About
81
Publications
13,714
Reads
How we measure 'reads'
A 'read' is counted each time someone views a publication summary (such as the title, abstract, and list of authors), clicks on a figure, or views or downloads the full-text. Learn more
1,605
Citations
Introduction
Skills and Expertise
Publications
Publications (81)
Prevention behaviors are important in mitigating the transmission of COVID‐19. The protection motivation theory (PMT) links perceptions of risk and coping ability with the act of adopting prevention behaviors. The goal of this research is to test the application of the PMT in predicting adoption of prevention behaviors during the COVID‐19 pandemic....
Granular activated carbon (GAC) adsorption is widely used to control recalcitrant organic micropollutants (MPs) in both drinking water and wastewater. To predict full-scale GAC adsorber performance, bench- and/or pilot- scale studies are widely used. These studies have generated a wealth of MP breakthrough curves. Based on these adsorption data, ma...
Granular activated carbon (GAC) adsorption is frequently considered to control recalcitrant organic micropollutants (MPs) in both drinking water and wastewater. To predict full-scale GAC adsorber performance, bench-and/or pilot-scale studies are widely used. These studies have generated a wealth of MP breakthrough curves. The overarching aim of thi...
The diffusion of distributed energy resources can overcome some challenges associated with the historical centralized model of electric power distribution. Decentralized generation by residential solar photovoltaic cells creates the potential for peer-to-peer (P2P) electricity trading, where households can act as consumers and prosumers to buy and...
Contamination events in water distribution systems (WDS) are emergencies that cause public health crises and require fast response by the responsible utility manager. Various models have been developed to explore the reactions of relevant stakeholders during a contamination event, including agent-based modeling. As the COVID-19 pandemic has changed...
Predictive models alert households about the risk of lead in drinking water. Bayesian Belief Networks and Ensembles of Decision Trees classify lead in water above 15 ppb. Models use data reported by at-home water quality testing kits to predict water lead levels. Models are applied for a dataset collected at private drinking water systems in...
Water main breaks disrupt services provided by utilities and result in Water Service Interruptions (WSIs). Water utilities can manage WSIs through water advisories, which request that consumers limit their water use. The performance of water advisories depends on consumer compliance and decisions to conserve water. This research explores customer c...
The COVID-19 pandemic affected the operation of water utilities across the world. In the context of utilities, new protocols wereneeded to ensure that employees can work safely, and that water service is not interrupted. This study reports on how the operations of 27 waterutilities worldwide were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Interviews were c...
Leakages in water distribution networks (WDNs) are estimated to globally cost 39 billionUSD/year and cause water and revenue losses, infrastructure degradation, and other cascading effects. Their impacts can be prevented and mitigated with prompt identification and accurate leak localization. In this work, we propose the leakage identification and...
Contamination events in water distribution systems (WDSs) are highly dangerous events in very vulnerable infrastructure where a quick response by water utility managers is indispensable. Various studies have explored methods to respond to water events and a variety of models have been developed to simulate the consequences and the reactions of all...
During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the daily pattern of activities changed dramatically for people across the globe, as they socially distanced and worked remotely. Changes in daily routines created changes in water consumption patterns. Significant changes in water demands can affect the operation of water distribution system...
Contaminants that are introduced to drinking water systems can threaten large populations, and the potential for catastrophic consequences accentuates the need for efficient post-disaster strategies, including optimal hydrant flushing. Efficient hydrant flushing can significantly reduce impacts on public health, but performance relies on informatio...
Forum papers are thought-provoking opinion pieces or essays founded in fact, sometimes containing speculation, on a civil engineering topic of general interest and relevance to the readership of the journal. The views expressed in this Forum article do not necessarily reflect the views of ASCE or the Editorial Board of the journal.
Social media platforms have a developing role in how people respond to hazards, providing a network to seek help and respond to help requests. Understanding the dynamics of behavior on social media networks can improve community-level hazard response efforts. People who experience damages may use social media to seek immediate help for debris remov...
The presence of lead in drinking water creates a public health crisis, as lead causes neurological damage at low levels of exposure. The objective of this research is to explore modeling approaches to predict the risk of lead at private drinking water systems. This research uses Bayesian Network approaches to explore interactions among household ch...
Water availability is increasingly stressed in cities across the world due to population growth, which increases demands, and climate change, which can decrease supply. Novel water markets and water supply paradigms are emerging to address water shortages in the urban environment. This research develops a new peer-to-peer non-potable water market t...
During hazardous events, communities can use existing social media networks to share information in real time and initiate a local disaster response. This research conducted a web-based survey to explore two behaviors around the use of social media during hurricanes: seeking help and responding to help requests. Through the survey, we sampled 434 i...
The transfer of market power in electric generation from utilities to end-users spurred by the diffusion of distributed energy resources necessitates a new system of settlement in the electricity business that can better manage generation assets at the grid-edge. A new concept in facilitating distributed generation is peer-to-peer energy trading, w...
Water distribution systems are vulnerable to hazards that threaten water delivery, water quality, and physical and cybernetic
infrastructure. Water utilities and managers are responsible for assessing and preparing for these hazards, and researchers have developed
a range of computational frameworks to explore and identify strategies for what-if sc...
Water distribution systems can be divided into district metered areas (DMAs) to improve their management. DMAs are individual service regions within a distribution system that have a defined set of supply sources, and hydraulic and quality parameters can be controlled at their entrances. Designing DMA configurations to meet management goals, such a...
Smart city programs provide a range of technologies that can be applied to solve infrastructure problems associated with ageing infrastructure and increasing demands. The potential for infrastructure and urban improvement remains unrealized, however, due to technical, financial, and social constraints and criticisms that limit the implementation of...
Smart meters installed at the user-level provide a new data source for managing water infrastructure. This research explores the use of machine learning methods, including Random Forests (RFs), Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs), and Support Vector Regression (SVR) to forecast hourly water demand at 90 accounts using smart-metered data. Demands are...
Urban water management must address challenges with water shortages across the globe, due to limited resources, development of urban demands, and climate change. Novel water markets and water supply paradigms have emerged, including fit-for-purpose water reuse that delivers water treated to certain quality standards for appropriate end uses and on-...
A sustainably managed city should implement strategies to mitigate water distribution contamination events and warn consumers. A modeling framework is developed to assess management strategies for issuing warnings via wireless emergency alerts (WEA) and isolating a contaminant by manipulating pumps and hydrants. A pressure zone-based paradigm divid...
Dividing a water distribution network into subsystems can improve the efficiency and ease of achieving management goals. Subsystems or district metered areas (DMAs) are isolated control zones with a defined number of entrances and exits. This research presents an automatic approach based on graph theory, optimization, and a heuristic methodology to...
Water lead levels are explored through the application of an ensemble of decision trees. The developed model classifies a water source as contaminated or non-contaminated based on the action level concentration defined by the US EPA at 15 ppb of lead. Different predictors show interesting highlights to classify water lead levels.
The performance of ultraviolet (UV) disinfection reactors using experimental data poses major challenges to the water treatment industry, and a regression model has been developed in the water treatment industry to predict UV reactor performance. Genetic programming (GP) can be applied using a process of symbolic regression to create empirical mode...
The introduction of water reuse infrastructure into an existing water supply system is a complex sociotechnical process. For a dual reticulation program, infrastructure designs affect adoption, as the expansion of infrastructure defines when a household can adopt and become active in communicating about water reuse. This research develops a coupled...
Large volumes of water are wasted through leakage in water distribution networks, and early detection of leakages is important to minimize lost water. Pressure sensors can be placed in a network to detect changes in pressure that indicate the presence of a new leak. This study presents a new approach for placing a set of pressure sensors by creatin...
Groundwater resources are shared across management boundaries. Multiple management units that differ in scale, constraints and objectives may manage a shared resource in a decentralized approach. The interactions among water managers, water users, and the water resource components influence the performance of management strategies and the resilienc...
The advent of smart metering or Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) for water systems generates large datasets about water demands that can provide new insight about consumer behaviors for managing water resources and infrastructure. More accurate estimates of consumption patterns and expectations of variations can be used for both planning wate...
Water distribution systems can be subdivided into District Metered Areas to efficiently manage pressure, flow rate and water quality. DMAs are individual service regions within a distribution system that have one or more supply sources to provide control from a district entrance. Unique topological and geographic characteristics of a water system a...
Security tools, including static and dynamic analysis tools, can guide software developers to identify and fix potential vulnerabilities in their code. However, the use of security tools is not common among developers. The goal of this research is to develop a framework for modeling the adoption of security practices in software development and to...
In the event that pathogens or toxins are introduced to a water distribution system, a utility manager may identify a threat through water quality data or alerts from public health officials. The utility manager may issue water advisories to warn consumers to reduce water use activities. As consumers react and change water demands, dynamic feedback...
Average consumption on weekends over 11-month period for 24 AMI meters a • The dataset includes water data reported by 24 AMI meters for residential and business users in the Town of Cary. • Each meter reports hourly consumption for an 11-month period in 2016. • Weather data were collected for the same time period. • Property data were also collect...
Water distribution networks are critical infrastructure systems that are vulnerable to terrorist attack. Water utility management has the goal of protecting public health by allocating countermeasures, including security equipment and personnel, as a first line of defense. A malevolent actor may select an attack location, however, using a set of un...
Increasing urbanization augments impervious surface area, which results in increased run off volumes and peak flows. Green Infrastructure (GI) approaches are a decentralized alternative for sustainable urban stormwater and provide an array of ecosystem services and foster community building by enhancing neighborhood aesthetics, increasing property...
In rapidly growing urban areas in India and the developing world, water demands typically exceed supply. While local governments may implement management programs to reduce demand for freshwater, water savings are dependent on the conservation behaviors of individuals. A household survey is presented here to examine residential water end uses and c...
Automation in science is increasingly marked by the use of workflow systems (eg, Matlab) to facilitate the scientific discovery. The sharing of workflows through publication mechanisms supports the reproducibility and extensibility of computational experiments. However, the subsequent scientific discovery from a workflow relates to the level of col...
Find a methodology to design an optimal DMA configuration to deliver similar amount of water to each zone within a water distribution system.
Groundwater management strategies should be designed to ensure efficient and sustainable management of groundwater. Optimization models and algorithms can be applied to identify groundwater withdrawals that will satisfy both hydrologic goals and water demands. In groundwater basins where urbanization increases demand and places stress on the supply...
Recent USGS water use report suggests that increasing water-use efficiency could mitigate the supply-and-demand imbalance arising from changing climate and growing population. However, this rich data has not been analyzed to understand the underlying patterns, nor have been investigated to identify the factors contributing to this increased efficie...
In the event that a contaminant is introduced to a water distribution system, utility managers must respond quickly to protect public health. Mitigation strategies specify response actions, such as warning consumers to reduce water activities using the news media and flushing contaminated water at hydrants. The performance of alternative response a...
Water reuse can serve as a sustainable alternative water source for urban areas. However, the successful implementation of large-scale water reuse projects depends on community acceptance. Because of the negative perceptions that are traditionally associated with reclaimed water, water reuse is often not considered in the development of urban water...
Reclaimed water programs treat wastewater to remove hazardous compounds, pathogens, and organic matter and provide reclaimed water for non-potable applications. Reusing water may significantly reduce demands on freshwater resources and provide sustainable water management strategies. Though production of reclaimed water is highly regulated, public...
Using treated wastewater effluent (reclaimed water) for beneficial purposes can be a sustainable practice that reduces demand on potable networks. However, implementing reclaimed water networks can have unintended effects, specifically unintended increases in energy consumption. This case study employs multiperiod scenario analysis to examine energ...
Water reuse provides a sustainable approach to balance water supply and demand in urban areas, and reclaimed water can be used for nonpotable applications to reduce demands on freshwater sources. Construction of a secondary network is required to distribute reclaimed water. Implementing water reuse projects on a wider scale is challenged by the nee...
Municipal water demands in growing population centers in the arid southwest U.S. are typically met through increased groundwater withdrawals. Hydro-climatic uncertainties attributed to climate change and land use conversions may also alter demands and impact the replenishment of groundwater supply. Groundwater aquifers are not necessarily confined...
Increasing urbanization augments impervious surface area which results in increased run off volumes and peak flows. Low impact development (LID) approaches present a decentralized alternative for sustainable urban stormwater and provide water conservation opportunities. They also provide a wide array of ecosystem services and foster community build...
In the event of a large-scale disaster, an important aspect of humanitarian logistics is the distribution of information or warnings to the affected population. This research develops the problem formulation and solution approach for a specific routing for relief problem, in which warnings should be disseminated to an affected community, using publ...
Urban water supply systems may be managed through supply-side and demand-side strategies, which focus on water source expansion and demand reductions, respectively. Supply-side strategies bear infrastructure and energy costs, while demand-side strategies bear costs of implementation and inconvenience to consumers. To evaluate the performance of dem...
Leaks in water distribution systems waste energy and water resources, increase damage to infrastructure, and may allow contamination of potable water. This research develops an evolutionary algorithm-based approach to minimize the cost of water loss, new infrastructure, and operations that reduce background leakage. A new design approach is introdu...
Growing population centers in the arid southwest increase the demand for water, which is typically met through increased groundwater withdrawals. Hydro-climatic extremes due to climate change may also increase demands and decrease the replenishment of groundwater supply. Groundwater aquifers typically cross watershed, municipal, and management boun...
Reclaimed water programs treat wastewater to remove hazardous compounds, pathogens, and organic matter and provide reclaimed water for non-potable applications. Reusing water may significantly reduce demands on freshwater resources and provide sustainable water management strategies. Though guidelines for reclaimed water are highly regulated, publi...
Agent-based systems have been developed for many scientific applications and simulation studies to model a group of actors and their interactions based on behavioral rules. Agent-based models and multiagent systems simulate the emergence of system-level properties based on the actions of adaptive agents that interact with other agents, react to env...
New water resources management methodologies are needed to address increasing demands and future uncertainty for urban water resources. Adaptive water demand management strategies provide an approach to improve the efficiency of water system operations and meet water demands by adapting flexibility to increasing stresses, such as droughts. This stu...
Norms are a promising basis for governance in secure, collaborative environments---systems in which multiple principals interact. Yet, many aspects of norm-governance remain poorly understood, inhibiting adoption in real-life collaborative systems. This work focuses on the combined effects of sanction and the observability of the sanctioner in a se...
This research minimizes the impact of leaks on the operation of the system to reduce lost water while meeting typical management goals. A genetic algorithm approach is implemented within a high-performance computing platform to select tank sizes, pump placement and operations, placement of pressure control valves, and pipe diameters for replacing p...
Low-Impact Development (LID) can enhance sustainability in stormwater management by attenuating excess runoff. Relevant technologies are typically implemented at individual lots and require the engagement of homeowners and developers. A new educational tool, the Stormwater Footprint Calculator (SFC), was developed to improve knowledge and change at...
A utility may detect contaminant in a water distribution network through water quality sensor information, which indicates that a biological pathogen or chemical contaminant is present in the network. A utility manager should identify actions that can be taken to protect public health, and flushing a contaminant by opening a set of hydrants can be...
Water scarcity is a growing concern, due to stresses imposed by climate change, population growth, and urbanization. Reclaimed water is a reliable source that can be produced by treating wastewater and used to supplement nonpotable demands. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, 128 billion gallons of water are used per day for agricultural irrig...
Water management in the arid western United States must address imminent increases in freshwater withdraws due to population growth and climate change. Stresses in the water supply system can be addressed through demand management, which restricts water uses or instates bans, incentivizes toilet retrofits or landscape conversions, and encourages co...
Urban water systems are designed for centralized management, where water is collected at a central location, treated, and delivered to a population of users through a pipe network. Decentralized systems may generate water and energy savings beyond conventional approaches, as they reduce the demands on the potable drinking water system and the energ...
Though water reuse provides a promising and sustainable alternative for urban water supply, wide-scale implementation of water reuse within an existing water infrastructure system is challenged by the need for community-wide public acceptance and adoption. The public has historically perceived recycled water negatively, and, as a consequence, water...
Water resources management requires an insightful balance between water demand and water supply. U.S. water supply is at risk of shortage due to population growth, land use changes, climate change, and water use behaviors of customers. Long-term water supply planning is conventionally based on projections of population growth and demands; however,...
Urbanization impacts the stormwater regime through increased runoff volumes and velocities. Detention ponds and low impact development (LID) strategies may be implemented to control stormwater runoff. Typically, mitigation strategies are designed to maintain postdevelopment peak flows at predevelopment levels for a set of design storms. Peak flow d...
Urban water resources management requires careful planning to balance water supply and demand. Under increasing population growth and land use change through urbanization, water shortages may become increasingly frequent, and climate change can alter the availability and timing of water from expected levels. While long-term water supply planning is...
