HydroMetrics LLC Blog

This is the first in a belated series of posts summarizing our attendance at different symposia, workshops, short courses, and conferences over the last few months. These include the ACWA water law workshop, a short course on analytical element modeling, the GSA annual conference, the GRA annual conference, and a short course on groundwater applications of optimization.

Back in August, Derrik attended GRA's symposium on Climate Change: Implications for California Groundwater Management. He was even co-author on a paper presented by Michael Singleton of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory called Groundwater Residence Time in an Alpine Basin Likely to be Impacted by Climate Change. Here is the abstract:

GROUNDWATER RESIDENCE TIME IN AN ALPINE BASIN LIKELY TO BE IMPACTED BY CLIMATE CHANGE
Michael J. Singleton, Jean E. Moran, Bradley K. Esser, Derrik Williams

Climate change impacts on California water resources are likely to include a decrease in the percentage of precipitation that falls as snow, earlier onset of snow-pack melting, and an increase in the number of rain or snow events. These processes will require changes in infrastructure for water storage and flood control. Alpine and sub-alpine groundwater aquifers play a critical role by storing and releasing snow melt as baseflow to streams long after seasonal precipitation and the disappearance of the snow pack. The response of hydrological systems in the Sierra to climate change is highly uncertain since the recharge mechanisms, storage capacity, and residence times of groundwater in high-altitude headwater basins are poorly understood and are not adequately characterized by traditional methods.

Certain aspects of recharge and groundwater residence time in Sierran watersheds can be characterized using naturally occurring tracers. We are using noble gas concentrations and multiple isotopic tracers (3H/3He, 35S, 222Rn and radiogenic 4He) in groundwater and stream water in a small alpine catchment close to Lake Tahoe to 1) provide a snapshot of temperature, altitude, and physical processes at the time of recharge, 2) to determine subsurface residence times (over time scales ranging from months to centuries) of different groundwater age components, and 3) to deconvolve the contribution of these different groundwater components to alpine stream baseflow. Olympic Valley is a small (600 acres), high-altitude (6200 to over 9000 feet) alpine basin, and was chosen for the study because it has relatively simple hydrogeologic features, is readily accessible with numerous monitoring and production wells, and is likely to be affected by climate change since it is situated well above the snow line. Although initial tritium-helium groundwater age results suggest that recharge to wells in the upper part of the valley is on a short one to two year time scale, monitoring wells in the middle and lower valley have residence times that range from months to decades. Significant spatial variability is observed in stable isotopic signatures and noble gas recharge temperatures, suggesting that recharge varies either temporally or with elevation.

Derrik's role was to provide hydrological background information to the researchers and facilitate the work with our client, the Squaw Valley Public Service District. We recognize that advanced scientific techniques may provide useful information to our clients so we look for opportunities to facilitate research that may provide such information.

HydroMetrics LLC is thrilled to welcome Georgina King to our team as Project Manager. Georgina has extensive experience as a project manager for a wide range of groundwater related projects throughout California. Her experience managing large-capacity public water supply well and monitoring well projects, basin-wide groundwater studies, and groundwater modeling projects makes her an ideal fit for our small, but growing firm. She has technical expertise in database and Geographic Information System development. Georgina is a licensed Professional Geologist and Certified Hydrogeologist in the state of California. Prior to arriving in California, Georgina served as the Assistant Director of Geohydrology for South Africa's Department of Water Affairs and Forestry. She received her bacherlors and masters degrees from University of Natal and Rhodes University in South Africa.

Her first project here will be to manage an update of the seawater intrusion analysis for the Seaside Basin Watermaster group.

A couple of weeks ago I attended the 17th international conference on Computational Methods in Water Resources. Most of the talks were fairly academic, but there were some potentially useful talks, such as an introduction of a HYDRUS package for MODFLOW. This package should allow for better simulation of the unsaturated zone in connection with saturated groundwater models.

One topic that caught my fancy was the idea of modeling fuzzy systems - basically modeling the perception-based uncertainty of model based inputs to assess additional uncertainty of model results. Metin Ozbek referred to this as the propogation of epistemic uncertainty, or uncertainty due to lack of knowledge. I found this discussion amusing due to the use of the word "fuzzy" in a very quantitative sense. Back as an undergrad at Stanford, majors were divided up between techies (engineering/sciences) and fuzzies (social sciences/humanities). My old roommate Doug, an electrical engineer, bragged about how the precision of the electrical engineering calcluations made it the most techy major. Does this certainty really make things more techy? The talks about modeling fuzziness would seem to indicate that it does not, because uncertainty requires additional calculation.

Here is the abstract for Boris Faybishenko of Lawrence Berkeley Labs, to give you an idea of what fuzzy modelers are talking about. Try not to chuckle for every use of the word fuzzy.

Fuzzy Systems Modeling for Uncertainty Prediction in Water Resources
Authors: Boris Faybishenko
The uncertainty in hydrogeological predictions often results from the imprecision, ambiguity, or vagueness of the input data used for characterizing flow and transport processes in heterogeneous subsurface and for constructing detailed models. One of the fundamental limitations of currently used deterministic and stochastic hydrogeological methods to describe subsurface processes is related to their inability to use perception-based information. The application of this information could serve as the basis for a complementary approach: fuzzy-systems modeling for assessing the uncertainty in hydrogeological simulations. Fuzzy-systems modeling does not replace conventional deterministic and stochastic simulation methods, but rather makes more sophisticated use of the information obtained using these methods. Moreover, both deterministic and stochastic analyses of subsurface processes can generally be considered complementary to fuzzy-systems modeling. The fuzzy-logic approach to modeling of a hydrogeological system is based on the assumption of imprecise boundaries between different parts of the media. Parameters such as hydraulic head, water flux, hydraulic conductivity, hydraulic gradient, porosity, and saturation can be represented as fuzzy numbers. The probability distributions of spatial (and/or temporal) variations of these parameters can be used to generate fuzzy membership functions for these parameters. The relationships between fuzzy variables—for instance, hydraulic pressure and water content versus hydraulic pressure—can be described by fuzzy functions. Fuzzy membership functions can also be used to characterize the degree of heterogeneity in a subsurface system. Using the basic concepts of fuzzy systems calculations and fuzzy granulation, a fuzzy form of the water-balance equation for evaluating the distribution of the various components of watershed hydrological balance is developed. Using this equation, examples of the evaluation of evapotranspiration, net infiltration, and groundwater recharge are shown. Using the fuzzy forms of Darcy\'s law and Richards’ equation, examples of water travel-time calculations as a fuzzy variable and a fuzzy water balance for the unsaturated-saturated soil profile are presented. Fuzzy membership functions of different hydrological variables are used to represent the degree of uncertainty in water-balance simulations. This work was partially supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231.

By the way, Ozbek actually works for my old company, ENVIRON, and I asked whether he has been able to apply these techniques in consulting practice and he said there is a lot of interest in ENVIRON's risk assessment practice for applying these ideas. THe next trick for them is convincing the regulators that these techniques are a smart way to go.

I have heard recently of some people actually reading this blog. One cited the entry suggesting that the ACWA make better use of blogs. This entry from last December was the last substantive entry. So perhaps HydroMetrics LLC should make better use of its blog.

Last Thursday, I attended the Bay Area Science Forum with my professor at Stanford, David Freyberg and the director of the Center for Integrated Water Research at UC Santa Cruz, Brent Haddad.

There were a lot of interesting California water issues discussed, but the one I'd like to highlight here is the discussion of convincing the public about the safety of recycled water. Haddad discussed the social psychology of the issue. Even though the water would have been treated to a higher standard than most drinking water supply, San Diego's recycled water plan was doomed by the moniker "toilet to tap," because the human species has evolved to defend itself against a connection between waste and intake. Haddad pointed out that proponents need to frame out the origins of the water in people's minds. He noted that we have no problem sleeping in hotel beds when who knows (actually, I do have a good suspicion) what activity previously happened on those sheets. This is why Orange County can successfully inject treated wastewater into its aquifers for eventual extraction for human use without controversy. Putting the water underground provides a psychological separation that the San Diego plan to return water to its reservoirs did not.

Since we started this company, I have kept our books, done all of the invoices, and paid the bills to keep the business running. We would like to free up more of my time for billable work so we are looking for somebody to take these responsibilities from me on a part time basis. The job description we have put together is below. Please email me at cameron AT HydroMetricsLLC doT com if you are interested.

Summary: Responsible for general bookkeeping activities and practices and provide office support in an efficient and professional manner by performing the following duties.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

1. Maintains an accurate bookkeeping balance and informs management of discrepancies or problems immediately.
2. Reviews related reports and financial statements for discrepancies, resolves and submits to supervisor in a timely manner.
3. Prepares bank deposit slips and post accurately and deposits checks into company accounts.
4. Report payroll and time reporting to payroll service and record payroll.
5. Prepare, record and track invoices to customers.
6. Maintains all related accounting and bookkeeping records and accounting files in a neat and orderly manner.
7. Uses Quickbooks to generate and review related reports and routine financial statements and all needed data entry
8. Records bills and prepares accounts payable checks and credit card payments and mail as assigned.
9. Completes bank reconciliation on a monthly basis.

Non-Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

10. Interacts with all company personnel regarding financial issues.
11. Assists with general client communications and report production activities.
12. Operates standard office equipment efficiently to include:
multi-line telephone, fax, photocopy, calculator, computer and printer
13. Performs other related duties or responsibilities as assigned.

Skills:
Computer Literacy including proficiency in Quickbooks and Microsoft Office suite.
Oral Communication Skills
Written Communication Skills
Math Aptitude
Organization
Professionalism
Reading Skills
Time Management
Filing
Alpha/Numeric Keyboard Skills

Education/Experience:
High School Diploma or Equivalent. Prior bookkeeping or related experience required.

Physical Requirements:

• Normal physical mobility, which includes movement from place to place on the job taking distance and speed into account.
• Normal physical strength to handle routine office materials and tools.
• Normal dexterity of hands and fingers.
• Normal coordination, including eye-hand, hand-foot.
• Normal endurance

We're looking to grow our firm with more staff. We are working to develop a formal job description, but here is a short description:

HydroMetrics LLC, a water resources consulting firm, has immediate openings for hydrogeologists in Oakland, California. Candidates should have at least a Masters Degree in hydrology, hydrogeology, water resources engineering, or related discipline. Five or more years of experience in consulting preferred. Analytical and modeling capabilities are desirable, although not mandatory. Project management experience is also a plus.

HydroMetrics LLC is a small firm that offers water resources consulting services to municipal water agencies, water companies, and private firms. We provide expertise in developing, protecting, and managing groundwater and surface water resources. Interested candidates should contact Derrik Williams at Derrik_AT_HydroMetricsLLC_DOT_com

We're also looking for someone to work part-time to help with our bookkeeping, which would free me up to do more billable work.

I attended an ACWA conference for the first time last week. ACWA is the Association of California Water Agencies. Staff members and board directors of the state's water agencies descended on Indian Wells for programs, training, and networking. HydroMetrics LLC is an associate member of ACWA and it was a good chance for business development.

One of the sessions discussed ACWA's statewide public education program highlighting problems facing California's water supply system. The campaign is called "California's Water: A Crisis We Can't Ignore". The sessions discussed the campaign, the development of ads, the fact that the public funding restricted the campaign to public education and made advocacy for any solution verboten, and its success in making Californians more aware of the problems. Have you seen the television ads? Are you aware of a water crisis that will not be solved simply by wet weather this winter? I was concerned that using the word "crisis" might be overly alarmist, but I agree with the argument that identifying it as a crisis will help us prevent future disaster.

At a followup program, I asked if the campaign targeted the blogosphere (such as the widely read HydroMetrics LLC blog) or social networks (this blog is fed to my facebook page) and the answer was basically no. Jennifer Persike, the director of strategic coordination and public affairs of ACWA, did have some interesting comments about directing all traffic to the website and how the website moved up the Google ranking system as a result. However, it did occur to me that water agencies have many employees that may be part of the blogosphere or social networks and they could use those platforms to educate their readers and friends.

because it's time for Geological Society of America's annual meeting. (what, you thought I was going to say the World Series?) Sunday, I am presenting at a session put together by my former colleague Dr. Michael Fienen called Inverse Methods in Practice: Perspectives and Future Directions. Here is the abstract of my talk. If you are attended the talk, feel free to add comments below and we can get an online discussion about inverse methods going.

Successful and Unsuccessful Applications of Inverse Methods on a Regional Groundwater Model

The authors modified and recalibrated a regional groundwater model for the United Water Conservation District (United) in Ventura County, California with the assistance of inverse methods. United planned to use the model to support the Fox Canyon Groundwater Management Plan. However, the model simulated unrealistically high and increasing groundwater levels in the Forebay and Oxnard Plain subbasins that were important areas for groundwater management alternatives. Previous modeling effort included extensive use of inverse methods to calibrate the model, but failed to improve the calibration. As a result of this failure, United developed skepticism about the utility of inverse methods. The authors focused modeling efforts on evaluating and revising the water balance. Only after the water balance reflected the water level data in the area of concern were inverse methods used to refine the calibration.

The authors evaluated the water balance of the model and determined that several aspects of the water balance needed to be revised. The ocean boundary condition was inactive for some time steps, which prevented outflow of groundwater from the basin. The high volume of recharge in the Oxnard Plain did not match the model geologic structure that simulated this area as confined underneath a low permeability layer. Finally, the stream conductance values for streams in the Forebay were too low to reflect the apparent hydraulic communication between the groundwater basin and the Santa Clara River. The failure to evaluate and revise these aspects of the water balance had doomed previous efforts to use inverse methods as an automatic calibration tool of hydraulic parameters. After the water balance was revised, inverse methods had a chance to succeed.

Inverse methods were useful in this situation to quickly calibrate the model after changes to the water balance. This exemplifies how inverse methods facilitate a redefinition of the classical modeling process. The redefined process allows for more iterative revisions of the conceptual model. This use of inverse methods can improve the development and calibration of models, while the marketing of inverse methods as a technique for fixing flawed or poorly posed models will result in client dissatisfaction.

The water year begins in October. Hopefully, the weather puts the "water" back in water year 2008.

It may not be as exciting as the NBC show, but the Water Savings Heroes campaign by Bay Area water agencies makes the point. I see the posters on BART encouraging water conservation by highlighting what people can do every day to respond to the dry winter, court ordered cutbacks to water imports from the Delta, and climate change. My personal favorite is Jackie Wong (refresh to reload a new image) who turns off water while brushing her teeth. She also saves water by having less teeth to brush. The web site has information on ways to conserve including getting rebates on water efficient toilets and washing machines as well as free plumbing fixtures.

Our client Soquel Creek Water District has an annual contest for water conservation posters amongst 4th and 5th graders. I like "If You’re Brushing, Don’t Keep it Rushing" by Ana Julien, , 4th grade, Mar Vista Elementary. Very catchy.

Calls for conservation remind me of what my dad had us do during the last multi-year drought during the late 1980s and 1980s. We collected shower water and used it to flush toilets. A less extreme version of this is to collect shower water as it warms up and use it to water plants. Have you been doing anything interesting to conserve water this summer? If so, you're my hero.

If I am going to get all these spammy trackback attempts on this blog, I think I better update it more frequently. Here at HydroMetrics LLC, the biggest project accomplishment of the spring was helping the Squaw Valley Public Services District publish the Olympic Valley Groundwater Management Plan. Kudos to Derrik and Dave who did the bulk of the work on the plan. Derrik got a substantial amount of praise from a number of parties, such as Chris Bonds of the state Department of Water Resources "Derrik has done an excellent job of facilitating the meetings, and incorporating GMP requirements and stakeholder concerns into the plan."

For those looking for water news, there doesn't seem to be enough of it. Water, that is. There has been plenty of news with the dry weather, Delta smelt crisis and pump shutdown, and the possible revival of the Peripheral Canal. There could be some big decisions at big money for California voters in the coming year, but in the mean time, all we can do is conserve so don't judge your neighbor for having a browning lawn.

On today's CBS pregame show, Sam Ryan reports on the wet conditions in Miami:

This field can withstand 8-10 inches of rain per hour. That's the equivalent of 102,000 gallons per hour.

Hmm, a football field is 120 by 53 1/3 yards or 360 by 160 feet equaling 57,600 square feet. 8 inches of rain would be a volume of 38,400 cubic feet or 287,270 gallons. Where are NASA sci files' treehouse detectives when you need them?

A couple of other links:

the United Nations Development Programme's Human Development Report 2006 Beyond scarcity: Power, poverty, and the global water crisis

Throughout history water has confronted humanity with some of its greatest challenges. Water is a source of life and a natural resource that sustains our environments and supports livelihoods – but it is also a source of risk and vulnerability. In the early 21st Century, prospects for human development are threatened by a deepening global water crisis. Debunking the myth that the crisis is the result of scarcity, this report argues poverty, power and inequality are at the heart of the problem.

In a world of unprecedented wealth, almost 2 million children die each year for want of a glass of clean water and adequate sanitation. Millions of women and young girls are forced to spend hours collecting and carrying water, restricting their opportunities and their choices. And water-borne infectious diseases are holding back poverty reduction and economic growth in some of the world’s poorest countries.

Beyond the household, competition for water as a productive resource is intensifying. Symptoms of that competition include the collapse of water-based ecological systems, declining river flows and large-scale groundwater depletion. Conflicts over water are intensifying within countries, with the rural poor losing out. The potential for tensions between countries is also growing, though there are large potential human development gains from increased cooperation.

In a related note, sanitation and sewer systems has been voted the greatest medical milestone since 1840.

The football connection? I got these links from Gregg Easterbrook, author of espn.com's Tuesday Morning Quarterback.

After flipping through channels on tv, I ended up watching the end of a kids science show on what I think was Home & Garden TV. The show is called NASA Sci Files series and features the treehouse detectives, reminiscent of 3-2-1 Contact's The Bloodhound Gang from my youth. This particular episode is called The Case of the Wacky Water Cycle. The kids want to have a car wash but their cartoon news source reports falling water levels have led to water restrictions. So the detectives go about learning about the water cycle, groundwater, climatology, dams, desalination, and water conservation (including the suggestion to have the car wash on a lawn so water gets recharged). In the end, they learn that the units on the water measurements weren't converted correctly and there is no problem with water levels after all. This certainly will hurt the credibility of the cartoon news source. I was disappointed in this seemingly silly conclusion, but this sort of thing does happen in practice with questions about reference coordinates and elevations as well as units issues arising frequently.

This month HydroMetrics LLC took a momentous step as we hired Dave Van Brocklin to help us build the business. Dave has a wealth of experience in water resources consulting and groundwater modeling in particular. A professional geologist in California, he has degrees from Ohio State (be nice, Gator fans!) and Michigan State and did graduate work in hydrologic sciences at UC Davis simulating subsurface heterogeneity using indicator statistics. He then spent 8 years at Luhdorff & Scalmanini working on projects such as the Lake Merced/Westside Basin investigations, South East Bay/Niles Cone aquifer test, and Santa Maria Valley groundwater model. We hope to add his info to the Personnel section of our website soon. His first major project at HydroMetrics LLC is the Soquel Creek Water District's annual report.

I met Dave at a FEFLOW workshop last year (he had met Derrik previously) and his expertise in modeling was very impressive. From that expertise, Dave has some strong opinions about modeling and other water resources issues so I hope he shares some of those on this blog.

I attended the GRA San Francisco branch meeting last night. I made our announcement that we are looking to hire (see previous post). It was encouraging because several people came up to talk to me afterwards. Not all were interested in joining us, but both a large and small firm approached to discuss possible teaming arrangements and several classmates whom I had not seen in awhile dropped by to say hello.

The talk was given by Greg Bartow of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. Greg leads the groundwater group at SFPUC and talked about the groundwater projects that are part of the Water System Improvement Program (WSIP) that is funded by a 2002 SF bond measure. A quick list of the groundwater projects:

1. Restore water levels in Lake Merced.
2. Develop 2 MGD of new groundwater supply in North Westside Basin (Sunset district and Golden Gate Park) and move 2 MGD from irrigation to drinking water supply by replacing current groundwater uses in the Park and at the Zoo with recycled water.
3. Develop 7 MGD dry year supply with conjunctive use project in South Westside Basin (northern San Mateo County) . In normal and wet years, Hetch Hetchy water will be provided to municpal pumpers in this part of the basin, which will restore storage in the basin for use in droughts.

These certainly are all worthwhile projects, but the most entertaining aspect of the talk was Greg's tidbit that the penguin habitat at the Zoo had Hetch Hetchy water replaced by groundwater and the penguins prefer the groundwater. I am going to Chile next month where the Magellanic penguins are found so I was intrigued enough to try to figure out why this is so. The answer appears pretty simple as a quick read of the Zoo's webpage shows. It states: "Penguins drink sea water and have a salt excreting gland." The penguins must like the higher mineral content of groundwater. If there was seawater intrusion, the penguins might be really happy. Thankfully for San Francisco's people though, there has not been saltwater intrusion in the Westside Basin and the SFPUC wants to keep it that way. After all, the penguins are not ratepayers.