Conference Update

AIH Awards at the AWRA 2023 Annual Water Resources Conference

Dr. Zhong Zhang represented the American Institute of Hydrology (AIH) this year at the Annual AWRA Conference in Raleigh, November 6-8, 2023. The conference included plenary and concurrent sessions featuring dynamic keynote speakers, panel discussions, technical sessions and short workshops. 

During the award ceremony, which took place on November 8th, Dr. Zhang presented three AIH awards for outstanding hydrologists in the areas of groundwater, surface water and Founders Award for Institute Development. The Charles V. Theis award for groundwater was presented to Dr. Ken Howard. The Ray K. Linsley award for surface water was presented to Dr. Jeff McDonnel. The Founders Award for Institute Development was presented to Dr. John Nieber, who was the past AIH President (2019 to 2020). During the award ceremony, Dr. Zhang provided an overview about AIH and presented notes on behalf of the awardees, who could not be present at the conference.


Dr. Zhang also gave a workshop about the Hydrologist-In-Training (HIT) examination to interested attendees. In addition, Dr. Zhang gave a presentation titled “Evaluating Carbon and Nitrogen Discharged from the South Fork of the Iowa River and the Relation of these Discharges to Agricultural Conservation Practices”.

Webinar News

In our last webinar, Dr. Dan Wright described exciting new techniques for climate-informed design rainfall and floods in large river basins. The feedback from that webinar was extremely positive, and we loved the members’ engagement. A few members requested that we go further into the application of such methods; and we listened. On our next webinar, to be held on January 11, 2024 at 9:00 AM PST, we are thrilled to have Greg Karlovits, Acting Chief of the Hydrology and Statistics Division at the USACE Hydrologic Engineering Center (HEC), presenting some new features within the Hydrologic Engineering Center’s Hydrologic Modeling System (HEC-HMS). HEC-HMS was developed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and is largely used by the hydrology community to simulate and model the rainfall-runoff processes in a watershed. One of the new features that will be discussed during the webinar is the capability of implementing storm shifting within HEC-HMS.

We’re committed to providing valuable insights and resources to help you succeed and stay informed. We plan our webinars with our members in mind. In the coming year, we are considering a large list of hot topics in hydrology, including climate change, water quality, sustainability, dam safety, forecast-informed reservoir operations, and much more. If you have any recommendations, or requests, for a future webinar, we would love to hear from you. Please contact Luciana Kindl da Cunha at lcunha@westconsultants.com.

AIH Membership and Certification Database Manager

Membership Services

  • Customer service support and help to AIH members and key stakeholders by answering phones, emails and managing all AIH inquiries.
  • In collaboration with the Executive Director, develop and execute an overall marketing plan for membership recruitment and retention; evaluate for effectiveness.
  • Manage and execute monthly webinars (Zoom), including PowerPoint slides and post-webinar communications.
  • Coordinate AIH Board member attendance at occasional partner conferences
  • In collaboration with the Executive Director, support AIH training and non-conference meetings such as pre-meeting logistics, annual awards preparation, booth materials coordination, and other duties as assigned.
  • Provide governance support for the Board of Directors and Committee meetings, including assembling the final agenda, Zoom support, meeting minutes, calendar and Doodle scheduling, board roster, and annual calendar.
  • Staff liaison to the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee, Webinar Committee, Communications Committee, and Board of Registration.
  • Assist AIH Technical Committees with meeting logistics (Zoom) and SharePoint folders
  • Manage the member life cycle of AIH Certification, Recertification, and recruitment toward certification.
  • Administer multiple choice online exams several times a year for certification, using questions prepared by the Board of Registration.
  • Email membership renewal notices and mail notices annually.
  • Coordinate with Website and Marketing Consultant to publish announcements for awards, calls for nominations, social media, and various AIH announcements.

Certification Database Management

  • Manage all aspects of the Association Management Software, including Certemy and AIH website.
  • Update records and maintain data quality; maintain membership reports (IQAs) and statistics for reporting.
  • Process all payments, including membership renewals, membership recertifications, and Board member expenses.
  • Prepare monthly and quarterly reports for the Board of Directors, CEO, Marketing Consultant, and CFO Services/auditors.

Requirements – The first three points are required

  • Bachelor’s degree – Required
  • Membership Management and Certification Experience – Required
  • Association Management Software Experience – Preferred
  • Certemy Database Preferred
  • Team player

Benefits

  • Virtual position
  • 100% employer-paid health insurance upon start
  • 401K match after two year of service
  • 10 vacation days, accrual of sick days, 11 paid holidays, and paid time off between Christmas and New Years Eve
  • 2 paid time off days for volunteer work of your choice
  • Flexible holiday exchange program

Please send a short cover letter and resume to dresden@awra.org with the subject line: AIH Membership and Website Manager/Director

AIH Examinations – Get Involved

AIH is seeking assistance with examination processes. You can review the scopes for these projects below.

 

Scope of Work to Review AIH Examination Questions

More Information

Need:


The American Institute of Hydrology (AIH) is proposing to hire two or three qualified hydrologists to review a compiled database of exam questions for the AIH certification examinations for professional hydrologists in the disciplines of Water Quality, Surface Water and Groundwater exams and hydrologic technician exam.

Overview:


Currently the board of the examination committee (BOE) maintain four sets of examination database by disciplines with a total of approximately 1,100 questions:

  • Professional Hydrologist – Groundwater (300 questions)
  • Professional Hydrologist – Surface Water (300 questions)
  • Professional Hydrologist – Water Quality (300 questions)
  • Hydrologic Technician (200 questions)

Most of these questions were newly developed by eight hydrologists in 2022. Each question was developed with four multiple-choice answers, where only one is supposed to be correct. However, in order to finalize the exam questions used for the AIH certification examinations, these exam questions need to be reviewed . Here is proposed scope of work for the review:


1- Review the appropriateness of each exam question. Each exam question has four multiple choice answers, one of which is supposed to be the correct one. The reviewer needs to confirm the appropriateness of each questions and answer. If the exam is not appropriate or out of date, these questions need to be removed from the database.
2- Rate the difficulty of each question. Exam questions were rated with three levels of difficulty. These difficulty levels need to be checked and make sure they are correctly rated. If they are not appropriately rated, the reviewer need to correct the level of difficulty.
3- Divide the examination questions under sub-categories. Each question was categorized as one or multiple categories. The review need to check if they are appropriately categorized, otherwise need to be corrected.

 

Deliverables:

Updated database for Water Quality, Surface Water and Groundwater exams and Hydrologic Technician examination questions. Each database needs to include
1- A column note and indicate if the question is valid.
2- A column with update level of difficulty
3- A column with update sub-category
4- A column with any changes made to each question.

Fee:

Each reviewer will be paid $1000 for one set of examination database (SW, GW, WQ, HT) described above. Total budget for the examination question review is $4000.00.

Deadline:

The deadline to respond to this task is August 15, 2023, and finish this task is October 15, 2023.

Scope of Work to Develop a User-Friendly AIH Examination Tool

More Information

Need:

The American Institute of Hydrology (AIH) is proposing to hire an expert to develop a user-friendly examination tool to automatically create required exam questions in the disciplines of Water Quality, Surface Water and Groundwater exams and hydrologic technician exam from current exam question database.

Overview:

Currently the board of the examination committee (BOE) maintain four sets of examination database by disciplines with a total of approximately 1,100 questions:

    • Professional Hydrologist – Groundwater (300 questions)

    • Professional Hydrologist – Surface Water (300 questions)

    • Professional Hydrologist – Water Quality (300 questions)

    • Hydrologic Technician (200 questions)

All of exam questions are multiple choices and currently stored in different sheets in MS Excel files. Each exam database includes three level of difficulties and several categories listed below.

No Category
Surface Water (SW)
1 Watershed and Hydrologic Cycle
2 Precipitation
3 Losses and runoff
4 Hydraulics/Flow/Routing/Storage
5 Prediction/Modeling/Design
6 Peripheral Topics: Climate change and economics, stream restoration, etc.
   
Groundwater (GW)
1 Water budget
2 Site exploration/aquifer properties
3 Groundwater Flow and model simulation
4 Groundwater quality and solute transport
5 Well Hydraulics, well development, testing, maintenance
6 Groundwater recharge, vadose zone, infiltration, MAR, SW/GW interaction
7 Groundwater management, laws, regulations, well head protection, subsidence
8 Peripheral Topics: climate change, economics, water supply, social
   
Water Quality (WQ)
1 Wastewater
2 Environmental
3 Monitoring and Measuring
4 Limnology
5 Aquatic chemistry
6 Microbiology
7 Soils and sediment
8 Source pollution and control/treatment
9 Pollutant fate and transport
10 Peripheral Topics
   
Hydrologic Technician (HT)
1 Data Collection and measurement
2 Information/dissemination/outreach
3 Analysis/records
4 Methods and Instrumentation
5 Database management
6 Gage and other monitoring system
7 Quality assurance/control (QA/QC)
8 Knowledge (hydrologic system)
9 Peripheral Topics

AIH manages following five (5) examinations:

    • Professional Examination in Surface Water

    • Professional Examination in Groundwater

    • Professional Examination in Water Quality

    • Hydrologic In Training (Fundamental)

    • Hydrologic Technician

The AIH examination tool is expected to have following features:

 

    1. A dropdown menu to select what AIH examination questions (SW, GW, WQ, HIT, HT) are created.

    1. Specify percentage questions from each category and level of difficulty under SW, GW, WQ, HT examination database.

    1. Automatically create an AIH exam with 100 questions with correct answers, and

    1. Export an exam into a csv format file.

Deliverables:

A completed and fully tested software package and a user manual (MS word file) documenting how to use the tool.

Fee:

Total budget for the examination tool development and update is $4000.0. $3,000 is used for the tool development and $1,000 will be used for bug fixes and future updates.

Deadline:

The deadline to respond to this task is August 15, 2023, and finish this task is October 15, 2023.

A Climate Condition Analysis Using Palmer Hydrologic Drought Index (PHDI) values

A Climate Condition Analysis Using Palmer Hydrologic Drought Index (PHDI) values

Richard Koehler, PhD, PH, CEO, Visual Data Analytics, LLC  visual.data.analytics@outlook.com

 

Abstract

Drought and climate change are important factors to include in any hydrologic analysis. Current weather-related events in California, such as the extended drought and recent multiple atmospheric rivers, demonstrate how quickly hydrologic conditions can change. A lag(1) autocorrelation analysis of California Climate Division 2 (Sacramento Drainage) using monthly Palmer Hydrologic Drought Index (PHDI) values was conducted to find data ranges, persistence of conditions, along with seasonal and historical drought patterns. Results show distinct conditions within the hydrologic-climatic system which include periods of (a) persistent drought, (b) persistent wet, (c) transition from drought to wet, and (d) transition from wet to drought. Month-to month PHDI changes are quantified using a summation infographic based on the autocorrelation scatterplot.

Key words: PHDI, drought, lag(1) autocorrelation

 

Background

California is divided into seven climate divisions, each with various types of climate indices (Figure 1). For this study, Climate Division 2, Sacramento River drainage (NOAA, 2023a) is used as it contains the Lake Shasta reservoir, an important component of California’s water resources system.

This study examined PHDI information produced by NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI). The NOAA website for drought data states that the PHDI “measures hydrological impacts of drought (e.g., reservoir levels, groundwater levels, etc.) which take longer to develop and longer to recover from. This long-term drought index was developed to quantify these hydrological effects, and it responds more slowly to changing conditions than the Palmer Drought Severity Index” (NOAA, 2023b). Table 1 describes the different PHDI levels (Hayes, 2007) and Figure 2 shows the 1895 to 2023 timeline plot of this monthly data  (NOAA, 2023c).

Some of the most severe drought values have occurred in recent years, with June 2021 through September 2021 all exhibiting PHDI values in the extreme drought range (-5 or more negative).

Figure 1: California Climate Divisions,

Climate Division 2, Sacramento River drainage (source: NOAA).

Table 1: PHDI level descriptions (Hayes, 2007).

Figure 2: California Climate Division 2,  monthly PHDI values, 1895 to 2023 (source: NOAA).

A histogram (Figure 3) shows the number of months for each PDHI value. There is a distinct bimodal distribution, with a total of 804 months of drought conditions (negative PHDI) and 661 months of wet conditions (positive PHDI). The 0 condition (near normal) represents only 15 months, indicating that this rarely occurred.

Figure 3: California Climate Division 2,  PHDI histogram – months per PHDI condition.

Analysis technique

A lag (1) temporal autocorrelation scatterplot was used to examine the PHDI data. Table 2 shows the one-month data shift used to create an x-y system with PHDI at time “t” for the x coordinate,  and PHDI at time “t+1” for the y coordinate.

Table 2: PHDI one-month data shift example.

Results

Extremes can be represented by large positive and large negative monthly PHDI changes, shown in the following tables (Tables 3 and 4).

Table 3: Ranked largest positive monthly PHDI changes, California Climate Division 2.

Table 4: Ranked largest negative monthly PHDI changes, California Climate Division 2.

However, this simple approach provides an incomplete view of how the hydrologic-climatic system operates. A more expansive approach is to graph all monthly changes with a lag(1) autocorrelation scatterplot (Figure 4), where each point represents the monthly PHDI change.

Any point on the dashed diagonal line (y = 1x) indicates no PHDI change from month-to-month. Any point above the diagonal line signifies positive PHDI changes, while any point below the diagonal line signifies negative PHDI changes. Additionally, the overlay shows groups of points that represent four components of the hydrologic-climatic system, (a) persistent drought, (b) persistent wet, (c) transition from drought to wet, and (d) transition from wet to drought. The Table 1 description for “near normal” (-0.49 to +0.49) rarely happened, as the hydrologic system constantly oscillates between persistent drought and persistent wet conditions.

Figure 4: PHDI lag(1) autocorrelation scatterplot with four conditions.

As each point can be identified by month, a breakout of seasonal scatterplots is possible as shown in Figure 5.

Spring and summer have fewer transitions. These two seasons also have less overall scatter, indicating more persistent wet and dry conditions. Interestingly, summer has both the driest and some of the wettest PHDI values. Winter and fall show more randomness, as data points are more scattered. These two seasons also have more transition points. Atmospheric rivers typically occur during winter (NASA 2023) but, with transition points seen in all four seasons, other mechanisms are likely in play.

Figure 5: Seasonal autocorrelation scatterplots, (a) winter, (b) spring, (c) summer, (d) fall.

PHDI values were rounded to the nearest 0.5 to provide a consistent way to compare all month-to-month pairings, allowing for a summation of all changes for the period of record: 1895 to 2023 (Figure 6).

The PHDI value of -3 shows the single greatest range of change, -4 to +2.5 (Figure 6a). This display helps identify the most and least common changes that have taken place. The most common value is the monthly PHDI value of -1.5 followed by -1.5, which occurred 81 times (Figure 6b). Summation values of 1 indicate unusual conditions as these specific monthly changes occurred only once in the 128-year record.

Figure 6: Historical summation of all PHDI monthly changes for California Climate Division 2:

(a) single largest change, (b) most common month-to-month occurrence.

Coordinates for count values are based on categorized PHDI values.

Conclusions

The lag(1) autocorrelation scatterplot provides a basis for additional information about climatic datasets not possible with other methods. The identification of four distinct components of the hydrologic-climatic system provides new opportunities for planning and management activities by water resource organizations. The success of this approach suggests that more research should be directed to looking into mechanisms that enable large PHDI changes.

For more information about the Lag-1 autocorrelation, please read Dr. Koehler’s previous article, titled “The Lag-12 Hydrograph – Alternate Way to Plot Streamflow Time-Series Data”, AIH Bulletin, Fall 2022.

 

References

Hayes, M. J., 2007. Drought Indices.

https://wwa.colorado.edu/sites/default/files/2021-09/IWCS_2007_July_feature.pdf

NOAA, 2023a. Location of US Climate Divisions. https://psl.noaa.gov/data/usclimdivs/data/map.html

NOAA, 2023b. Historical Palmer Drought Indices.

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/historical-palmers/overview

NOAA, 2023c. Climate at a Glance Divisional Time Series. https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/climate-at-a-glance/divisional/time-series/0402/phdi/all/3/1895-2023?base_prd=true&begbaseyear=1901&endbaseyear=2000

NASA, 2023. Atmospheric Rivers

https://ghrc.nsstc.nasa.gov/home/micro-articles/atmospheric-rivers

 

About the author

Dr. Koehler is the CEO of Visual Data Analytics and a certified professional hydrologist with over 40-years’ experience.

Previously he was the National Hydrologic and Geospatial Sciences Training Coordinator for NOAA’s National Weather Service and is a retired NOAA Corps lieutenant commander. Assignments included navigation and operations officer for two NOAA oceanographic research ships, the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center and the Northwest River Forecast Center, where he oversaw the implementation of an operational dynamic wave model for Lower Columbia River stage forecasts. Other positions include Director of Water Resources for an Arizona consulting company and the water resources hydrologist for Cochise County, Arizona.

He is also a member of the science department faculty at Front Range Community College and is instructor for astronomy, geology, geography, GIS and geodesy courses. He is also an FAA certified professional drone operator.

He has a PhD, MS and BS in Watershed Management from the University of Arizona and an additional MS in Hydrographic Sciences from the US Naval Postgraduate School. The focus of his research are alternate methods of analyzing environmental time-series data along with associated data visualizations.

Congratulations to our 2023 AIH Award Winners!

Founder’s Award:

Dr. John Nieber – P.H., P.E., Ph.D

Professor at the University of Minnesota in the Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering

Charles V. Theis Award for Groundwater:

Dr. Ken Howard – PHG, PGeo, FGC, CGeol FGS, PhD.

Professor at the University of Toronto Scarborough in the Department of Physical and Environmental Sciences

Ray K. Linsley Award for Surface Water:

Dr. Jeff McDonnell – P.H., FRSC, Ph.D.

Professor at the University of Saskatchewan in the School of Environment and Sustainability, and Associate Director at the Global Institute for Water Security.

Former AIH Presidents Deliver Keynote Addresses at IWA Conference in Istanbul, Türkiye

Dr. Miguel A. Medina, Jr., PH, F.ASCE (Professor Emeritus, Duke University)

Dr. Mustafa Aral, PH, F.ASCE (Professor Emeritus, Georgia Tech University)

The Republic of Türkiye changed its official name from The Republic of Turkey on 26 May 2022, in a request submitted to the United Nations Secretary-General by the country’s Minister of Foreign Affairs. It was indeed unique that two former American Institute of Hydrology presidents, Dr. Miguel Medina Jr (2009-2010) and Dr. Mustafa Aral (2015-2016) presented keynote addresses in a country far away from the USA! The events unfolded at the International Water Association (IWA) 4thRegional Conference on Diffuse Pollution and Eutrophication (IWA DIPCON 2022) in Istanbul, Türkiye, held at the Istanbul University main campus, from October 24-28, 2022.

Istanbul University, founded 1453.
Dr. Medina illustrating interconnected surface and subsurface hydrologic processes.
Dr. Aral reviewing design concepts and mathematical simulations.
Drs. Aral and Medina enjoying a traditional Turkish meal.
The Bosphorus Straight.

Lunches for conference speakers, organizers and participants were held at the historic and ornate Istanbul University faculty dining room.

A conference welcoming cruise along the Bosphorus proved to be one of the highlights of the conference social activities. The Bosphorus Strait is an internationally significant waterway. It forms part of the continental boundary between Asia and Europe. However, there are now three bridges and a tunnel connecting the European side of Istanbul to the Asian side. A brand-new cruise ship terminal (Galataport) is illustrated below. The Bosphorus allows shipping from the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara and vice versa. A field trip to dams and aqueducts providing water to European Istanbul was organized on the last day of the conference, October 28th.

A view of Galataport from the cruise ship.

Congratulations to AIH Hard Studiers!

Congratulations to those who recently passed their examination offered by the American Institute of Hydrology!

  • Arielle Gervasi – Fundamentals Part 1
  • Kaitlyn Chow – Part 2 SW
  • Ryan Edglely – Part 2 SW
  • Andrew Daus – Part 2 SW
  • Ryan Gilliom – Part 2 SW
  • Beau Downing – Part 2 SW

AIH Call For Articles | Winter 2022 Edition

The next issue of the AIH Bulletin is scheduled to be published in the Winter of 2022, for which the editorial team invites contributions from members.

Original articles on any aspect of hydrology (e.g., administrative, technical, socioeconomic) will be considered for publication. It is not required that the article be based on academic or scientific work; however, it should not be published elsewhere. Book reviews may also be submitted under this category.

  • Please provide an unformatted word document of your story without embedded images. You can signify where you’d like a submitted image using brackets.
  • Images you wish to be included with your article must not be embedded in the Word document; send them separately and labeled with names corresponding to where you’d like them used in the Word document.
  • Articles must have a brief title and a byline.
  • Authors must have the full name, title and agency or association. 
  • Supply a high-resolution head-shot of the author.
  • Article length must be between 500 – 1000 words.
  • Please include an “About the Author” post script, to provide our audience with the context of your perspectives. Include how you would like your name and title to be presented.
  • Avoid using too many bulleted lists, diagrams or graphs in your article.

Beside original articles, members may also submit leads to items of interest to the hydrologists’ community. Such items may include news related to the field of hydrology, conferences, new publications, etc.

If you are interested in contributing, please send articles or other items of interest via the Dropbox link below by October 25, 2022. Please ensure submissions are identified properly (example: TitleofArticle-FirstLastName.doc) and that supporting graphics/images are of the highest possible quality and attached, not embedded in the word document. Be sure to include your contact information within your submission as well.

Submit An Article Today

Should you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact our office at admin@aihydrology.org.