Abstract:
In this presentation, we will consider the importance of scale effects in urban hydrology through the lens of green infrastructure (GI) planning at the watershed scale. We will explore the complex decisions involved in large-scale GI siting through a set of stakeholder-based case studies and optimization frameworks in Houston, TX, USA. We will look at a theoretical timescale regime framework, which describes how the spatial placement of GI influences catchment response within a narrow band of interacting timescales (e.g., storm duration, network travel time, GI storage time). The applicability of this framework is assessed using high-resolution, semi-distributed modelling to explore the effects of climate and landscape timescales on GI performance. We explore the robustness of the scaling theory under variable storm conditions with heterogeneous urban landscape and different GI siting combinations, which underscores the governing space-time dynamics associated with GI mitigation in real-world applications.
Bio:
Cyndi is a hydrologist whose research focuses on convergent human-water systems across scales, with a main emphasis on understanding societal vulnerability and adaptive capacity to hydro-meteorological extremes. She is a postdoctoral fellow in the Research Applications Laboratory at the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research. Her former postdoc was in the UIUC CEE-WRES Lab where she studied the role of green infrastructure in urban watersheds. Cyndi is a graduate of Texas A&M University, University of Texas Austin, and University of Houston where she majored in civil engineering. Between degrees, Cyndi worked as a professional civil engineer at AECOM, Quiddity Engineering, and the City of Houston on numerous water resources projects where she specialized in riverine geomorphology, low-impact development, and hydrologic/hydraulic modeling. Her ongoing research explores human decision-making; stakeholder partnerships; socio-environmental justice; geospatial analysis; water systems modeling; hurricane forecasting; and reservoir operations.
