SEMINAR: MPO Seminar: Prof. Jorge Imberger, Monday, December 11, at 1:30 p.m., in the auditorium

[Sandrine Apelbaum <sapelbaum@rsmas.miami.edu>]

MPO Seminar

Prof. Jorge Imberger

Professor of Environmental Engineering, Centre for Water Research,

University of Western Australia, Fairway Av., Crawley, Western Australia, Australia

Title:"Adaptive Real-time, Self-Learning River Basin Living: Challenges"

Monday, December 11, at 1:30 p.m.

Auditorium

Abstract:

Natural systems such as catchments, rivers, lakes, estuaries and coastal seas are under increasing threat from both increasing pollution loadings and accidental spills of harmful substances. Human development is the cause of this degradation and so there is an urgent need to develop quantitative management strategies that allow balanced objectives to be achieved between the material benefits of development and the dangers of degradation of the functionality of the environment. The present response of naive legislation and regulatory requirements only makes the problem worse. A new methodology, based on the Index of Functional Sustainability (ISF) has recently been developed that provides a quantitative foundation for multi-objective design . I will illustrate how the ISF can be coupled with real time measurements of water properties in the natural system, the data from which are checked for integrity and then archived into a flexible relational data base system by the Aquatic Real Time Management System (ARMS). ARMS also controls a series of numerical models (Dynamic River Model (DYRIM), Dynamic Reservoirs Simulation Model (DYRESM), Estuarine, Lake Computational Model (ELCOM) and Computational Ecological Aquatic Dynamic Model (CAEDYM)) as well as the atmospheric boundary layer Weather Research and Forecast model (WRF) that run in real time using the real time forcing data.  ARMS then also carries out validation comparisons with real-time data from within the domain and the codes and forcing data. Further,  ARMS automatically initiates, at regular intervals, simulation runs of pre-specified scenarios computing the associated ISF ready for interrogation at a manager's convenience. A web based interrogation tool, called RMSO, is used for both mining the real time database and the results from the ARMS initiated simulations. The suite of new instruments and software combined with the ISF collectively offer a totally new way managing natural systems. The talk will illustrate the new methodology as applied to three operating examples; Swan Canning Estuary and River Basin including the Coastal Ocean, Western Australia;  Lake Superior, US and the Gulf of Mexico.

Sandrine Apelbaum

Meteorology and Physical Oceanography 
Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science
University of Miami
4600 Rickenbacker Causeway
Miami, FL 33149-1098
Tel     (305) 421-4057
Fax     (305) 421-4696

sapelbaum@rsmas.miami.edu