Arcadis (United States)

A stakeholder structured engagement process at the Sustainable Water Infrastructure Management (SWIM) conference and workshop was held in December 2024. The participants identified critical current and future issues facing the water sector that are synthesized in this paper. In particular, they highlighted issues of water systems’ vulnerability and lack of resilience to hazards and stressors; inequities associated with water scarcity; and water quality problems – all affected by natural or man-made influences. The Smart One Water (S1W) vision was the baseline for the SWIM 2024 conference. This paper expands the S1W vision with a synthesis of the conference discussions about S1W-related fundamental concepts, practices and implementation barriers. It includes initial recommendations – based on a digital, data-focused, stakeholder-driven approach – with expert representatives of the public and private water supply sectors, academia, government and policymakers tasked to generate real-world adaptable ideas and practical solutions. Specifically, S1W envisions a future where water management and governance silos are eliminated to provide the necessary collaboration to enable efficient, resilient, affordable and equitable water access capable of adapting to a changing environment. This would be a future where communities govern collaboratively through integrated decision-making on policy, management and funding of natural and engineered water systems at the river basin scale.

Abstract. A common feature within coastal cities is small, urbanized watersheds where the time of concentration is short, leading to vulnerability to flash flooding during coastal storms that can also cause storm surge. While many recent studies have provided evidence of dependency in these two flood drivers for many coastal areas worldwide, few studies have investigated their co-occurrence locally in detail or the storm types that are involved. Here we present a bivariate statistical analysis framework with historical rainfall and storm surge and tropical cyclone (TC) and extratropical cyclone (ETC) track data, using New York City (NYC) as a mid-latitude demonstration site where these storm types play different roles. In contrast to prior studies that focused on daily or longer durations of rain, we apply hourly data and study simultaneous drivers and lags between them. We quantify characteristics of compound flood drivers, including their dependency, magnitude, lag time, and joint return periods (JRPs), separately for TCs, ETCs, non-cyclone-associated events, and merged data from all events. We find TCs have markedly different driver characteristics from other storm types and dominate the joint probabilities of the most extreme rain surge compound events, even though they occur much less frequently. ETCs are the predominant source of more frequent moderate compound events. The hourly data also reveal subtle but important spatial differences in lag times between the joint flood drivers. For Manhattan and southern shores of NYC during top-ranked TC rain events, rain intensity has a strong negative correlation with lag time to peak surge, promoting pluvial–coastal compound flooding. However, for the Bronx River in northern NYC, fluvial–coastal compounding is favored due to a 2–6 h lag from the time of peak rain to peak surge.

This paper presents a case study of an approximately 20-metre-deep excavation into Bringelly Shale at the St Marys metro station, which is part of the Station Boxes and Tunnelling works for Sydney Metro – Western Sydney Airport. A review of the site geology, ground model and geotechnical design parameters is presented. The swelling characteristics of Bringelly Shale are summarised based on site specific testing results and compared against published data. An attempt is made to appreciate the radial displacement development of ground anchor hole on the bond strength. A coupled groundwater and stress-strain modelling was carried out using Plaxis 2D to optimize the design after anchor pullout testing at the project site. A prediction is made with respect to the ground responses to the retention system using soldier piles and ground anchors during staged excavations. An instrumentation and monitoring plan has been developed and implemented during the construction to validate the performance of the retention walls. The reduced bonded strength of ground anchors in Bringelly Shale with swelling potentials with “weak” rock layers was recommended based on site specific proof testing results. The monitored lateral movement of deep excavation at the St Marys metro station site is ranging between 1 mm to 4 mm per metre of excavation as compared to 0.5 mm to 2 mm per metres for excavations in Hawkesbury sandstone and Ashfield Shale. The findings of this paper are considered to be useful for practitioners who will be involved in future projects dealing with Bringelly Shale having swelling potential.

When fire suppression systems that held aqueous film forming foams (AFFF) are transitioned to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS)-free firefighting formulations, PFAS can dissolve from the wetted surfaces of the systems and release into the new firefighting formulations. The overall objective of this work was to characterize PFAS residual mass on the wetted surfaces of aircraft rescue and firefighting (ARFF) vehicle on-board fire suppression system components from the water, mixed fire water, and foam concentrate systems with various geometries, materials of construction, and locations within the fire suppression system. The ARFF vehicle components were dismantled from the system after a triple water rinse procedure which removed 19,600mg total measured PFAS post-TOP assay from the foam concentrate system and 23mg total measured PFAS post-TOP assay from the water system. Results for total mass of PFAS on each part indicate most of the residuals were present on parts which have large surfaces areas or the rubber or brass parts. For large surface area plastic parts (i.e., foam and water tanks), the overall mass on these parts was greater than other parts even as the PFAS residual concentrations were lower compared to other material types due to larger surface areas for accumulation. Parts constructed of rubber or brass appeared to have higher measured PFAS surface residual concentrations as compared to parts constructed of plastic or stainless steel.

Many gas and liquid pipelines traverse unstable landscapes, such as waterways, floodplains, and steep terrain. These unstable landscapes often pose threats to pipeline stability and integrity. A variety of approaches are available to better understand and predict the magnitude and frequency of natural forces (geohazards) that threaten pipeline integrity. Risks of pipeline failures from these threats are of high concern to the industry, and the risks escalate significantly in high consequence areas. One approach is to prioritize vulnerable pipelines by assessing and prioritizing them through a combination of publicly available data, operator knowledge, and site-specific information (e.g., pipeline characteristics, recent survey data, etc.). The objective is for hydrologists, geologists, engineers, and environmental scientists to evaluate potential failure risk for those pipelines for which a refined understanding of vulnerability is desired. Depending on the results/outputs of a pipeline natural forces assessment, it may then be critical to understand requirements to permit, design, and implement recommended actions to minimize potential risk at pipeline segments of concern—through monitoring plans, operational controls, and/or engineering controls.

Celem wprowadzenia danego produktu, usługi lub procesu w przedsiębiorstwach jest ułatwienie wykonywanej pracy, a jednocześnie oszczędność czasu i zasobów związanych z prowadzoną działalnością. Z powodu dynamicznego rozwoju BIM (modelowania informacji o obiekcie budowlanym), a co za tym idzie, potrzeby ciągłego doskonalenia i wdrażania nowych elementów, działań lub procesów, istotna jest prawidłowa edukacja w danym kierunku. Dzięki narzędziom wspomagającym projektowanie można zwiększyć wydajność pracowników i efektywność procesów, co stwarza możliwości maksymalnego wykorzystania posiadanych zasobów. W artykule przedstawiono studium przypadku wdrażania tzw. podkładki BIM – BIM Placemat. W ramach prac badawczo-rozwojowych prowadzonych w Politechnice Warszawskiej zaprojektowano i wytworzono produkt – fizyczny element na biurko, wspomagający pracę inżynierów. W niniejszej pracy zaprezentowano unikatowy produkt i specyficzną metodykę pozyskiwania danych niezbędnych do opracowania BIM Placemat adekwatnie do zróżnicowanych wymagań w dwóch przedsiębiorstwach projektowych: Arcadis oraz WSP Polska. Implementacja takiego materiału wpłynęła korzystnie na produktywność pracowników oraz ujednolicenie standardów. Autorzy publikacji rozważają zastrzeżenie know-how poprzez zgłoszenie patentowe.

Floods are amongst the most destructive and costly natural disasters impacting communities around the globe. The severity and reoccurrence of flooding events have been more common in recent years as a result of the changing climate and urbanization. Best Management Practices (BMPs) are commonly used flood management techniques that aim to alleviate flooding and its impacts by capturing surface runoff and promoting infiltration. Recent studies have examined the effectiveness of BMPs in countering the effects of flooding; however, the performance of such strategies still needs to be analyzed for possible future climate change. In this context, this research employs climate model-driven datasets from the North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program to evaluate the effects of climate change on urban hydrology within a study region by calculating historical and projected 6 h 100-year storm depths. Finally, the climate-induced design storms are simulated in the PCSWMM model, and the three BMP options (i.e., porous pavement, infiltration trench, and green roof) are evaluated to alleviate the impact of flooding events. This study quantifies the impact of changing climate on flood severity based on future climate models. The results indicate that peak discharge and peak volume are projected to increase by a range of 5% to 43% and 8% to 94%, respectively. In addition, the results demonstrated that green roofs, Permeable Pavement, and infiltration trenches help to reduce peak discharge by up to 7%, 14%, and 15% and reduce flood volume by up to 19%, 24%, and 29%, respectively, thereby presenting a promising solution to address the challenges posed by climate change-induced flooding events.