Browsing by Author "Takbiri, Zeinab"
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Item Effective Impervious Area for the City of Minnetonka(Resilient Communities Project (RCP), University of Minnesota, 2013) Fitch, Sarah; Navis, Ryan; Trebesch, Sam; Borden, Stephen; Takbiri, ZeinabThis project was completed as part of the 2012-2013 Resilient Communities Project (rcp.umn.edu) partnership with the City of Minnetonka. The City of Minnetonka was interested in measuring the effective impervious area (EIA) for two key sites in the city to better assess stormwater management and potential flooding. Minnetonka project lead and water resources engineer Liz Stout worked with students in CE 5511: Urban Hydrology and Land Development, to measure the EIA for two sites using two different methods. The students' final report and presentation are available.Item Multi-Satellite Remote Sensing of Land-Atmosphere Interactions: Advanced Data-Driven Methodologies for Passive Microwave Retrievals of Flood and Precipitation(2018-08) Takbiri, ZeinabSatellite Earth observations are increasing at an unprecedented rate, not even conceivable three decades ago, as new satellites have been launched and planned. However, the past quarter-century of outstanding progress in the fundamental technology of remote sensing has not translated into comparable advances in remote sensing of the water cycle. First, this dissertation presents a multi-satellite multi-sensor Bayesian methodology for prognostic detection of two key components in the terrestrial water cycle: (1) the extent of flooded regions at a sub-daily basis, which improves the flood forecasting by identifying the soil saturated zones, and (2) the precipitation phase (rainfall or snowfall). Remote sensing of snowfall is still very new and challenging despite that snowfall accounts for the majority of total precipitation events over mid- to high latitudes and its spatial distribution conditions the snowpack dynamics and hydrological responses. The proposed approach relies on a nearest-neighbor search based on a weighted distance metric and a modern sparsity-promoting inversion method using observations from optical, short-infrared, and microwave bands, thereby allowing the detection under all-sky (clear and cloudy) conditions. Last, this dissertation quantifies the effects of snow cover, particularly the snow depth, on the radiometric signal of snowfall in an attempt to mitigate challenges in passive microwave detection and estimation of snowfall.Item Watertown: New Directions in Building Connectivity Between People and Their River(Resilient Communities Project (RCP), University of Minnesota, 2015) Blomstrand, Garrett; Tomasek, Abigail; Takbiri, Zeinab; Schumann, Jennifer; Tofelde, Stephanie; Schulte, MarkThis project was completed as part of the 2015-2016 Resilient Communities Project (rcp.umn.edu) partnership with Carver County. The Carver County Water Management Organization is investigating the feasibility of removing or restructuring a dam on the Crow River near downtown Watertown. The purpose of the removal/redesign is to improve the fishery in the river, reduce bank erosion, and potentially create an engineered whitewater recreation attraction to boost tourism in the area. The goal of this project was to assess the feasibility and potential impacts of removing the dam. Carver County project lead Paul Moline worked with a team of students in CEGE 8602: Stream Restoration Practice, to assess the potential impacts, benefits, and drawbacks of removing the dam. The students found that while removing the dam would decrease water elevation and impact flow velocity, it would also improve fish passage, better connect residents to the river, and provide safer recreation opportunities. The final report is available.