Effects of Urban Development on Streamflow
Name of the Speaker: Dr. Aditi Bhaskar
Title of the Seminar: Effects of Urban Development on Streamflow
Date and Time: 1st January, 2019 (Tuesday), 4:00 PM
Venue: Lecture Hall, ICWaR
About the speaker: Dr. Aditi Bhaskar is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Colorado State University. She specializes in changes to hydrologic systems from urban development, with a focus on interactions between groundwater, streams, stormwater, and landscape irrigation. She recieved her Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
Abstract: Urban development consists of a collection of processes that have variable effects on water budgets, groundwater recharge, and stream flow flow. Some of the processes that were focused on in this seminar are infiltration of storm water, changes to evapotranspiration, lawn irrigation, water supply pipe leakage, impervious surface cover, and infiltration of groundwater into wastewater pipes. The methods used to investigate these drivers of urban base flow have been data analysis, field data collection, and mathematical modeling. Watershed-scale storm water infiltration was implemented as part of low impact development in a watershed that was converted to suburban development in Clarksburg, Maryland, USA. Stream base and total flow both were found to increase during development, relative to flow in reference urban and forested watersheds. The driving processes are suggested to be a reduction in vegetative cover and evapotranspiration, and an increase in focused groundwater recharge with watershed-scale storm water infiltration. In Baltimore, Maryland, USA, water supply pipe leakage and impervious surface cover were found to be less important drivers of subsurface storage compared to infiltration of groundwater into wastewater pipes. Current work on drivers of urban base flow focusing on semi-arid areas were discussed.
Date/Time
Date(s) - 01/01/2019
4:00 pm
