Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Events for February
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Impact of Surface Water Conditions on Preservative Leaching and Aquatic ...
Fri, Feb 06, 2009 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
...Toxicity from Treated Wood ProductsSpeaker:
Brajesh Dubey, Ph.D., Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering,
Faculty of Engineering, University of AucklandAbstract:
As of January 2004, wood treated with chromated copper arsenate (CCA) was no longer manufactured for most residential uses in United States. This phase out was prompted by risk assessments which indicated an elevated human health risk from arsenic (As) which could be ingested during direct contact with the wood. The primary active ingredients in most of the As-free alternatives formulations include copper (Cu) and an organic co-biocide, among which alkaline copper quaternary (ACQ) and copper boron azole (CBA) are the most popular wood preservatives in current use for the residential market. These Cu-based alternatives have been reported to leach several times more Cu (greater concentrations as well as higher percent leaching) than CCA-treated wood and the aquatic toxicity measured was found to correlate with total Cu concentrations. Due to the higher levels of Cu in the new alternative wood preservatives, it is suspected that it can promote aquatic toxicity in natural water systems. Earlier work focused on evaluating toxicity using laboratory generated leaching solutions (e.g., de-ionized water). In this study, the impact on preservative leaching and aquatic toxicity from treated wood products was evaluated using natural surface waters including waters from two rivers, three lakes, two wetlands, and one seawater, in addition to synthetic moderate hard water and de-ionized water. Blocks of wood treated with Cu based alternatives such as alkaline copper quaternary (ACQ) and copper boron azole (CBA), along with chromated copper arsenate (CCA) treated wood, were leached under quiescent conditions and total Cu, labile Cu and heavy metal toxicity were measured. Results show that ACQ- and CBA-treated wood leach approximately ten and twenty times more total Cu relative to CCA-treated wood and that the presence of organic and inorganic ligands in natural waters lowered the labile fraction of Cu relative to that from laboratory generated leaching solutions. Aquatic toxicity was found to correlate with the labile Cu fraction and hence, the aquatic toxicity of the treated wood leachates was lower in natural waters in comparison to laboratory leaching solutions. The results of the present study suggest that studies designed to evaluate the impacts of treated wood should therefore consider the role of complexation in reducing the labile Cu fraction and its potential role in decreasing toxicity.Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 209
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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Managing Risk in Megacities: Challenges and Opportunities for Researchers and Practitioners
Wed, Feb 11, 2009 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker:Fouad Bendimerad, Ph.D., P.E., Chairman of the Board,
Earthquakes and Megacities Initiative (EMI), www.emi-megacities.org Abstract:2007 was a turning point for humanity as for the first time in history, the world urban population has exceeded its rural population. In the next 20 years, the world's population is predicted to increase by an additional 2 billion. Most of the increase will be in cities of developing countries. Eventually, cities will account for all future global population growth with record concentrations in large urban conglomerations and megacities in the developing world. By 2015,12 out of the largest 15 cities in the world will be in developing countries.
Losses from a major disaster in large cities and megacities will harm large populations both within and far beyond their boundaries. Unfortunately, the planning and development of cities has only given scant consideration to the consequences of hazards such as earthquake, floods, hurricanes and others. Eight out of the ten most populous cities in the world can be severely affected by an earthquake, whereas six out of ten are vulnerable to storm surge and tsunami waves. Effects of climate change can exhacerbate the impacts of these hazards.
Urban risk from extreme hazards has largely been ignored. The premise has been that cities, especially megacities, have the capacity to address risk on their own. It is now clear that most cities, particularly in the developing world, are not effectively managing their risk. Dealing with megacities risk is becoming a global urgency. The role of academia is critical in providing and disseminating knowledge about risk, and in providing practical tools and methods to public officials and managers of megacities to achieve a more sustainable urban development.
The Earthquakes and Megacities Initiative (EMI) was created in response to the critical need to speed up risk management research and practice of complex urban centers. EMI creates mechanisms for the delivery of scientific and technical knowledge to the city managers, while supporting megacities in building disaster risk management practice. It achieves this by fostering partnerships and cooperation between megacities and scientific organizations, and advocating for megacities risk reduction in international forums.
This seminar provides an overview of issues related to megacities risk management and will show examples of methodologies, analytical tools and practical applications from various cities in the world.Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 209
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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Airborne Particles and Health: What do we know and not know in 2009
Wed, Feb 18, 2009 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker:Jonathan M. Samet, MD, MS,
Professor and Flora L. Thornton Chair, Department of Preventive Medicine;
Keck School of Medicine, Director, Institute for Global Health,
University of Southern CaliforniaAbstract: Particles of varied size, composition, and structure are ubiquitous in indoor and outdoor air. The sources of the particles are myriad and include both natural phenomena and man's activities. In regard to outdoor air, particle concentrations and sources are regulated in the United States by complex legislation that addresses sources and concentrations. The principal evidence-based regulation under the Clean Air Act requires the promulgation of a National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) that sets a concentration for particulate matter (PM) in outdoor air that protects public health with a margin of safety. This presentation reviews the scientific evidence on PM and risk to health, moving from the historical evidence that high levels of PM led to disastrous numbers of excess deaths to the current context in the US and other developed countries, where PM levels are now far lower. Worldwide, PM remains a public health threat in developing countries, where people experience extremely high levels in urban areas, particularly the increasing numbers of mega-cities, and indoors from unvented or poorly vented smoke from biomass fuel combustion.Research is now focused on quantifying risks at lower levels, characterizing mechanisms of toxicity, identifying characteristics of particles that determine risk, and targeting the most critical sources from the public health perspective. The research evidence is broad, coming from the fields of engineering, atmospheric sciences, toxicology, and exposure assessment and epidemiology. An expanded evidence base is needed for protecting public health as cities continue to grow, motor vehicle usage increases, and energy production from coal combustion increases.Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 209
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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Characterizing Atmospheric Boundary Layer Turbulence
Thu, Feb 19, 2009 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Sukanta Basu, Atmospheric Science Group, Department of Geosciences, Texas Tech University, TexasAbstract:Atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) spans the lowest few hundred meters of the earth's atmosphere and intensively exchanges mass (e.g., water vapor, pollutants), momentum, and heat with the underlying earth's surface. ABL has immense practical importance as wide ranges of industrial (e.g., stack gas dispersion, wind energy generation), biological (e.g., pollen transport and deposition), natural (e.g., dust devil formation), and meteorological (e.g., cloud formation) activities take place in this turbulent layer. At the same time, owing to its high Reynolds number, ABL plays a critical role in advancing fundamental turbulence research. For decades, it has been a favorite playground for the theoretical physics community for testing a variety of universal scaling and similarity hypotheses.
My research group at Texas Tech University tries to gain a better understanding of ABL turbulence by synergistically combining new-generation modeling approaches (e.g., large-eddy simulation), observational techniques (e.g., small-aperture scintillometry), and by borrowing a suite of tools from the emergent field of complex systems. In this talk, I present a mélange of ongoing research projects ranging from large-eddy simulation of nighttime boundary layers to flux measurements involving scintillometry, from multi-scale numerical weather prediction to synthetic inflow generation for wind turbine design, and from characterization of low-level jets to portable high-performance computing using MatlabMPI.Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 209
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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Contrasting Views of Complexity and Their Implications for Critical Infrastructures
Wed, Feb 25, 2009 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker:
Dr. David L. Alderson,
Operations Research Department,
Naval Postgraduate School,
Monterey, CAAbstract:Considerable attention is now being devoted to "new sciences" of "complexity" and "networks" with the intent of discovering and applying universal laws of highly interconnected and evolved systems. In this talk, I will discuss several issues related to the use of these theories in the context of critical infrastructures, particularly those involving networks. Specifically, we revisit the notion of "organized complexity" and suggest that it is fundamental to our ability to understand, operate, and design next-generation infrastructure networks. We comment on the role of engineering in defining an architecture to support networked infrastructures and highlight recent advances in the theory of distributed control driven by network technologies. This talk represents joint work with John Doyle (Caltech).Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 209
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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Hydrodynamic Modeling for the State of California Ports and Harbors: Past, Present and Future
Thu, Feb 26, 2009 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker:Dr. Aggeliki Barberopoulou,
Postdoctoral Research Associate,
Sony Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, USCAbstract:
Following the global impact of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, California faced a challenging tsunami warning (June 14, 2005) and a relatively small tsunami that caused extensive damage in Crescent City harbor (November 15, 2006) that served as a wake-up call that the tsunami threat is not well understood for many coastal communities. These incidents attracted new attention to tsunami scientists and emergency managers who demanded a more systematic, consistent, and efficient response system (Synolakis and Bernard, 2006; Bernard et al., 2006).
The present mapping collaboration between the USC-Tsunami Research Center (TRC), Office of Emergency Services, and the California Geological Survey includes 35 separate areas that cover the most important ports, harbors, coastal urban centers, and popular recreational areas in California. This new tsunami inundation mapping effort is in its final phase with inundation map production to be completed by summer of 2009. We note that the first generation of inundation maps for California State emergency management was based on more conservative "worst case but realistic scenarios" (Synolakis et al, 2002), which reflected the understanding of offshore hazards pervasive ten years ago. New local tsunami sources previously unaccounted for, add complexity to hazard studies for California. Further developments in tsunami modeling made it possible to investigate the effect of a wider variety of far field tsunami sources on different parts of the State.
The availability of high-resolution bathymetric and topographic data allows for further insight into the vulnerability of ports, harbors, and other open water bodies significant for the state economy. Recent field work and numerical simulations show that using higher resolution relief data may also help evacuation plans to become more efficient when time is very limited. Additional work remains in high-risk areas of the State with large populations and limited evacuation options to help identify "safer" areas for emergency planning.
The latter are some examples of what can be done to improve tsunami preparedness for California. Following a brief look into the past and an introduction to the work currently carried out by TRC, potential projects are presented that are of interest to the authors. This may also set the ground for new collaborations within the department and beyond.
Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 209
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
