evaluation of the effect of hysteretic flow and root system on shallow landslide

This paper analyses the mechanics of slope stability with regard to the hysteretic flow of unsaturated soil and the root system of the covering vegetation. The hysteresis of the soil water retention curves and root strength are important factors in the evaluation of unsaturated shear strength. Engineers should consider how the transportation of the soil water content and the plant root strength influence evaluation of surficial slope stability analysis. The integrated slope stability analysis considering the hysteretic flow and root strength were calculated on variations of the safety factor (SF) and in accordance with different infiltration profiles and several species of vegetation. The results show that it is possible to predict shallow landslide on unsaturated slopes covered by different vegetation types. Tree planting, in combination with mechanical reinforcement, on the slope’s toe was found to improve stability, in addition to having economic benefits. This process allows for the selection and comparison of combinations and densities of vegetation types, in order to find the optimum location for increased SF. This will quickly improve shallow slope stability before it is destroyed. A better understanding of the process mechanics, as provided by the model, is critical for a reliable and appropriate design for slope stabilisation.