Sharif Digital Repository

In this study, a coupling of a hydrologic and hydraulic model was utilized to assess the impacts of river geometry data resolution on the flood inundation characteristics in a data-scarce environment. Hydrological modeling incorporates soil conservation service curve-number (SCS-CN) and the geomorphologic based instantaneous unit hydrograph model (GIUH) to compute the direct runoff hydrograph in Kashkan river basin located in western Iran. 1D HEC-Geo-RAS model was used and performed to simulate inundation extent of 100-yr floods (~1800 m3/s) along 40 km reach of Kashkan river with a ground survey of river cross-section (2000 cross-sections, each including 500 data-points). The effect of... 

In this study, an integrated 2D numerical model is applied to investigate the mechanical effects of the vegetation and soil type on slope stability. The developed model can assess the mechanical aspects of vegetation in slope stabilization. For this purpose, a case study of the Kheyrud forest located in northern Iran is considered as a real case site. Different scenarios including; three soil types (fine grain with low-, medium-, and high-strength) and two vegetation types (Maple and Common-ash) are assessed in the stability analysis (based on safety factor). The results confirm that the considered vegetation can prevent shallow landslide occasions, but has a limited impact on deep landslide... 

Quality of Experience (QoE) measures the overall quality of a service from users’ point of view by considering several system, human, and contextual factors. There exist various objective and subjective methods for QoE prediction. Although the subjective approach is more expensive and challenging than the objective approach, QoE’s level can be more accurately determined by a subjective test. This paper investigates various features affecting QoE by proposing a comprehensive subjective evaluation. First, we show that many unconsidered factors can significantly affect QoE. We have generated voice samples featuring different values for novel factors related to the speaker, signal, and network.... 

Accurate mapping of flood risk areas is the basis for providing basic information on flood hazard reduction strategies and facilitates the relocation process. This study compared statistical approaches and multi-criteria-decision-making (MCDM) in flood hazard susceptibility mapping (FHSM). The performance of two statistical methods, the Evidential Belief Function (EBF) and Weight of Evidence (WOE), was compared with the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) as an MCDM technique. Mohammad-Abad catchment, known as one of the flood susceptible areas in northern Iran, was selected as a case study. A 100-year flood event with a peak flow of 85 m3/s, known as... 

This study evaluated the efficiency of different Digital Elevation Models (DEMs), including ALOS-12.5 m, SRTM-30 m, SRTM-90 m, and ASTER-30 m v3 when being applied for the hydraulic simulation of flood inundation areas. HEC-RAS-2D model was employed to simulate inundation extent of a 400-year flood (Mar 17, 2019, with peak discharge ~ 547.92 m3/s) along 70 km reach of low-gradient Gorganrood River, northeastern Iran. Fit percentage indicator (FI) and BIAS percentage indicator (BI) were used to evaluate the results in comparison with the remotely sensed inundated area data. The results revealed that the accuracy and capability of the ALOS and SRTM-30 m were higher in simulation of flood... 

In this paper, employing recorded images of multiple cameras, we propose a novel fast approach for three-dimensional (3D) human pose reconstruction. Opening a new framework to the pose estimation application, the proposed method is inspired by optical 3D reconstruction algorithms conventionally used for integral imaging. Thanks to the fact that the pose estimation can be carried out by using only key features of the raw recorded images, the computation time and the complexity of our method are considerably reduced. Furthermore, utilizing the here proposed algorithm, rapid variations in actions can be easily tracked. The validity of the proposed method is demonstrated by several experimental... 

The aim of this study is to develop a new fuzzy optimization model to find the optimal factor weights of modified DRASTIC index for groundwater vulnerability mapping an urban aquifer to nitrate contamination. Eight factors including water table depth, recharge, aquifer media, soil media, topography, impact of vadose zone, hydraulic conductivity, and land use are considered and rated. A fuzzy linear regression is formulated between the values of eight factors and corresponding nitrate concentration in groundwater. An optimization model based on real code genetic algorithm with objective of minimizing the sum of the fuzzy spread of the regression coefficients is implemented. Aquifer of Mashhad... 

In this study, a review of the overlay/index methods served for delineation of vulnerable zones in coastal aquifers affected by SWI is provided. Then, a more realistic presentation of the vulnerability mapping of coastal aquifers to SWI through modified GALDIT index method by incorporating the influential factors on SWI is established. The modifications on GALDIT method including incorporating the seaward hydraulic gradient (i) instead of the height of groundwater level above sea level (L) (so-called GAiDIT), and considering hydraulic gradient (i) as an additional parameter to the GALDIT (so-called GALDIT-i). Three GALDIT, GAiDIT, and GALDIT-i methods were evaluated with data from three... 

Standard-form contracts facilitate the sophisticated public-private partnership (PPP) procurement process. Special care should be taken during the preparation of these documents since any remaining flaws affect subsequent projects. Reviewing the standard-form contract capabilities after its application help to identify its major flaws and improve the contract clauses. This research proposed a novel structured method to address this need and verified its capability. In the proposed method, a comprehensive list of risks is first created for the PPP projects in the specified project environment. The identified risks are prioritised to highlight the priority of the required adjustments in the... 

The researches on environmental and sustainability are an active topic, especially in the waste management. As such, the hazardous waste optimization is an active research topic in developing countries which may be integrated with carbon emissions and green subjects. This grand challenge motivates the current research to contribute a new multi-objective optimization model to address the green hazardous waste location-routing problem. The proposed multi-objective optimization model establishes four objectives simultaneously for the first time. In addition to the total cost and the greenhouse gas emissions of the transportation systems as the two main objectives, another objective function... 

Lake Urmia (LU) is the second largest hypersaline lake in the world. Lake Urmia's water level has dropped drastically from 1277.85 m to 1270.08 m a.s.l (equal to 7.77 m) during the last 20 years, equivalent to a loss of 70% of the lake area. The likelihood of lake-groundwater connection on the basin-scale is uncertain and understudied because of lack of basic data and precise information required for physically-based modeling. In this study, cross-correlation analysis is applied on a various time-frames of water level of the lake and groundwater levels (2001–2018) recorded in 797 observation wells across 17 adjacent aquifers. This provides insightful information on the lake-groundwater... 

The estimation of long-term groundwater recharge rate (GWr) is a pre-requisite for efficient management of groundwater resources, especially for arid and semi-arid regions. Precise estimation of GWr is probably the most difficult factor of all measurements in the evaluation of GW resources, particularly in semi-arid regions in which the recharge rate is typically small and/or regions with scarce hydrogeological data. The main objective of this study is to find and assess the predicting factors of GWr at an aquifer scale. For this purpose, 325 Iran’s phreatic aquifers (61% of Iran’s aquifers) were selected based on the data availability and the effect of eight predicting factors were assessed... 

The behavior of a cemented gravely sand was studied using triaxial compression tests. Gypsum, Portland cement and lime were used as the cementing agents in sample preparation. The samples with different cement types were compared in equal cement contents. Three cement contents of 1.5%, 3.0% and 4.5% were selected for sample preparation. Drained and undrained triaxial compression tests were conducted in a range of confining pressures from 25 kPa to 500 kPa. Failure modes, shear strength, stress-strain behavior, volume and pore pressure changes were considered. The gypsum cement induced the highest brittleness in soil among three cement types while the Portland cement was found to be the most... 

Lake Urmia is the second-largest hypersaline lake in the world. There has been a drastic water level drop of 7.2 m from 1995 to 2016. Beginning in October 2013, the Lake Urmia Restoration Plan (LURP) launched a 10-year program. An increase in water level and a relative improvement in Lake Urmia condition has been observed since 2017. It is an undecided and controversial issue whether the recent positive trend of Lake Urmia has been due to the LURP activities or it is a natural contribution of climate factors variations. To shed some light on this issue, we examine three other lakes, adjacent to the Lake Urmia basin, with similar rainfall variability to investigate their status during the... 

The major section of the city of Tehran, Iran has been developed on cemented coarse-grained alluvium. This deposit consists of gravely sand to sandy gravel with some cobbles and is dominantly cemented by carbonaceous materials. In order to understand the mechanical behaviour of this soil, a series of undrained triaxial compression tests and unconfined compression tests were performed on uncemented and artificially cemented samples. Portland cement type I was used as the cementation agent for preparing artificially cemented samples. Uncemented samples and lightly cemented samples (1.5% cement) tested at high confining pressure showed contractive behaviour accompanied with positive excess pore... 

Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) play a significant role in hydraulic modeling and flood risk management. This study initially investigated the effect of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) DEM resolutions, ranging from 1 m to 30 m, on flood characteristics, including the inundation area, mean flow depth, and mean flow velocity. Then, the errors of flood characteristics for global DEMs, comprising ALOS (30 m), ASTER (30 m), SRTM (30 m), and TDX (12 m) were quantified using UAV DEM measurements. For these purposes, the HEC-RAS 2D model in steady-state conditions was used to simulate the flood with return periods of 5- to 200 years along 20 km reach of Atrak River located in northeastern Iran.... 

This study investigated the lake–aquifer hydraulic interactions in Lake Urmia (LU) as the second largest hypersaline lake in the world. Due to the scarcity of hydrogeological data required for modelling, a method based on Darcy’s Law and lake water budget was used to quantify the lake–aquifer interaction. Long-term ground- and satellite-based hydrological datasets over the time frame 2001–2019 were used. Results indicate that the groundwater flux between LU and the aquifers controls 18.74 ± 1.67% of the lake’s water storage. While 10 out of 14 adjacent aquifers recharge LU at a rate of less than 180 m3/m.month, one phreatic aquifer recharges the LU up to 1400 m3/m.month. Two aquifers are... 

This study developed a groundwater sustainable management index including components of environmental, social, economic and institutional responsibility. Four significant indicators: integrated groundwater footprint, population density, percentage of groundwater used for agricultural and industrial sectors, and density of observation wells were adopted and executed for 443 of Iran’s aquifers. The results indicated that the groundwater sustainable management for 32% of Iran’s aquifers is poor–very poor, and this index is more sensitive to economic and social indicators. Finally, an inverse correlation was observed between the groundwater sustainable management index values and the coefficient... 

The corrosion behavior of different grades of commercial aluminum such as AA1040, AA5083, AA6060 and AA7075 in ZnO-containing 4 M NaOH has been determined by using open circuit potential-time measurements (OCP), galvanostatic and potentiodynamic polarization and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The results of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive analysis of X-ray (EDAX) reveal that ZnO produces the inhibition effect by the formation of a zinc-containing deposit layer on the surface of aluminum electrodes. Although the influence of zincating on the performance of aluminum alloys and considering the amount of alloying elements such as zinc, magnesium and... 

In this study, Glucoamylase production by Aspergillus niger was investigated under solid state fermentation using low cost by-products of agricultural processes as substrate. Highest enzyme production was observed when a combination of wheat bran (WB) and corn flour (CF) was used as compared to WB+ rice bran, WB+ rice flour and WB alone. Several compositions of corn flours were experimented. The best combination of WB in addition of 10% corn flour resulted maximum enzyme activities. Study of the fermentations in flasks revealed 373.3 IU/gds and 41.4 g/l for the enzyme activity and protein concentration respectively under conditions of 30± 1°C, pH 4.7 and time 96 h. Optimum conditions...