HydroLunch Schedule - Spring 2009

HydroLunch is held every Tuesday from 12:30-1:30 in 112 Hilgard, except where otherwise noted.
Please bring your lunch and feel free to eat during the presentations. And we do our best to operate on real time, not Berkeley time; please be prompt so there's ample time for discussion and presentations.

January 27th - Welcome Back. Bring your lunch, get to know one another, catch up and discuss who we'd like to see this semester. We are especially happy to see new faces.

February 3rd- Prof. Stephanie Carlson, our faculty sponsor and a professor in ESPM, will speak on "The Evolutionary Effects of Predation."

February 10th - Carolyn Remick, Executive Director of the Berkeley Water Center, speaks on "A Roadmap to Federal, State and Local agencies regulating water in California."

February 17th -Renee Kidson, Chief Hydrologist for the Australian Bureau of Meterology, will speak on "Improving California's water supply reliability through portfolio managment".

February 24th -Just Lunch - no formal presentation but a great opportunity to connect with others!

March 3 - Prof. Evan Variano from Civil and Environmental Engineering will speak on, "Hydrodynamics and solute transport in the changing Florida Everglades."
Abstract: "Hydrodynamics and solute transport in the changing Florida Everglades" To manage flow in the Everglades so as to maintain ecosystem health, one must understand the combined effects of basin – scale flow control (by engineers) and local – scale flow control (by aquatic vegetation). We contribute to this fledgling understanding with a series of field measurements. Through a series of tracer releases we directly measure the mixing and transport in a variety of representative locations. The tracer we use (Sulfur Hexafluoride) allows us to measure at scales larger than typical tracer studies, in this case 1 – 4 km2. This allows us to include several "ridges" and "sloughs" in a single experiment. These landscape features have changed significantly in the past century, and are a focal point for possible restoration efforts. The oft-discussed Everglades restoration still lacks a concrete plan, but offers hope for the preservation of this UNESCO World Heritage site. To aid the ongoing planning efforts, the results of our field work are used to evaluate a range of hydrodynamic models of use for evaluating different strategies. Similarities between the hydrodynamics of the Everglades and other interesting environmental processes will be briefly discussed.

March 10th - David Zetland, a post doc in ARE speaks on insurance and monoplistic utilities.

March 17th - Craig Stevens, principal of Stevens Consulting in Sacramento will be our presenter today. Topic TBA

March 24th - SPRING BREAK

March 31st- Erika Gasperikova and Yingqi Zhang from LBNL will speak on their work on the Russian River coupled modeling and monitoring effort. Here's an abstract:
"Using Self Potential and Multiphase Flow Modeling to Optimize Groundwater Pumping"

Numerical and field hydrological and geophysical studies have been conducted to investigate the impact of groundwater pumping on near-river hydrology for a segment of the Russian River at the Wohler Site, California, which is a riverbed filtration system managed by the Sonoma County Water Agency. Groundwater pumping near streams can cause a creation of unsaturated regions and hence reduce the pumping capacity and change the flow paths. A three-dimensional multiphase flow and transport model can be calibrated to the temperature, and water levels at monitoring wells based on known pumping rates, and the river stage. Streaming (self) potential (SP) is one of the electrokinetic processes that describes the coupled behavior of hydraulic and electrical flow within a porous medium, and is easily measured on the surface or in boreholes. Observing temporal and spatial variations in geophysical signatures provides a powerful approach for monitoring changes in the natural systems due to natural or forced (pumping) system perturbations. Geophysical and hydrological data were collected before, during and after a pumping experiment at the Wohler Site. Using this monitoring dataset, we illustrate how loose coupling between hydrogeological and geophysical (SP) processes and data can be used to calibrate the flow model and to optimize pumping schedules as needed to guide sustainable water resource development.

April 7th - Desgin a database - your input is needed on the California Water DRoP project.

April 14th - Steve Gladding, HL member from CEE presents on Groundwater Contamination Arising from Dense Brines: Integrating Theory, Laboratory Experiments and Field Observations

Abstract:There are numerous instances where aqueous wastes denser than water (brines) were released to the subsurface from landfill leachates, perchlorate spills, and other industrial wastes.  The density contrast between the waste and ambient groundwater can emplace the waste liquid and associated contaminants in less accessible regions of the aquifer and limit release into the flowing groundwater.  For contaminants such as perchlorate and chromate that can be present in wastes at concentrations orders of magnitude greater than acceptable levels, emplaced brines represent long-term sources of contamination.    This talk will summarize some simple models for brine migration, use theory to generalize experimental measurements that define when dense brines will present problems in the subsurface, and then illustrate the long term consequences of emplaced brines suggested from selected field sites.  As with all subsurface contaminants, source terms must be identified and mitigated to minimize the time required for remediation. For perchlorate, chromate and a number of other contaminants released as dense brines, a persistent source of groundwater contamination should be anticipated.

April 21st - Marissa Escobar from Stockholm Environmenal Institute (SEI) will be speaking on, Assessing the Impacts of Climate Change on Mountain Hydrology:  Development of a Methodology through a Case Study in Peru.
Abstract: This study is being advanced in collaboration between the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD) and Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) at the request of the World Bank.  The motivation for this project is the dramatic loss of the extent of tropical glaciers in the Andes in recent decades and the likelihood that this loss will accelerate under future climate change scenarios.  Owing to their substantial role in the hydrologic systems of their associated watersheds, there is legitimate concern that the loss of glaciers will undermine water management practices in the region.  Obviously the loss of glaciers has the potential to negatively impact water management systems that were designed and are operated based on the expectations that glaciers would remain important features of Andean hydrology.

The effort to understand the extent of the threat climate change poses to water managers in the Andes must consider the range of potential climate futures, the implications of these climate scenarios on the hydrology of the high Andes, and finally the ramifications of these changes on the productivity of current and future water management regimes.  From this chain of analysis potential adaptations can be conceived and evaluated. One Andean nation where glaciers exert significant control on hydrology is Peru, and in Peru, where hydroelectricity provides 71.6% of the total electricity supply, the hydropower sector is a vulnerable water management regime.  Clearly some set of analytical tools will be needed to trace the potential cascade of change from the climate to water management adaptation.  Work undertaken under this project focuses on a limited number of investigation basins in Peru with the expectation that the work could eventually be scaled up to the national level and to other countries in the Andean region.

The ultimate goal of this effort is to develop, test and demonstrate the utility of a methodology that could be used to investigate climate change impacts on the full range of water management regimes in the Andes and to evaluate the effectiveness of potential adaptation strategies.  The work focuses on demonstrating the utility of a tool to assess the relationship between climate change and hydrologic change in a limited number of basins in Peruvian Andes where glaciers are important components of the hydrologic cycle and where hydroelectricity production is the water management regime of primary interest. 

April 28th - Bill Eisenstein "Approaching a Deal?"

Over the last two years, the State of California has undertaken major new planning projects for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, including Delta Vision and the Bay Delta Conservation Plan. Major Delta governance reform bills have now been proposed in the Legislature, with verbal commitments from the Democratic leadership that they will be debated this summer.
Within this swirl of activity, the outlines of a "grand bargain" on the Delta may be coming into focus, with major consequences for water supply, habitat restoration, and land use.
As a key consultant to the Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force, Bill Eisenstein has been deeply involved in these ongoing debates. He will share his assessment of what has transpired, and where we may be headed.

May 5 - "Free Lunch" this is our last meeting of the semester. Come by to talk about summer plans, eat and say farewell to those who are moving on.