Author: justin

2023 Webinars: the latest and greatest

In 2023, AIH continues to serve its members with free webinars. Hot topics include the state of science research, operational hydrology, the history of hydrology and AIH, and trends in the field. This year, Glenn Moglen presented the Sensitivity of the NRCS Curve Number to Calibration Methods, Luciana Cunha discussed the Next Generation Water Resources Modeling Framework being developed by NOAA, and Roman Kanivetsky told us stories about founding AIH and exposed AIH members to an in-depth and enlightening discussion on Water Sustainability. We have much more to come. In June, Jenny Seifert will discuss the need to invest in People to Achieve Clean Water Goals. In July, we will start a series on flood forecasting, monitoring, and mitigation.

AIH is happy to offer those in good standing the opportunity to sponsor AIH webinars. For more information, please contact Luciana Cunha at lcunha@westconsultants.com.

AIH DEI Scholarship Fund

The AIH Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity (DEI) Committee has landed on an exciting priority initiative: the DEI Scholarship Fund. Since beginning its work early in 2022, the DEI Committee has developed several initiatives to further its goal of extending educational and professional opportunities to those not commonly represented in hydrology-related fields. These initiatives include:

An International Mentorship Program
Minority Serving Institutions Outreach
An AIH Speakers Bureau
A Hydrology Job and Career Portal

Approved by the AIH Board of Directors at the May 23^rd Meeting, the DEI Scholarship Fund will make funding available to selected individuals for hydrology-related training or education. As part of its action, the Board approved seed money for the Fund from revenue collected by the AIH Career Center, an on-line AIH service for advertising job opportunities. It is anticipated that additional revenue for the Fund will come from voluntary AIH membership contributions and corporate sponsors.

There is much to be done!

The DEI committee invites your participation in committee activities including development of the Scholarship Fund and the other DEI initiatives. With the Scholarship Fund being approved by the AIH Board of Directors, it’s time for the DEI Committee to get busy developing the details of implementation including program criteria and management, recipient selection, funding sources, and program outreach. The goal of the DEI Committee is to start awarding funds in 2026.

To join the AIH DEI Committee, or for additional information on the Scholarship Fund and other DEI Committee initiatives, contact Committee Co-Chairs Matt Naftaly at mnaftaly@Dudek.com or 805.308.8529 or John Ramirez at jramirez@cee.msstate.edu or 662.325.9885.

Help support this fund and the future of a student by making a donation. Donations are not tax-deductible.

SEDHYD

AIH was a proud Silver-Level Sponsor and Exhibitor at the 2023 Federal Interagency Sedimentation and Hydrology Modeling Conference (SEDHYD), May 8-12, 2023, in St. Louis, Missouri. The conference is held every 4 to 5 years and brings together engineers and scientists from federal agencies, universities, and consultants with a focus on watersheds, stream channels, reservoirs, and related infrastructure. Jamil Ibrahim (Immediate Past-President) represented AIH at the conference to staff the AIH booth, discuss benefits of students earning early certification as Hydrologists-in-Training (HITs) at the Student Luncheon, and share organizational and individual perspectives during a Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Accessibility breakout session. There were several AIH members in attendance, including: Laura Keefer, PH (Member, Board of Registration); Dr. Jim Selegean, PH; Dr. Marty Teal, PH, Dr. David Williams, PH (Former Chair, Board of Registration), and. Dr. Zhong Zhang, PH (Director, Academic Affairs).

This was the first time SEDHYD had sponsors for their conference. In 2019, SEDHYD organizers graciously provided AIH an exhibit booth and dedicated time during the conference’s opening plenary to introduce AIH and benefits of certification for hydrologists and hydrologic technicians, and present AIH’s 2019 awards. Over 400 hydrologists, engineers, and scientists from across the U.S. attended the conference. AIH looks to maintain a strong connection to the SEDHYD community and actively support future SEDHYD conferences.

A Climate Condition Analysis Using Palmer Hydrologic Drought Index (PHDI) values

A Climate Condition Analysis Using Palmer Hydrologic Drought Index (PHDI) values

Richard Koehler, PhD, PH, CEO, Visual Data Analytics, LLC visual.data.analytics@outlook.com

Abstract

Drought and climate change are important factors to include in any hydrologic analysis. Current weather-related events in California, such as the extended drought and recent multiple atmospheric rivers, demonstrate how quickly hydrologic conditions can change. A lag(1) autocorrelation analysis of California Climate Division 2 (Sacramento Drainage) using monthly Palmer Hydrologic Drought Index (PHDI) values was conducted to find data ranges, persistence of conditions, along with seasonal and historical drought patterns. Results show distinct conditions within the hydrologic-climatic system which include periods of (a) persistent drought, (b) persistent wet, (c) transition from drought to wet, and (d) transition from wet to drought. Month-to month PHDI changes are quantified using a summation infographic based on the autocorrelation scatterplot.

Key words: PHDI, drought, lag(1) autocorrelation

Background

California is divided into seven climate divisions, each with various types of climate indices (Figure 1). For this study, Climate Division 2, Sacramento River drainage (NOAA, 2023a) is used as it contains the Lake Shasta reservoir, an important component of California’s water resources system.

This study examined PHDI information produced by NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI). The NOAA website for drought data states that the PHDI “measures hydrological impacts of drought (e.g., reservoir levels, groundwater levels, etc.) which take longer to develop and longer to recover from. This long-term drought index was developed to quantify these hydrological effects, and it responds more slowly to changing conditions than the Palmer Drought Severity Index” (NOAA, 2023b). Table 1 describes the different PHDI levels (Hayes, 2007) and Figure 2 shows the 1895 to 2023 timeline plot of this monthly data (NOAA, 2023c).

Some of the most severe drought values have occurred in recent years, with June 2021 through September 2021 all exhibiting PHDI values in the extreme drought range (-5 or more negative).

Figure 1: California Climate Divisions,

Climate Division 2, Sacramento River drainage (source: NOAA).

Table 1: PHDI level descriptions (Hayes, 2007).

Figure 2: California Climate Division 2, monthly PHDI values, 1895 to 2023 (source: NOAA).

A histogram (Figure 3) shows the number of months for each PDHI value. There is a distinct bimodal distribution, with a total of 804 months of drought conditions (negative PHDI) and 661 months of wet conditions (positive PHDI). The 0 condition (near normal) represents only 15 months, indicating that this rarely occurred.

Figure 3: California Climate Division 2, PHDI histogram – months per PHDI condition.

Analysis technique

A lag (1) temporal autocorrelation scatterplot was used to examine the PHDI data. Table 2 shows the one-month data shift used to create an x-y system with PHDI at time “t” for the x coordinate, and PHDI at time “t+1” for the y coordinate.

Table 2: PHDI one-month data shift example.

Results

Extremes can be represented by large positive and large negative monthly PHDI changes, shown in the following tables (Tables 3 and 4).

Table 3: Ranked largest positive monthly PHDI changes, California Climate Division 2.

Table 4: Ranked largest negative monthly PHDI changes, California Climate Division 2.

However, this simple approach provides an incomplete view of how the hydrologic-climatic system operates. A more expansive approach is to graph all monthly changes with a lag(1) autocorrelation scatterplot (Figure 4), where each point represents the monthly PHDI change.

Any point on the dashed diagonal line (y = 1x) indicates no PHDI change from month-to-month. Any point above the diagonal line signifies positive PHDI changes, while any point below the diagonal line signifies negative PHDI changes. Additionally, the overlay shows groups of points that represent four components of the hydrologic-climatic system, (a) persistent drought, (b) persistent wet, (c) transition from drought to wet, and (d) transition from wet to drought. The Table 1 description for “near normal” (-0.49 to +0.49) rarely happened, as the hydrologic system constantly oscillates between persistent drought and persistent wet conditions.

Figure 4: PHDI lag(1) autocorrelation scatterplot with four conditions.

As each point can be identified by month, a breakout of seasonal scatterplots is possible as shown in Figure 5.

Spring and summer have fewer transitions. These two seasons also have less overall scatter, indicating more persistent wet and dry conditions. Interestingly, summer has both the driest and some of the wettest PHDI values. Winter and fall show more randomness, as data points are more scattered. These two seasons also have more transition points. Atmospheric rivers typically occur during winter (NASA 2023) but, with transition points seen in all four seasons, other mechanisms are likely in play.

Figure 5: Seasonal autocorrelation scatterplots, (a) winter, (b) spring, (c) summer, (d) fall.

PHDI values were rounded to the nearest 0.5 to provide a consistent way to compare all month-to-month pairings, allowing for a summation of all changes for the period of record: 1895 to 2023 (Figure 6).

The PHDI value of -3 shows the single greatest range of change, -4 to +2.5 (Figure 6a). This display helps identify the most and least common changes that have taken place. The most common value is the monthly PHDI value of -1.5 followed by -1.5, which occurred 81 times (Figure 6b). Summation values of 1 indicate unusual conditions as these specific monthly changes occurred only once in the 128-year record.

Figure 6: Historical summation of all PHDI monthly changes for California Climate Division 2:

(a) single largest change, (b) most common month-to-month occurrence.

Coordinates for count values are based on categorized PHDI values.

Conclusions

The lag(1) autocorrelation scatterplot provides a basis for additional information about climatic datasets not possible with other methods. The identification of four distinct components of the hydrologic-climatic system provides new opportunities for planning and management activities by water resource organizations. The success of this approach suggests that more research should be directed to looking into mechanisms that enable large PHDI changes.

For more information about the Lag-1 autocorrelation, please read Dr. Koehler’s previous article, titled “The Lag-12 Hydrograph – Alternate Way to Plot Streamflow Time-Series Data”, AIH Bulletin, Fall 2022.

References

Hayes, M. J., 2007. Drought Indices.

https://wwa.colorado.edu/sites/default/files/2021-09/IWCS_2007_July_feature.pdf

NOAA, 2023a. Location of US Climate Divisions. https://psl.noaa.gov/data/usclimdivs/data/map.html

NOAA, 2023b. Historical Palmer Drought Indices.

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/historical-palmers/overview

NOAA, 2023c. Climate at a Glance Divisional Time Series. https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/climate-at-a-glance/divisional/time-series/0402/phdi/all/3/1895-2023?base_prd=true&begbaseyear=1901&endbaseyear=2000

NASA, 2023. Atmospheric Rivers

https://ghrc.nsstc.nasa.gov/home/micro-articles/atmospheric-rivers

About the author

Dr. Koehler is the CEO of Visual Data Analytics and a certified professional hydrologist with over 40-years’ experience.

Previously he was the National Hydrologic and Geospatial Sciences Training Coordinator for NOAA’s National Weather Service and is a retired NOAA Corps lieutenant commander. Assignments included navigation and operations officer for two NOAA oceanographic research ships, the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center and the Northwest River Forecast Center, where he oversaw the implementation of an operational dynamic wave model for Lower Columbia River stage forecasts. Other positions include Director of Water Resources for an Arizona consulting company and the water resources hydrologist for Cochise County, Arizona.

He is also a member of the science department faculty at Front Range Community College and is instructor for astronomy, geology, geography, GIS and geodesy courses. He is also an FAA certified professional drone operator.

He has a PhD, MS and BS in Watershed Management from the University of Arizona and an additional MS in Hydrographic Sciences from the US Naval Postgraduate School. The focus of his research are alternate methods of analyzing environmental time-series data along with associated data visualizations.

Comparison of meshless MFS and CVBEM computational methods in analysis of groundwater flow pathways

Comparison of meshless MFS and CVBEM computational methods in analysis of groundwater flow pathways

Authors:

Saleem Ali¹, Sebastian Neumann¹, T. V.
Hromadka, II², B. Wilkins³Cadet, Dept Mathematical Sciences, USMA, West Point, NY¹Distinguished Professor, USMA, West Point, NY²Columbia University³

Introduction and Methodology

Computational methods to solve groundwater contamination problems continue to be of high interest to engineers and planners, among others. An important problem is identifying the source of contamination within a cluster of candidate sources. A key question is which candidate source(s) are the actual point source of the subject contamination.

Read the Full Article (PDF)

About the author

Saleem Ali is a mathematical sciences major at the United States Military Academy, who is majoring in mathematical sciences. His research experience includes the computational modeling of ideal fluid flow and studying the effects of time dilation in balloon satellite flight.

Congratulations to our 2023 AIH Award Winners!

Founder’s Award:

Dr. John Nieber – P.H., P.E., Ph.D

Professor at the University of Minnesota in the Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering

Charles V. Theis Award for Groundwater:

Dr. Ken Howard – PHG, PGeo, FGC, CGeol FGS, PhD.

Professor at the University of Toronto Scarborough in the Department of Physical and Environmental Sciences

Ray K. Linsley Award for Surface Water:

Dr. Jeff McDonnell – P.H., FRSC, Ph.D.

Professor at the University of Saskatchewan in the School of Environment and Sustainability, and Associate Director at the Global Institute for Water Security.

President-Elect Update – Spring 2023

Salam Murtada, President-Elect

I am honored to serve the American Institute of Hydrology (AIH) in my new role as President-Elect. What a rewarding journey it has been! I have learned so much in these last three years while serving as Treasurer (2020), Director of Institute Development (2021-2022), and now as President-Elect.

As a Professional Hydrologist since 2018, I am proud to be part of our AIH community. I carry that pride in my work at the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. A science geek, I am especially interested in hydrologic and hydraulic modeling to protect against flooding, promote better infrastructure designs that maintain natural systems stability, and evaluate best management practices in our watersheds.

It is no secret that the challenges we face today are formidable. The work we do protects communities from flooding, addresses natural system degradation, navigates pollution and cleanup, and expertly manages our dwindling resources. We now have a moral obligation to confront these challenges. Because of this, I am committed to achieving our goals: establishing high standards and transparent procedures to certify hydrologists, maintaining ethical standards to protect our natural resources, and providing education, advice, and training to the public. We will continue to reach out to our professional community to certify hydrologists and welcome you to our organization. We are especially pleased to congratulate our newest member, Rewati Niraula, who successfully completed the certification requirements as a professional hydrologist in the area of surface water.

I am fortunate to collaborate with a wonderful Board of Directors – incredible people who work tirelessly to advance our mission despite having full-time jobs and family commitments. We recently welcomed Dr. Luciana Kindl Da Cunha as our new Director of Institute Development. Dr. Cunha presented an outstanding webinar in March, titled “The Next Generation Water Resources Modeling Framework: What it is, a Proof of Concept, and How to Get Involved.” As chair of the webinar committee, Dr. Cunha will be moderating our next webinar on May 25, featuring AIH co-founder Dr. Roman Kanivetsky, on “Water Resources Sustainability: Toward a New Paradigm.” Our team is actively working to streamline and improve our processes related to membership renewal, exams, recertification, and communication. We anticipate a fruitful year ahead as we collaborate with sister organizations and participate in conferences such as the upcoming SEDHYD conference in St. Louis, Mo and the Annual AWRA Conference in Raleigh, NC.

Your engagement propels the mission of our organization. Please consider contributing to the AIH Bulletin. We ask that you contact admin@aihydrology.org to submit an article for a future issue. You can find additional information about article submissions in the email sent out on March 31 or on the AIH website.

Finally, please ensure that you maintain an active membership status. If you have not done so already, kindly renew through the following link: https://www.aihydrology.org/plans/aih-memberships/

As always, we look forward to your feedback and welcome your suggestions and ideas. We want AIH to be your professional home!

REMINDER: CALL FOR ARTICLES – AIH SPRING BULLETIN

If you are interested in contributing, please send articles or other items of interest via the link provided by April 14, 2023.

The next issue of the AIH Bulletin is scheduled to be published in the Spring of 2023, for which the editorial team invites contributions from members. Original articles on any aspect of hydrology (e.g., administrative, technical, socioeconomic) will be considered for publication. It is not required that the article be based on academic or scientific work; however, it should not be published elsewhere. Book reviews may also be submitted under this category.

Please provide an unformatted word document of your story without embedded images. You can signify where you’d like a submitted image using brackets.
Images you wish to be included with your article must not be embedded in the Word document; send them separately and labeled with names corresponding to where you’d like them used in the Word document.
Articles must have a brief title and a byline.
Authors must have the full name, title and agency or association. Supply a high-resolution head-shot of the author.
Article length must be between 500 – 1000 words.
Please include an “About the Author” post script, to provide our audience with the context of your perspectives.
Include how you would like your name and title to be presented. Avoid using too many bulleted lists, diagrams or graphs in your article.
Beside original articles, members may also submit leads to items of interest to the hydrologists’ community.
Such items may include news related to the field of hydrology, conferences, new publications, etc.

If you are interested in contributing, please send articles or other items of interest via the Dropbox link below by April 14, 2023. Please ensure submissions are identified properly (example: TitleofArticle-FirstLastName.doc) and that supporting graphics/images are of the highest possible quality and attached, not embedded in the word document. Be sure to include your contact information within your submission as well.

Should you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact our office at admin@aihydrology.org.

President’s Update – Spring 2023

American Institute of Hydrology

March 15, 2023

President’s Update

I am truly energized about my new leadership role these next few years with AIH. As President, I want to make connections, provide synergy, and fully utilize the strong leadership qualities of our Board members and members at large. I am excited about our committees and initiatives – not only for the resulting benefits, but for the process of getting to know each one of you through your involvement. It is critical that all AIH members get involved, whether it’s helping establish the DEI scholarship, expanding our webinar series, or improving our website for AIH members and the public.

Introducing New Board Members!

Salam Murtada, President Elect 2023-2024

Salam brings a wealth of experience to this position from his two-year tenure as Director of Institute Development and one-year as Treasurer. Salam will be transitioning out of his role as Webinar Committee Chair and into the role of President Elect! Salam will be continuing to engage with members and help improve the recertification process.

Luciana Kindl da Cunha, Director of Institute Development

As Director of Institute Development, Luciana will be taking on the role of Chair of the Webinar Committee. We are very excited to see the webinar series continue to expand under the guidance of this important Committee. If you have ideas for upcoming webinars and how to improve webinar outreach, delivery and access, contact Luciana to join the Webinar Committee! Luciana will also be helping the DEI Committee establish and sustain the AIH’s first DEI Scholarship Program.

Membership Renewal

If you haven’t yet renewed your AIH membership, do so today!
Renew Membership Here

Benefits of AIH membership include:

Certification as a professional hydrologist or hydrologic technician
Membership as a hydrologist-in-training or student member
Free access to our webinar series
Eligibility for annual awards
Peer and employer recognitions of professional competence in hydrology
Opportunity to contribute to AIH Committees and articles in the bulletin

Recertification Process

In addition to membership renewal, AIH members are required to recertify every five years by submitting 60 hours of Professional Development Credits (PDC). Please refer to the information regarding credits, listed in your AIH membership account. And note that AIH webinars count towards accumulating the required PDC credits. Please note that we are currently in the process of streamlining the recertification process in order to make it easier. If you have any questions regarding your ongoing certification status, please contact Kory Adams at kadams@aihydrology.org.

AIH Committees

AIH has a variety of committees and groups you can get involved in, and we are always looking for AIH members to join committees. Contact the Committee Chair/Co-Chair listed below if you’d like to join. Don’t hesitate to renew your membership today, so you can get involved with important committee work!

Committee	Description	Committee Chair	Contact
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Committee	Committee formed in January 2022. Currently focusing on establishing a DEI scholarship program.	John Ramirez-Avila and Matt Naftaly, co-chairs	jramirez@cee.msstate.edu and mnaftaly@dudek.com
Webinar Committee	Develop, produce and deliver AIH’s Webinar Series	Luciana Cunha, Chair	lcunha@westconsultants.com
Communication Committee	Develop and publish AIH bulletin, social media posts, and webpage improvements.	Brennon Schaefer, Chair	brennon.schaefer@state.mn.us
Board of Registration	Review and evaluate AIH application and recertification packages for education and experience, and make recommendations to the Board of Directors.	Nick Textor, Chair	nick.textor@austin.rr.com

As we know in our daily practice, the profession of hydrology is critical to water management. The prediction, modeling and management of extreme hydrologic events is taking center stage, across the nation and the globe, and our work is more important than ever. Thank you for your continued engagement with the American Institute of Hydrology, and keeping the profession of hydrology elevated through your work!

President’s Message – Winter 2023

Greetings! This is my last President’s Message, and it comes soon after our Board of Directors convened for our AIH Annual Meeting. During the meeting, our Board of Directors reflected on accomplishments and challenges from the past year and established specific strategies and tactics to achieve goals for 2023. I’m delighted about the continued achievements of AIH during my tenure as President, and I’m excited about the next steps for the organization.

While our activities and initiatives have attracted many new members to AIH, we experienced significant challenges over the past year in maintaining our previous members through membership renewals. Many members have retired from the hydrology industry, but others either have not updated their member contact information or simply decided not to renew their membership. Critical priorities for 2023 include continued emphasis on promoting the branding of our AIH certifications, and demonstrating the benefits of certification and membership to our members.

As we wrap up 2022, I’m pleased to report that we are nearly complete with a comprehensive update to our database of examination questions for our AIH certification exams. The process established by our team was successful and the approach may be applied for continued updates to our examination questions database. We convened a team of experts during the fall to develop new examination questions. Updates will be completed prior to our next round of examinations.

AIH held two Water New Year events in Sacramento, California and St. Paul, Minnesota, where members of our AIH Board welcomed the season of maximum soil moisture recharge with current and prospective AIH members. My hope is that we continue this ritual and encourage expansion across other geographies.

We also continued to engage with the American Water Resources Association (AWRA) and other affiliate organizations to promote PH certification for hydrologists and HT certification for hydrologic technicians. After a two-year hiatus from in-person attendance, we actively participated in the AWRA 2022 Annual Conference. Our involvement in the conference is detailed in a summary provided by AIH Director for Institute Development, Salam Murtada, in this Bulletin. Additionally, led by AIH Past-President, Dr. John Nieber, AIH collaborated with AWRA to produce a special issue of the AWRA publication Water Resources IMPACT, titled “Hot Topics in Hydrology.” This special issue features articles by AIH members on a handful of current topics and on recent advances in hydrology research and professional practice. We will look to share information on how AIH members can access this great publication at a later point.

We had a wonderful year – and the next will surely be awesome under the leadership of Julé Rizzardo. Look for continued initiatives by our Board to connect our AIH community and advance AIH through promoting the benefits of certification.

Lastly, I will close through reiterating important points you have seen before:

A call to all AIH certified members, as ambassadors of AIH, to take pride and flaunt your AIH acronym. Be HIT-, HT-, and PH-proud.
Member participation is vital to AIH’s success. We are eager to engage more members in AIH activities. Please reach out to our Secretary/Membership Liaison, Jolyne Lea, at membership@aihydrology.org, to get involved.

Best wishes for a safe, healthy, and joyful 2023.

Sincerely,

Jamil S. Ibrahim PH, PMP, ENV SP

AIH President, 2021-2022