Roads are the backbone for social, economic, industrial and cultural development of a country. Road infrastructure plays a major role in the economic growth of a developing country like India and every year a lion’s share of budget is... more
Roads are the backbone for social, economic, industrial and cultural development of a country. Road infrastructure plays a major role in the economic growth of a developing country like India and every year a lion’s share of budget is allocated for the transport sector. Due to budget constraints, many highway agencies are becoming interested in pavement preservation or rehabilitation to ensure the sustainability pavement in serviceable condition. Whitetopping is a relatively new rehabilitation technology for deteriorated asphalt pavement in India. Over the past two decades, whitetopping has gained considerable interest and great acceptance as an alternative to hot mix asphalt overlay (ACPA, 2004). Conventional whitetopping is the process of rehabilitating distressed hot mix asphalt pavements by using more than 200 mm thick cement concrete overlay. It can be applied where rutting of bituminous pavement is a recurring problem. This paper presents the conventional whitetopping as a cost effective technique using the life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) by comparing it with other types of pavements to Indian scenario.
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ABSTRACT In the recent past, researchers and investigators in Civil Engineering have increasingly used soft computing tools to yield better results than the traditional numerical and statistical techniques in modelling water flows.... more
ABSTRACT In the recent past, researchers and investigators in Civil Engineering have increasingly used soft computing tools to yield better results than the traditional numerical and statistical techniques in modelling water flows. Artificial Neural Network (ANN) is one such technique which has attained a strong foothold in the field of Hydrology and Ocean Engineering particularly for forecasting stream flows, wave forecasting, water level forecasting etc. In the last few years another efficient and useful soft computing tool, `Genetic Programming' (GP) has caught attention of the researchers for ocean engineering computations. GP is found to be a promising tool for prediction of oceanic parameters. This paper outlines the basic principles of GP Modelling and makes an attempt to estimate an important oceanic parameter - Significant Wave Height (SWH) using the wind information. Wave and wind measurements taken by moored ocean buoys are used to develop the GP models. The GP based estimations are found to have a reasonable accuracy in estimation of significant wave heights as evident from wave plots and accompanying high values of correlation coefficient.
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Air quality planning and management requires accurate and consistent records of the air quality parameters. Limited number of monitoring stations and inconsistent measurements of the air quality parameters is a very serious problem in... more
Air quality planning and management requires accurate and consistent records of the air quality parameters. Limited number of monitoring stations and inconsistent measurements of the air quality parameters is a very serious problem in many parts of India. It becomes difficult for the authorities to plan proactive measures with such a limited data. Estimation models can be developed using soft computing techniques considering the physics behind pollution dispersion as they can work very well with limited data. They are more realistic and can present the complete picture about the air quality. In the present case study spatio-temporal models using Linear Genetic Programming (LGP) have been developed for estimation of air quality parameters. The air quality data from four monitoring stations of an Indian city has been used and LGP models have been developed to estimate pollutant concentration of the fifth station. Three types of models are developed. In the first type, models are devel...
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India has one of the largest highway and road networks on the planet, third only to the road network of the United States and China. The road network has expanded from 0.4 million km in 1951 to about 3.32 million kilometers presently, a... more
India has one of the largest highway and road networks on the planet, third only to the road network of the United States and China. The road network has expanded from 0.4 million km in 1951 to about 3.32 million kilometers presently, a sevenfold increase, but traffic has increased 120 times (Department of Road Transport and Highways, Govt. of India). This leads to the deterioration of the surface of the asphalt pavements and a need to rehabilitate them before further damage could occur. Since the use of a concrete overlay, called as whitetopping, is a relatively new concept in Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA) pavement rehabilitation in India, there is a need to evaluate its performance for Indian traffic and climatic conditions by conducting Falling Weight Deflectometer (FWD) and Benkelman Beam Deflection (BBD) test on conventional whitetopping overlays constructed in Pune city (India). This paper presents the linear, exponential and logarithmic relationship between Benkelman Beam and FWD def...
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Water quality analysis involves analysis of physio-chemical, biological and microbiological parameters that reflect the abiotic and biotic status of ecosystems. This assessment facilitates planning for the utilization, antipollution and... more
Water quality analysis involves analysis of physio-chemical, biological and microbiological parameters that reflect the abiotic and biotic status of ecosystems. This assessment facilitates planning for the utilization, antipollution and conservation strategies for sustainable use of aquatic ecosystem. Many mathematical models are available for predicting water quality. They have complex structures and require detailed information about sources and receptors, which are difficult and non-economical. Difficulties in applying mathematical models promote the application of alternative approaches for data-driven techniques for analysis of the results. The present study focuses on water quality predictions for the Gangapur Reservoir for a 30 days in advance scenario, using genetic programming (GP) and least square support vector machines (LS-SVMs). A data period of 11 years (2000–2011) of Gangapur Reservoir temporal water quality was evaluated. The data were taken from a single sampling point representing climatological, hydrological and surface water quality measurements. One of the most important steps in application of data-driven technique is selection of significant input parameters. Genetic programming equations were used for selecting significant input parameters. These significant input parameters are used for 30 days advance predictions of faecal coliform. A performance analysis of GP and LS-SVM models was carried out with the help of coefficient of determination, root-mean-square error and correlation coefficient. In the absence of availability of data, a typical situation for Indian case studies, the model runs were conducted with the use of available parameters. The developed models, along with their performance indicators, also are discussed.
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Ocean waves generated by extreme events such as hurricanes have devastating effects on the ships and marine structures. Safety of maritime activities relies heavily on the knowledge of wave parameters. Therefore researchers have been... more
Ocean waves generated by extreme events such as hurricanes have devastating effects on the ships and marine structures. Safety of maritime activities relies heavily on the knowledge of wave parameters. Therefore researchers have been using various techniques to predict Significant Wave Heights (Hs) as accurately as possible. This paper describes the work of Hs forecasting with focus on the peak wave height predictions at two stations (which are frequently hit by hurricanes) near the US coastline. Hs are predicted with lead times of 12 to 48 h using soft computing techniques of Genetic Programming and Artificial Neural Networks. The innovation in this work is the data selection. Data with high kurtosis for Hs (indicating more peakedness) are selected. Models using current and previous components of shear wind velocity and the wind directions as inputs yielded better predictions. The qualitative and quantitative analyses indicate that the peak waves are predicted satisfactorily. GP pe...
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Sustainable and integrated water resource management needs an hour, and achieving accurate estimation of runoff is key. The decision-making on urban landscaping planning for low-impact development techniques depends largely on the... more
Sustainable and integrated water resource management needs an hour, and achieving accurate estimation of runoff is key. The decision-making on urban landscaping planning for low-impact development techniques depends largely on the accuracy of rainfall. The haphazardly developed cities in India are encountering flooding crises due to the unexpected expansion. These mixed urban catchments comprise a muddle of residential, commercial, urban-rural, and industrial zones in any combination. Due to this change in urban catchments, the hydrological cycle gets affected and results in elevated runoff volume. The solutions to these are therefore necessary to be planned at a micro catchment level. This paper aims to explore an approach to calculate the runoff of such a micro mixed urban catchment. The geographical scope of this study is the fringe boundary of Pune city. For this ungauged basin, the basic mass balance equation was used to estimate runoff values compared with the runoff values ca...
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The recent trend in coastal research centers around environmental sustainability, especially in coastal conservation. A seawall typically has three layers, namely core, filter, and hard rubble/concrete armor. In the current study, a... more
The recent trend in coastal research centers around environmental sustainability, especially in coastal conservation. A seawall typically has three layers, namely core, filter, and hard rubble/concrete armor. In the current study, a two-layered seawall is proposed, comprising a coir geotextile roll from the coastal regions, along with sand encapsulated in a geotextile over an impermeable core. This can be considered as a quasi-soft solution against the traditional, three-layered, hard alternative. The objective of this study is to investigate the combined effect of slope and porosity, of this composite structure, on the wave reflection. The findings show that the composite structure provides less reflection coefficient values compared to traditional rubble mound seawalls. Four orientations and positions of coir rolls with geosynthetic sandbag were tested. The armor layer with coir rolls overlain by geosynthetic sandbags over an impermeable core could be a better alternative, as it i...
Research Interests: Geotechnical Engineering, Geotextile, Dissipation, Armour, Breakwater, and 3 moreSeawall, Riprap, and Rubble
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Constructed wetland (CW) has gained popularity as an eco‐friendly technology for ease of operation and maintenance. This article critically reviews and summarizes the research carried out to date on several approaches for integration of... more
Constructed wetland (CW) has gained popularity as an eco‐friendly technology for ease of operation and maintenance. This article critically reviews and summarizes the research carried out to date on several approaches for integration of CW with other methods of treatment, exploring several novel modes of operation and factors, to improve the remediation capacity of the CW system. The study shows that the use of different modes of aeration, recirculation of the effluent, hydraulic retention time, and organic loading rate not only improves the removal efficiency of the treatment system but also helps in reducing the surface area required for the system in the treatment of emerging contaminants. The integrated approach analysis gives an insight into the different technologies, which can be coupled with CW for fast, sustainable, and eco‐efficient treatment systems for different types of wastewater. Anaerobic technologies and microbial fuel cell (MFC) have the added advantage of energy g...
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Background: Recent developments in optical satellite remote sensing have led to a new era in the detection of surface water with its changing dynamics. This study presents the creation of surface water inventory for a part of Pune... more
Background: Recent developments in optical satellite remote sensing have led to a new era in the detection of surface water with its changing dynamics. This study presents the creation of surface water inventory for a part of Pune district (an administrative area), in India using the Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) and a multi spectral water indices method. Methods: A total of 13 Landsat 8 OLI cloud free images were analyzed for surface water detection. Modified Normalized Difference Water Index (MNDWI) spectral index method was employed to enhance the water pixels in the image. Water and non-water areas in the map were discriminated using the threshold slicing method with a trial and error approach. The accuracy analysis based on kappa coefficient and percentage of the correctly classified pixels was presented by comparing MNDWI maps with corresponding Joint Research Centre (JRC) Global Surface Water Explorer (GSWE) images. The changes in the surface area of eight freshwate...
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Abstract Phosphorous (P) has been a component causing eutrophication of the water bodies. Adsorption has been broadly acknowledged as one of the best techniques for phosphate elimination and retrieval. Commonly used materials for... more
Abstract Phosphorous (P) has been a component causing eutrophication of the water bodies. Adsorption has been broadly acknowledged as one of the best techniques for phosphate elimination and retrieval. Commonly used materials for adsorption of P have shown low removal capacity, creating the need to explore more efficient adsorbents. The present work aims to discuss recent developments and application of varied materials for adsorption of P. These materials (natural, artificial, and waste materials) have shown removal efficiencies ranging from 33% to 99.9% for P sorption. Some materials have shown adsorption greater than 90% like 99.9% (Zirconium-pillared bentonite clay), 96% (Iron scraps), 99% (Thermally treated Opoka), 90% (Biomass bottom ash), and 96.2% (Salted duck eggshells. The feasibility of recovery of P from saturated materials has been discussed along with the possibility of reuse of adsorbents after desorption, for alignment with the circular economy. Graphical Abstract
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Research related to phosphorus (P) removal in domestic wastewater treatment has increased manifolds due to stress on freshwater resources globally. Constructed Wetlands (CWs) have gained popularity as an innovative, sustainable, and... more
Research related to phosphorus (P) removal in domestic wastewater treatment has increased manifolds due to stress on freshwater resources globally. Constructed Wetlands (CWs) have gained popularity as an innovative, sustainable, and cost-effective technology in this direction. This review summarizes the various patenting patterns and innovations related to the application of CWs for the removal of P from domestic wastewater. For this purpose, the Relecura patent database has been used. The patent landscape has been analyzed based on application volume, patent geographical details, application organization, main technologies, keywords, concepts, assignees, code analysis, and citation analysis. The results indicate that a total of 115 patents have been filed in this field of research, out of which 76 are patent applications and 39 granted patents which indicates a tough examination cycle and a limited rate of the grant of patent applications. China is leading with a total patent count of 105 and also in terms of citations, inventors, and assignees. Based on citations most of the patents are related to efficient sewage treatment systems by incorporation of solar heating, immobilized bed, moving bed, double layer wetland system, and composite filling material systems. The study cogitates about inventions and utility model patents related to different configurations and types of artificial wetlands employing natural, waste, and synthesized material adsorbents. Synthesized adsorbents utilizing low-cost materials to improve P adsorption have been shown to have an added economic and environmental advantage of extending the filler replacement cycle and minimization of secondary pollution.
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The major objectives of storm water management include protecting the environment; minimize the event of flooding and supporting healthy streams which result in healthier and more sustainable communities. Effective storm water management... more
The major objectives of storm water management include protecting the environment; minimize the event of flooding and supporting healthy streams which result in healthier and more sustainable communities. Effective storm water management gives ecological, social, and financial advantages to the community. The present study focuses on optimization of storm water collection system by application of proper routing algorithm. The main aim of the present study is to minimize the total cost associated with construction of storm water drains without compromising its discharge carrying capability. In this study a meta-heuristic approach based on Ant Colony System is used to optimize the multi-objective problem of storm-water drainage system. An illustrative example inspired from real life storm-water management problem has also been solved. The problem has been solved by varying the weightages of the heuristic values for drainage length and slope. The findings indicate that present approach...
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The wastewater treatment industry is constantly evolving to abate emerging contaminants and to meet stringent legislative requirements. The existing technologies need to be modified, or new innovative treatment techniques need to be... more
The wastewater treatment industry is constantly evolving to abate emerging contaminants and to meet stringent legislative requirements. The existing technologies need to be modified, or new innovative treatment techniques need to be developed to ensure environmental protection and secure sustainability in the future. Emphasis is mainly on nutrient recovery, energy‐efficient systems, zero waste generation, and environmentally friendly techniques. Constructed wetlands (CWs) have evolved as natural, eco‐friendly, economical, and low‐maintenance alternatives for wastewater remediation. These wetlands employ several materials as adsorbents for the treatment, commonly known as media/substrate. This review paper presents an assessment of various materials that can be used as substrates in CWs for the efficient removal of organic and non‐biodegradable pollutants in different types of wastewaters. The effect of pH, mineral composition, specific surface area, and porosity of various natural m...
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A Seawall requires reflecting and dissipating entire wave energy with zero transmission. The permeability would significantly affect its hydraulic stability under wave loads. Thus, the permeability of a structure changes with the material... more
A Seawall requires reflecting and dissipating entire wave energy with zero transmission. The permeability would significantly affect its hydraulic stability under wave loads. Thus, the permeability of a structure changes with the material and consequently a variation in the composite structure may give a different perspective on the hydraulic performance of a seawall altogether. As a first step towards establishing the composite seawall, a comprehensive permeability test is performed as a preliminary assessment of hydraulic conductivity. In the current research, a bag made of non-woven geotextile polymer filled with sand and a roll of non-woven needle punched coir geotextile is investigated. A total number of 20 model tests were performed by varying the orientation and positions of the material composites and thereby the gaps in the structure. The results are noted and future research possibilities into the design and development of a composite seawall as an alternative to tradition...
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ABSTRACT Large variations of sea water levels are a matter of concern for the offshore and coastal locations having shallow water depths. Safety of maritime activities, and properties, as well as human lives at such locations can be... more
ABSTRACT Large variations of sea water levels are a matter of concern for the offshore and coastal locations having shallow water depths. Safety of maritime activities, and properties, as well as human lives at such locations can be ensured by using the accurately predicted water levels. Harmonic analysis is traditionally employed for tide predictions, but often the values of predicted tides and observed (measured) water levels are not identical. The difference between them is called sea level anomaly. This can be attributed to non-inclusion of meteorological parameters as an input for tide prediction. Therefore other prediction techniques become necessary. The earlier studies on sea level predictions indicate better efficiency of alternate techniques such as Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and Genetic Programming (GP), and that most researchers have used sea level time series as model inputs. Present work predicts sea levels indirectly by predicting sea level anomalies (SLAs) using hourly local wind shear velocity components of the present time and up to the previous 12 h as inputs at four stations near the USA coastline with the techniques of GP and ANN. The error measures and graphs indicate that predictions are satisfactory.
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Characterisation of municipal solid waste (MSW) is important for adequate decision making in the management strategy of urban MSW of a city. The objective of this study was to characterise the MSW at a landfill of Pune city, India and... more
Characterisation of municipal solid waste (MSW) is important for adequate decision making in the management strategy of urban MSW of a city. The objective of this study was to characterise the MSW at a landfill of Pune city, India and suggest appropriate MSW management methods. The investigations showed that biological treatment of MSW will be feasible as it contains high organic matter and moisture content. This would help to divert 70% of the total waste, if solid waste treatment facilities were provided at source, which would lead to enormous cost savings of waste collection, transport and disposal. Energy generation through incineration of MSW was not feasible. The changing pattern of characterisation of MSW in relation to socio-economic changes has been discussed. Though the study was focused on Pune city, investigations will help solid waste management planners, materials recovery facility designers and for estimation of landfill gas emission in developing metropolitan cities.
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ABSTRACT Forecasting of wave heights is essential for planning and operation of maritime activities. Traditionally, wave heights have been predicted using physics-based models, which rely primarily on the energy balance equation. More... more
ABSTRACT Forecasting of wave heights is essential for planning and operation of maritime activities. Traditionally, wave heights have been predicted using physics-based models, which rely primarily on the energy balance equation. More recently, soft computing techniques such as Artificial Neural Network (ANN), Genetic Programming (GP) have been used to generate forecasts with leads times from a few hours to several days. However, the forecast accuracy of both methods could be improved, particularly at peak wave heights, and at higher lead times. This paper forecasts the wave heights with lead times of 12 h and 24 h using GP. The data are obtained from two locations, along the North American and Indian coastlines. Wind information is used as an input. The modeling procedure relies heavily on the parameter kurtosis, or fourth moment. The forecasts are satisfactory, especially for the peak wave heights formed by the extreme events like hurricanes.