March 20, 2017

Regional precipitation analysis with Python

March 20, 2017/ Saul Montoya

We want to analyze average annual precipitation data on a regional scale for the North of Peru. The dataset has 20 stations from the Peruvian desert coast, Andes and rainforest with differences in elevation and precipitation rates.

The main objective is to analyze precipitation patterns and trends by plotting them in different ways using Python.

For this task we use IPython Notebook, which you can install on your own computer or run it on the cloud from wakari.io. You can download the station data for this exercise here

March 20, 2017

Tailing and waste dump seepage evaluation and remediation

March 20, 2017/ Saul Montoya

Current and historical mining activities have a seepage and waste-dumps legacy that are the concern for mining companies, population and regulatory authorities.

Old waste-dumps have not been regulated and most of the old tailings have been deposited in soils without covering. Tailing deposits and waste-dumps should be analyzed in a particular way because of the ground, instalation details, mineralized body geology, mined type, weather and other parameters.

Recent mining activities count with major engineering in waste-dumps and tailing deposit instalations, as well as better monitoring evaluation seepage. However, there is still a seepage risk coming from old and new waste-dumps and their transport constituties a potential environmental issue.

March 20, 2017

Questions on MODFLOW with Model Muse

March 20, 2017/ Saul Montoya

Some questions from a follower:

Thanks for agreeing to help. I developed a simple mode just to check if it works. But I get this error (attached). There are NO streams in my study area so do I still need to give my model a input for drainage package? I wanted to go around it but I could not proceed, therefore I created streams as drainage lines from DEM.

March 17, 2017

Design and implementation of groundwater monitoring systems

March 17, 2017/ Saul Montoya

A monitoring network is a system where the level and quality records that the groundwater describes are generated, become available and are evaluated. These records are consistent, representative and long lasting.

March 17, 2017

Environmental flow determination by hidrological modeling

March 17, 2017/ Saul Montoya

The world water legislation has a common challenge: distribute fresh water resources in a fair, efficient and sustainable way. Traditionally, agriculture, industry, mining and municipalities have competed for these limited resources.

March 17, 2017

Climate change impact on watershed response

March 17, 2017/ Saul Montoya

Mathematical models of global climate can reproduce many aspects of the physical climate system. General Circulation Models (GCMs) simulate physical processes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere, and on land surface. Predictive scenarios on climate change will be applied to selected GCM models and their output will be used on the PRMS hydrologic simulations.

March 17, 2017

Development of a watershed-based water balance

March 17, 2017/ Saul Montoya

Water balance is known as the balance of water entering the system and the water that leaves within a specified time, but to understand it better we need to understand: what is a watershed? Unterstood as a whole, a unity, as a system, as the space bounded by the union of all the headers that form the main river through the territory drained by a single natural drainage system.

March 17, 2017

Case studies of watershed-based water balance

March 17, 2017/ Saul Montoya

A watershed can be defined as “the topographic area within which apparent surface water runoff drains to a specific point on a stream or to a waterbody such as a lake” (Shimon, 2010), this way a watershed works as a large water collector converting water inputs into runoff and water storage (Chavarri, 2012). Knowing watershed´s hydrological characteristics (precipitation, runoff, evapotranspiration, and groundwater infiltration) allows to evaluate spatial and temporal water resources availability, it is useful for water resources allocation and flow control. Water balance is a tool that allows knowing basin characteristics by application of the mass conservation principle or continuity equation (Rose, 2004; Essam, 2007), according to rhis principle, any difference between inputs and outputs must be reflected in a change in the storage of water within the budget area (UNESCO, 1988; Shimon, 2010).

March 17, 2017

Why consultants, mines and organizations should migrate to QGIS?

March 17, 2017/ Saul Montoya

This question has been popular for the last three or four years. I have been using Quantum GIS (QGIS) from version 0.8, and now QGIS is on version 2.4.

March 17, 2017

How to apply styles to rasters in GIS?

March 17, 2017/ Saul Montoya

Tutorial about how to apply styles in QGIS.

March 17, 2017

Tutorial to do a cross section with QGIS

March 17, 2017/ Saul Montoya

Simple tutorial about cross seccions with the Profile Tool plugin on QGIS.

March 17, 2017

Some questions of data visualization in Model Muse

March 17, 2017/ Saul Montoya

Hi Saul, I am Giuseppe and I watched your lessons on ModelMuse on YouTube. I’m trying to learn how to use that software, maybe you can help me if you have time.

March 17, 2017

Installation Guide for OpenFoam 2.3.0 on Ubuntu 14.04

March 17, 2017/ Saul Montoya

Installation Guide for OpenFoam 2.3.0 on Ubuntu 14.04

March 17, 2017

MOD16 for actual evapotranspiration measurement

March 17, 2017/ Saul Montoya

This project is part of NASA/EOS project to estimate global terrestrial evapotranspiration from earth land surface by using satellite remote sensing data. MOD16 global evapotranspiration product can be used to calculate regional water and energy balance, soil water status; hence, it provides key information for water resource management.

March 17, 2017

Feflow or Modflow? A recurrent question

March 17, 2017/ Saul Montoya

Once again I had a crush with the question whether Feflow or Modflow. I think this question is related to how bad are we selling environmental services and environmental software.

It is a matter of faith

March 17, 2017

Seepage flow modeling from mine waste dump with MODFLOW

March 17, 2017/ Saul Montoya

Exercise developed and modified by Karen Martinez, Sandra Teruya and Saul Montoya

This example is a simulation of a mining dump which is a continuous source of concentrated leachate.

March 17, 2017

Statistical analysis of precipitation data with Python 3 - Tutorial

March 17, 2017/ Saul Montoya

This tutorial is intended to be a basic reference in Python programming for water resources professionals. The script covers many steps on the data management, representation and analysis with the most common Python commands and libraries. It is encouraged to review first all the described steps with the provided input data and then apply to the user own hydrological data. The same analysis will be ported to Julia on future tutorials to have a overview of the similarities / differences between programming in Python or Julia for hydrological data.

March 17, 2017

10 reasons why a hydrogeologist should know MODFLOW

March 17, 2017/ Saul Montoya

Numerical modeling has become an important part on most hydrogeological investigations. We can even say that the use of numerical models is on “fashion” in decision making processes about groundwater resources.
Numerical models are mathematical interpretations of nature and groundwater flow. They can have limitations, but still they are the best tools available for the understanding of current groundwater flow conditions and the simulation of predictive scenarios on groundwater resources.
This post shows the 10 most important reasons why a common hydrogeologist should know MODFLOW. Reasons are classified among scientific, professional and others.

March 17, 2017

Calibration of groundwater flow models in mining

March 17, 2017/ Saul Montoya

Calibration of groundwater flow models in mining

March 17, 2017

Soil cover system design for mine waste dumps

March 17, 2017/ Saul Montoya

Surface water and groundwater surrounding a mining operation can be significantly affected by contaminated seepage from the Acid Rock Drainage (ARD) in waste-dumps and tailing deposits. An evaluation for prevention and mitigation of environmental impacts generated by the DAR is necessary to minimize impact to the environment.