Designing Under Uncertainty When We Can Reduce Uncertainty: When is Another Observation Worth the Cost?
A method is presented that optimizes the selection of sites for observation of an uncertain parameter when that parameter is used in the risk-based design of an engineered system. The...
Water and Wildlife Enhancement with Land Retirement
This case analysis compares costs of land retirement and current on-going structural improvements for salinity reduction in the Colorado River. Results suggest land retirement programs...
The Economic Cost of Stocking Catchable Rainbow Trout
States annually stock about 20 million pounds of catchable trout in public waters. Complete information on cost is essential to help wildlife agencies make operating and planning decisions....
Activity Based Costing in Water Resources Management
This paper examines the relatively new accounting tool, Activity Based Costing (ABC), and describes its potential application in water resources planning, management, and operations. The...
Development of Missouri River Navigation Analysis
The navigation analysis for the Master Manual review examined mainstem reservoir regulation alternatives by evaluating the benefits of reservoir releases for barge transportation. Navigation...
Lesson Learned form Implementing M&I Optimal Water Delivery
Few municipal water delivery systems are truly optimized to deliver a quantity of water at the least cost. Both the University of Kentucky and Memphis State University have attempted to...
Setting Competitive Water Reuse Rates
Palm Beach County Water Utilities Department (WUD) is preparing to provide reclaimed water service to several large irrigators near the County's Southern Region Wastewater Treatment Plant...
WATSUP: A Simulation Model for Water Supply Cost and Reliability
WATSUP (Water Supply) is a computer model developed to provide a prototype modeling tool for planners to estimate the costs and reliability of urban water supply systems on a regional...
Opportunities, Constraints and Change in Reservoir Management
Changing hydrologic, economic, social and environmental conditions have focused attention on the opportunities for changing reservoir management. Such change can occur in three areas....
Flood Control vs. Flood Management
For the last 130 years, flood policy in the U.S. has been dominated by the belief that floods can be controlled by structural methods, such as levees, dikes and embankments. These efforts...
How Many Observation Wells Does it Take to Find a Groundwater Contamination Plume?
A Bayesian data worth framework is developed to balance the benefits and costs of data collection. In addition to Bayesian decision analysis, tools from Monte Carlo simulation, numerical...
Construction Expertise Transfer with Knowledge Based Systems
The experience held by a cost estimating engineer is a valuable asset in every construction company. For a reliable cost estimation at the conceptual stage of a building project, the missing...
The Design of a Proactive Cost Feedback System for Construction Project Management
Cost projection in project management requires the adjustment of historical costs to reflect the expected context. Improved cost projections require the incorporation of all relevant contextual...
Refinement of Cost Estimates with Artificial Neural Nets
An estimate should be refined for undefined items. Usually, contingency is added to cover any inadequacies in estimate basis definition and inadequacies in estimating methods and data....
Application of Pen Computing to Construction Inspection
This paper discusses one customized inspection software package which runs on a pen computer. This program provides a format that assures a fast and accurate inspection process....
Interactive Cost Estimating During Design
This paper describes a model, called the Automated Interactive Cost Estimating System (AICES), which gives users access to reinforced concrete cost information that is sensitive to variations...
Influence of Spatially Random Soil Stiffness on Foundation Settlements
The effect of stochastic soil stiffness on the total settlement under the corner of a uniformly loaded flexible strip footing has been studied. The generated Young's modulus random fields...
Application of the Phase Change Process to One-Dimensinal Consolidation Behavior of Peat
In this study, based on the fact that the pore of fibrous peat consists of the macro (outer) pore between organic matters and the micro (inner) pore inside organic matter, an approximate...
Clarifier Enhancements Yield Excellent Performance
The critical role of final clarifiers in meeting effluent permit requirements in indisputable. Poor performance of the final clarification step may adversely affect effluent quality. Experience...
Optimization Studies of Anaerobic Expanded Bed Reactor Pretreatment of Domestic Wastewater
In recent years the advent of the anaerobic expanded bed reactor (AEBR) has made possible the treatment of wastewaters of comparatively lower strength than have traditionally been treated...
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