Civil Systems

Wildfires pose growing threat to drinking water systems

Anonymous — Mon, 03 Oct 2022 22:57:39 +0000

Wildfires pose growing threat to drinking water systems Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 10/03/2022 - 16:57

In this American Society of Civil Engineers article, Assistant Research Professor Brad Wham talks about the steps water utilities can take to protect their infrastructure from wildfires.

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Studying the Marshall Fire recovery to help communities rebuild

Anonymous — Fri, 16 Sep 2022 17:24:06 +0000

Studying the Marshall Fire recovery to help communities rebuild Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 09/16/2022 - 11:24

Jeff Zehnder

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Webinar: Building Capacity for Safe, Disaster-Resilient Housing - Sept. 20

Tuesday, Sept. 20 | 12:00 p.m. | Zoom - Register Now

Safe, disaster-resilient housing is critical to our way of life, prosperity, and sense of security. Yet, many houses remain vulnerable to damage from earthquakes, hurricanes, and other hazards, affecting communities in the near and long term.

In this webinar, Professors Amy Javernick-Will and Abbie Liel will describe findings from research that their team conducted to enhance housing safety in the multi-hazard context of Puerto Rico.

Considering that a large portion of housing stock is built informally, where building codes and regulations may not be followed, they argue that how builders and residents perceive housing safety influences how housing is designed, built, and maintained.

Focusing on one misalignment, the installation of hurricane straps, they will discuss their initial efforts to build capacity in the region by partnering with a community-based organization.

Find out more and register to attend

The Marshall fire screamed across the prairie, exploding into homes with 80 mph winds and destroying entire neighborhoods. It caused over a billion dollars in damage in less than a day and took everything from more than 1,000 homeowners in Superior and Louisville, Colorado, leaving behind little more than ash and concrete foundations.

Nine months have passed since the disaster, and as families work to rebuild, an interdisciplinary team of University of Colorado Boulder researchers has received a major National Science Foundation grant to study long-term community impacts to help improve outcomes from future disasters.

“In this project, we’re really interested in how jurisdictions and homeowners are rebuilding, particularly in light of future risks,” said Amy Javernick-Will, a professor of civil, environmental and architectural engineering and lead investigator on the grant. “There have been other fires in California and Oregon, but the scale of this destruction was pretty dramatic.”

As disasters increase, destroying homes and infrastructure, families and governments have to make decisions on how to rebuild. Those decisions include adoption and enforcement of building codes that can have a long-term influence on community outcomes in resiliency and environmental sustainability. Those codes, however, come with a tradeoff, including potential increased costs and time to rebuild.

It is an obstacle facing one member of the research team first-hand. Matthew Koschmann, an associate professor of communications, owns a rental property in Superior that was destroyed by the fire.

“Do I want to incorporate this new ordinance or opt out? I’m part of these conversations on Slack channels online. Some people are saying we should upgrade our houses to be more fire resilient, that it will help protect the entire neighborhood, but others are saying the added cost to their rebuild is insurmountable,” Koschmann said.

The research is particularly focused on the social aspect of rebuilding: how communities are connecting, influencing each other, and making major decisions about moving forward. A goal of the grant is to provide guidance on the decisions and uncertainties homeowners and governments face during the rebuilding process and identifying the processes and codes that meet collective goals after a disaster.

“In fires, what your neighbors do affects your property,” Javernick-Will said. “This shared action is really important, and we want to uncover this process. Most studies look at just the immediate response, the first couple of weeks. There are far fewer long-term studies.”

Much of the work will be conducted through personal interviews with homeowners, as well as builders, insurance companies, and municipal government officials. Noah Gershon, a civil engineering PhD student, is leading this part of the effort.

“There is a complicated interplay between the different groups,” Gershon said. “We want to study each to see how we can make things better. There’s a perception that after a disaster, everything is taken care of and funding is available for everyone. It’s just not true. Homeowners have to figure out a lot themselves. We want to improve that process.”

A goal of the work is to bridge the gap between engineering and human social interaction to understand the real-world impacts of decision making after disasters.

“There are complex social interactions here. It isn’t just technical scientific stuff. It’s both,” Koschmann said. “There’s a level of stress and tension that’s part of it and dealing with different insurance policies, neighbors, building codes. This isn’t abstract. It has real personal impact.”

In addition to Javernick-Will, Koschmann, and Gershon, the research team also includes Abbie Liel, a professor of civil, environmental and architectural engineering, and Megan Ellery, a civil engineering PhD student.

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Intense heat waves, flooding are battering America’s aging infrastructure

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Sep 2022 20:26:08 +0000

Intense heat waves, flooding are battering America’s aging infrastructure Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 09/07/2022 - 14:26

A heat wave that pushed California’s power grid to the limit and the water system failure in Mississippi are just two examples of how a growing maintenance backlog and increasing climate change are creating a golden age of infrastructure failure. CU engineering expert Paul Chinowsky shares on The Conversation.

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Chinowsky discusses heat-induced rail problems with ABC News

Anonymous — Thu, 14 Jul 2022 19:56:37 +0000

Chinowsky discusses heat-induced rail problems with ABC News Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 07/14/2022 - 13:56

Professor Paul Chinowsky discusses solutions to heat-caused problems with railroads in a new piece by ABC News

The article highlights how heat waves are causing warping on Amtrak rail lines, leading to travel slowdowns.

Chinowsky, an emeritus professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering and director of the Environmental Design Program, is an expert on climate and infrastructure.

Read the full article at ABC News...

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Researchers to explore link between women’s perspectives and resilient housing design

Anonymous — Wed, 27 Apr 2022 17:39:37 +0000

Researchers to explore link between women’s perspectives and resilient housing design Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 04/27/2022 - 11:39

Engineers have studied disaster resilience in housing for decades – exploring and creating better solutions to keep people safe and in place after events like earthquakes with minimal disruption to their daily lives.

New research from CU Boulder aims to take that work further by better incorporating the perspectives and attitudes of those living in impacted homes in that development process. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the project will look specifically at how the inclusion of women’s knowledge, priorities, and perceptions in the decision-making process changes both the policies proposed and ultimately selected, as well as the development of new approaches over time.

Professor Abbie Liel in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering is leading the work. She said she has become increasingly convinced of the vital importance of both engineering better, more resilient housing and the central role women will play in that process.

“In Turkey, I saw seismic safety education programs directed at children and their mothers that were more successful at addressing risks than other programs. And in Oklahoma I saw homeowners – the most visible of whom are women – filing class-action lawsuits about earthquake damage to their homes caused by deep injection of wastewater from oil and gas activities,” Liel said. “So while there has been a lot of progress made in building codes and construction standards, women’s and residents’ knowledge – and their ‘ways of knowing’ – are not well represented in this process and are underserved by our approaches.”

Liel said that while more than half of U.S. households – about 60% among Black households – have female heads, women continue to be underrepresented in the building engineering, architecture, and construction professions, as well as in the development of standards and policies that govern design, construction, permitting, and inspection of homes.

“And despite decades of advances, houses still remain particularly vulnerable to damage from earthquakes, hurricanes, floods and other hazards,” she said. “This idea for this research argues that the problem of underrepresentation of women and women of color in the building industry and the problem of inadequate disaster resilience of housing are indeed linked together closely.”

Liel has conducted extensive structural resilience research in her career. However, this time she is approaching those questions through a diversity, equity and inclusion lens. The goal of this project, she said, would be to use focus groups and other activities to better understand perspectives around seismic upgrades and what makes a home habitable after an earthquake. Ideally, the information gathered could be used to improve building codes or shape construction standards over the next few decades.

“Safe, disaster-resilient housing is critical to our way of life, prosperity and sense of security,” she said. “I am really excited to start this project and see where the research goes with these new perspectives included.”

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Sherri Cook discusses wastewater management with KGNU

Anonymous — Tue, 19 Apr 2022 15:31:15 +0000

Sherri Cook discusses wastewater management with KGNU Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 04/19/2022 - 09:31

Assistant Professor Sherri Cook is featured in a new piece by KGNU radio on "Putting Wastewater to Work in Boulder County."

Cook, an expert in sustainable water design and resource recovery from waste, discusses opportunities for wastewater to benefit humanity.

Listen on KGNU.org...

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Baker discusses electric cars as a power grid backup with Vox

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Mar 2022 20:37:37 +0000

Baker discusses electric cars as a power grid backup with Vox Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 03/10/2022 - 13:37

Assistant Professor Kyri Baker is featured in a new piece by Vox on a California pilot project to use electric cars to back up the power grid.

Baker, whose research focuses on power systems, smart grids, and renewable technology, discusses pluses and pitfalls of the project, which is a joint effort between General Motors and Pacific Gas and Electric.

Read the full piece at Vox...

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Science Friday interviews Abbie Liel on infrastructure resilience

Anonymous — Fri, 25 Feb 2022 22:50:21 +0000

Science Friday interviews Abbie Liel on infrastructure resilience Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 02/25/2022 - 15:50

Professor Abbie Liel was interviewed by Science Friday, a weekly NPR program dedicated to science and technology.

She discusses bridge infrastructure and new ways of building more resilient structures in a segment produced following the recent bridge collapse in Pittsburgh.

Liel's research focuses on ways to make communities safer and more resilient in the face of natural hazards.

Listen to the interview at Science Friday

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What the Marshall Fire can teach us about future climate catastrophes

Anonymous — Tue, 25 Jan 2022 17:17:28 +0000

What the Marshall Fire can teach us about future climate catastrophes Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 01/25/2022 - 10:17

Nearly one month after the Marshall Fire became the most destructive and one of the most unique wildfires in Colorado history, CU Boulder researchers from across campus—many of them personally affected by the fire—have pivoted and applied their expertise to the aftermath, hoping to learn from a tragedy in their own backyard and help prepare the country for the next “climate fire.”

“What makes this fire really unique is that it happened in a community that is full of researchers that study this exact topic,” said Natasha Stavros, director of the Earth Lab Analytics Hub at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at CU Boulder. “We are going to have measurements unlike anywhere else.”

What makes this fire really unique is that it happened in a community that is full of researchers that study this exact topic. We are going to have measurements unlike anywhere else.”
–Natasha Stavros

As a grass-fueled December wildfire in a crowded suburb, the fire was quite different than the state’s massive forest fires of 2020, resulting in many novel impacts on the environment and human health. More than a dozen research projects are already underway, investigating everything from its impact on air and water quality, to the fire speeds that drove it, and how changes in infrastructure and insurance could limit damage from future fires like it. Researchers hope the findings can help inform homeowners, local governments and communities today and shape policies for tomorrow.

“In between all of us, there is so much expertise to address the causes and the impacts of this fire,” said Joost de Gouw, CIRES fellow and professor of chemistry. “If we come together to produce and publish research, we can really change the future of how we think about wildfire.”

Recipe for a winter wildfire

Three ingredients contribute to fire on the landscape: fuel, climate and ignition, said Stavros.

Due to higher-than-normal snowpack levels in late winter of 2021, a wet spring and a rainier than normal July, grasses grew abundantly in the Front Range throughout the year. By the time December rolled around, fuel accumulation was up 60% to 70% compared with a normal year. These plentiful dry grasses, combined with a 3-foot snow deficit and fierce Chinook winds, set the perfect stage that day for a spark to spiral out of control.

Avery Hatch, a CU Boulder doctoral student in environmental engineering, monitors indoor air quality in a spared home after the Marshall wildfire. (Photo by Casey A. Cass/CU Boulder)

Environmental engineering faculty Julie Korak and Cresten Mansfeldt collect water samples. (Credit: Fernando Rosario-Ortiz)

This abundant fuel would not have existed without increases in precipitation and snowmelt in the first half of 2021, followed by a drastic lack of moisture in the second half of the year—both of which point to climate as the driving cause.

“It’s the first time in my career I have felt comfortable saying this is a climate fire,” said Stavros.

Climate change will continue to have a hand in the future of wildfire, increasing the length and intensity of fire seasons as well as changing how, when and where water is distributed, said Stavros.

In addition to analyzing the impacts of fuel growth, researchers in the Earth Lab are also examining the role of another major factor in the Marshall Fiire: speed.

The Marshall Fire only burned 6,000 acres, less than half the size of Colorado’s second most destructive fire in state history, the Black Forest Fire. Yet it tore through twice as much infrastructure, accounting for 39% of all homes lost to wildfire disasters in the state since 1999, according to Maxwell Cook, doctoral student in the Department of Geography and the Earth Lab.

The fire also now ranks in the top 15 most destructive wildfire events in the western United States, only one of two grassland fires in that list.

Cook is currently working with Jennifer Balch, director of the Earth Lab, to conduct research on the factors which make a fire most likely to burn down homes.

So far, their data shows speed matters most. This may seem obvious, but Cook, Balch and their colleagues have developed new data that now allows them to track and quantify that impact.

“The speed of the fire is also really what makes it difficult for emergency management personnel to respond, to get evacuation orders out in time,” said Cook. “Management strategies that are aimed at reducing the speed of wildfires could be critically important for communities.”

This could include creating fire/fuel breaks around suburban neighborhoods and removing vegetation next to homes—strategies already broadly in use in foothills communities around Colorado. Early detection systems and quick emergency responses are also key, especially in densely populated neighborhoods.

The Earth Lab is also involved in helping develop better maps of where homes are at risk of wildfire across the West, which can help communities and insurances companies better plan for and mitigate that risk.

“We may need to think hard about what we define as the wildland urban interface (WUI). There's a lot of flammable landscape and development out there that's maybe not accounted for,” said Cook. “Building smarter, both in terms of where we build and how we build, that's going to be a big thing moving forward.”

Clearing the air

Three weeks after the fire, homeowners and renters who did not lose their residences still face an important unknown: Is it safe to go home?

Buildings were inundated with smoke, full of unhealthy compounds created as the blaze burned paint, fried refrigerators and melted metals in nearby homes. These chemicals, absorbed by surviving structures like a sponge, now pose a previously unquantified problem.

Air quality scientists from CU Boulder, CIRES and NOAA quickly compiled an online resource about the impacts of post-fire smoke cleanup in homes. Led by de Gouw, they next installed instruments in several surviving homes to measure levels of harmful gases and understand the lingering effects of smoke on indoor air quality. Another team of scientists have also been driving through affected neighborhoods with a mobile laboratory to measure what the remains of buildings emit into the immediate atmosphere.

An interdisciplinary team including engineers, social scientists and chemists from across campus will continue to collect data indoors over the coming months to inform residents and local governments and learn more about lingering human health concerns that wildfires in urban areas can present.

Downstream effects

Meanwhile, Fernando Rosario-Ortiz and his colleagues are studying water.

For years, the associate dean for faculty advancement at the College of Engineering and his colleagues in the Environmental Engineering Program have worked to understand the implications of wildfire on water. But they usually study forests.

“Combusting homes is a whole different ball game,” said Rosario-Ortiz.

It’s not just wood that’s burning in a suburban fire: It’s homes, vehicles and all the stuff in them: fabric, plastics, electronics, batteries, you name it. Those remains and the compounds created can find their way into local water systems. When a fire is quickly followed by rain or snow, as was the case with the Marshall Fire, concerns about contamination are even higher, he said.

Julie Korak and Cresten Mansfeldt, assistant professors of environmental engineering, have partnered with colleagues across campus, local community organizations and municipalities, to collect surface water samples in the area, test for concerning chemicals and address questions of watershed safety posed by residents. In the next month or so, the team will have initial results to share with stakeholders.

“Everyone here takes their water very seriously,” said Mansfeldt. “This work provides a first fingerprint of how a fire like this impacts a community, and how we can assist recovery.”

Building back better

Now that we know a fire like this is possible, the big question the Front Range faces is: How do we keep this from happening again?

A first step in answering: To get a comprehensive, birds-eye view of the damage.

Read more

Fire resources

To that end, Brad Wham, assistant research professor in the Center for Infrastructure, Energy and Space Testing, will join a national team of colleagues this week to fly drones over the burn sites before cleanup begins, gathering valuable clues about what happened that day. The work is part of a larger collaborative research effort, supported by the Resilient Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity IRT (RISE) within the College of Engineering and Applied Science, formed in the wake of the fire to connect environmental engineers, social scientists, first responders, and policy experts conducting work on natural disasters.

And once rebuilding begins?

“It is entirely practical to build back better,” said Keith Porter, adjoint professor of civil, architecture and environmental engineering.

Porter explains that using fire resistant materials to build a home doesn’t only make it less likely to burn, but they’re a relatively cheap upgrade (less than $10,000 compared to replacing a home worth $600,000) and due to their longevity, can lead to immense savings over the life of the home.

The International Wildland Urban Interface Code, for example—adopted in parts of Boulder County—requires that fire resistant materials be used in new construction. Porter points out, however, that unless cities and counties mandate this kind of fire code, homebuilders aren’t required to swap wood shingles for a non-combustible roof or to replace vinyl siding with stucco in new developments. When rebuilding, insurance companies may mandate that a house be replaced “like for like,” potentially inhibiting homeowners from replacing flammable building materials with fire resistant ones—even if it could save insurance companies money to let people do so, according to Porter.

As affected residents navigate their insurance policies, find temporary housing in a tight market and try to stay healthy during the omicron surge, fighting for fire resistant materials may not be able to be a top priority. This is why, Porter points out, the real power to protect public safety is not on the individual, but in the hands of local officials.

“Everybody else is affected by somebody else's house burning,” said Porter. “Both in an economic sense and in a moral sense, we really are all in this together.”

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Research In Focus: How Professor Sherri Cook Uses Sustainable Water Treatment Systems

Anonymous — Wed, 01 Dec 2021 23:27:21 +0000

Research In Focus: How Professor Sherri Cook Uses Sustainable Water Treatment Systems Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 12/01/2021 - 16:27

When working with University of Colorado Boulder Assistant Professor Sherri Cook, you'll push beyond the boundaries of what's possible. Watch and learn how she's building a more sustainable future, for everyone, through clean water systems.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0YzzbunfbI]

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