Energy, Resources and the Environment

Data4Sustain – a new webGIS renewable energy feasibility tool

loveless September 2, 2015

Words on Wednesday aims at promoting interesting/fun/exciting publications on topics related to Energy, Resources and the Environment. If you would like to be featured on WoW, please send us a link of the paper, or your own post, at ERE.Matters@gmail.com.

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Blog by Darren Beriro, British Geological Survey

British Geological Survey (BGS) and consortium members Land Quality Management, Nottingham Energy Partnership, Nottingham Geospatial Institute, Positive Homes and University of Nottingham Estates Office are working on a new project called Data4Sustain. The project is being led by LQM and has attracted prestigious funding from UK’s Innovation agency, Innovate UK[1] (Solving Urban Challenges with Data – Feasibility Studies[2]) and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). Over the next 12 months, Data4Sutain will produce a prototype web-based geographical information system (webGIS) for landowners, developers, community groups, local authorities, and their advisors to conduct renewable energy feasibility studies.

The prototype webGIS will display information about when a renewable energy technology (e.g. geothermal, hydro, wind, solar) is expected to be viable at a given site or building. The webGIS will utilise urban datasets and combine these with technology specific ‘operating windows’ to identify the most attractive location for new installations. As the renewable energy sector matures there is increasing expectation (i.e. removal of FITs, etc) for efficient decision-making and investment. Data4Sustain aims is to facilitate this process in both the short and long-term siting of such technologies.

If you are interested in contacting the project team please email or call LQM on 0115 7484080. To register your interest in Data4Sustain and keep up to date with the latest developments please sign-up to the Data4Sustain mailing list.

[1] Innovate UK is the new name for the Technology Strategy Board – the UK’s innovation agency. Taking a new idea to market is a challenge. Innovate UK funds, supports and connects innovative businesses through a unique mix of people and programmes to accelerate sustainable economic growth. For further information visit https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/innovate-uk

[2] Feasibility Studies is a single-company or collaborative R&D grant scheme run by Innovate UK that allows businesses the opportunity to test an innovative idea and its feasibility to be developed and eventually taken to market. Feasibility studies are a way for companies to carry out exploratory studies which could lead to the development of new products, processes, models, experiences or services. The study could involve for instance investigating the technical feasibility of a new idea.

https://www.gov.uk/innovation-get-details-about-innovate-uk-funding-competitions#feasibility-studies

Living with water: A closer look at deltas

Kristen Mitchell August 31, 2015

Where the Selenga River meets the Lake Baikal. Credit: Galina Shinkareva (distributed via imaggeo.egu.eu)

Costal deltas often host large cities due to their prime location of where rivers meet the sea. In many cases these areas have been protected from rising sea levels and flooding rivers by engineered ‘gray’ infrastructure. However, this infrastructure appears to only protect these cities on short timescales. Engineered deltas contribute to relative sea level rise, caused by shrinking land masses in these areas due to sediment loss. Thus, this gray infrastructure appears to cause long term sustainability problems for some of the largest cities in the world. In the August 7^th edition of Science Temmerman and Kirwan explore green alternatives to traditional gray infrastructure that have the potential to restore natural wetlands to delta areas, increasing land area and provide flood protection. In the same issue, Tessler et al. explore the economic costs of conventional delta engineering along with the long term environmental and sustainability impacts of gray infrastructure.

Dr. Kristen Mitchell is an experienced geoscientist and marine chemist with specific experience promoting educational outreach and fundraising initiatives in support of science-specific policy and research. She works with policy makers, commercials entities, and universities to educate and inform their communities of the importance of crafting sustainable solutions. She has worked with key players across the world to execute plans and deliver results related to my scientific studies and projects. For more information, you can contact her at drkristenmitchell@gmail.com, or follow her Tweets @dr_kmitchell.

Living with water: Water management infrastructure

Kristen Mitchell August 28, 2015

Irrigation dam Ban Bo Wi, Thailand.
Credit: Sarah Garré (distributed via imaggeo.egu.eu)

Keeping water out is only half of the battle. Making water available to communities is the other half of the battle. Engineered structures have the ability to do both, dams and dikes can keep flood waters out and they can also divert water to large metropolises and irrigate agricultural lands. But even countries like The Netherlands, which is known for its world class water management engineering, are examining their use of this built infrastructure to make way for ‘green’ infrastructure. Green infrastructure, which can provide more flexible and more cost effective water management strategies while maintaining a larger proportion of natural features, is being investigated for its efficacy in both developed and developing nations. Science, in its second of three debates on water management policies explores the positives and negatives both of gray and green infrastructure in the Policy Forum: Water security: Gray or green?

Dr. Kristen Mitchell is an experienced geoscientist and marine chemist with specific experience promoting educational outreach and fundraising initiatives in support of science-specific policy and research. She works with policy makers, commercials entities, and universities to educate and inform their communities of the importance of crafting sustainable solutions. She has worked with key players across the world to execute plans and deliver results related to my scientific studies and projects. For more information, you can contact her at drkristenmitchell@gmail.com, or follow her Tweets @dr_kmitchell.

Words on Wednesday: Using historical hydrology to lengthen flood records of rare and extreme events

loveless August 26, 2015

Words on Wednesday aims at promoting interesting/fun/exciting publications on topics related to Energy, Resources and the Environment. If you would like to be featured on WoW, please send us a link of the paper, or your own post, at ERE.Matters@gmail.com.

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Benito, G., Brázdil, R., Herget, J., and Machado, M. J.: Quantitative historical hydrology in Europe, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 19, 3517-3539, doi:10.5194/hess-19-3517-2015, 2015.

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Abstract:

In recent decades, the quantification of flood hydrological characteristics (peak discharge, hydrograph shape, and runoff volume) from documentary evidence has gained scientific recognition as a method to lengthen flood records of rare and extreme events. This paper describes the methodological evolution of quantitative historical hydrology under the influence of developments in hydraulics and statistics.

In the 19th century, discharge calculations based on flood marks were the only source of hydrological data for engineering design, but were later left aside in favour of systematic gauge records and conventional hydrological procedures. In the last two decades, there has been growing scientific and public interest in understanding long-term patterns of rare floods, in maintaining the flood heritage and memory of extremes, and developing methods for deterministic and statistical application to different scientific and engineering problems.

A compilation of 46 case studies across Europe with reconstructed discharges demonstrates that (1) in most cases present flood magnitudes are not unusual within the context of the last millennium, although recent floods may exceed past floods in some temperate European rivers (e.g. the Vltava and Po rivers); (2) the frequency of extreme floods has decreased since the 1950s, although some rivers (e.g. the Gardon and Ouse rivers) show a reactivation of rare events over the last two decades. There is a great potential for gaining understanding of individual extreme events based on a combined multiproxy approach (palaeoflood and documentary records) providing high-resolution time flood series and their environmental and climatic changes; and for developing non-systematic and non-stationary statistical models based on relations of past floods with external and internal covariates under natural low-frequency climate variability.