The Environmental Science and Design Symposium, formerly the Land and Water Symposium, is a multidisciplinary forum that promotes the exchange of ideas related to the resiliency of natural and built systems. This year’s theme, Complexity of Environmental Legacies, reflects the challenges of developing sustainable systems in landscapes transformed by decades of modification and contamination. Speakers from a wide range of disciplines (fashion, geology, geography, architecture, and ecology) will address topics related to urban, sustainability, restoration, and the integration of design with biological systems.
Browse the Environmental Science and Design Research Initiative 2019 Collections
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A parametric study of impact of Neighborhood Morphology on air pollution dispersion patterns due to unplanned building demolition.03/21/2019
An unplanned demolition of a building can be a result of either natural e.g. earthquake or human-made disaster e.g. terrorist attack and wars. It generates considerable amount of coarse, fine and ultrafine Particulate Matter, which are significantly associated with chronic and acute adverse health effects. Literature study attributed to few studies about the impact of planned demolition on local air quality, while the short-term bursts of pollutants and public exposure to this high pollution levels during an unplanned demolition were widely overlooked. Meanwhile, the existing research has also pointed out that the characteristics of the pollutant dispersion are highly dependent on the urban morphology. The primary objective of this research is to investigate the pattern and characteristics of pollution dispersion due to unplanned building demolition in a compact high-rise/ low rise and open high-rise/ low rise neighborhood. CFD-based microscale air quality model “ENVI-met” was used to simulate the pollution dispersion in the selected morphologies. The pollution concentration was measured at the various horizontal and vertical distance at various times and wind directions (0 and 315 deg). Thirty-six different measurement from horizontal dispersion and forty-eight different measurements from vertical dispersion for PM concentration and wind speed were measured and tabulated. LEONARDO was used to visualize the output in ENVI_met binary files and Microsoft Excel was used to plot the graphs showing a summary of relationship between the tested parameters. The results indicated that the pollution dispersion pattern depended on its neighborhood morphology which is represented by its street canyon and building height, wind flow and vegetations. These findings are followed by the design recommendations based on the observation of pollution dispersion pattern in different morphologies while suggesting a need of air quality standards for short term high pollution levels.
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A tale of two communities; The characterization of an urban neighborhood for community issues and urban forests in East Cleveland from two different stakeholders.03/21/2019
Geospatial narrative was developed as a qualitative GIS approach to extend current GIS data capture capabilities. This method allows the integration of narrative interpretation with GIS to understand ephemeral and physical qualities of a location. This methodology can help assess the quality of a community and identify issues. The issues monitored by stakeholders can include failing infrastructure, vacancy, and crime for the community and disease, poor maintenance, and vandalism for urban forests. With geospatial narrative these issues can be mapped and analyzed. This project will study two geospatial narratives, from urban forestry and community stakeholders, in East Cleveland. A correlation will be determined from the data collected from the two narratives by extracting a set of keywords from each narrative. This data will assess the quality of a neighborhood and the urban forest. The project will determine whether geospatial narratives are reliable alternatives available to use for site analysis. Mapping the data from the narrative will identify a relationship with the quality of a neighborhood and the existing urban forest. This project will consult primary sources that have previously used geospatial narrative to understand methodology and results. This data offers a more considerate analysis for planning and design. Converting the stakeholder’s assessment and input into mapped data, allows for a more holistic and complete analysis of the site, which can increase the overall success of the design.
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An Investigative Deconstruction of a Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC)03/21/2019
In the US and around the globe, over 60% of our electricity is from burning fossil fuels. Fuel cells can be twice as efficient and have the potential to dramatically change the way electricity is generated. When hydrogen and oxygen meet on the electrolyte plate, a catalyst spurs a reaction that creates H2O and electricity, without greenhouse emissions. Emissions can be generated through obtaining hydrogen, but with significantly less greenhouse gases and higher fuel-energy conversion. There is a unique opportunity to study a large commercial fuel cell, a 150 Kilowatt Fuel Cell Module (FCM). This FCM was donated by a company represented by the letter B*, per a Non-Disclosure Agreement. The FCM weighs 720 pounds and works with 9 other units to create one megawatt of power. 1 unit disassembled.
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Analysis of Cold Air Outbreaks Across the Globe03/21/2019
Periods of anomalously cold temperatures impact regions of the globe every winter. Depending on the magnitude and duration of the occurrence, extremely cold periods may be deemed cold air outbreaks (CAOs), which can be detrimental to the agricultural industry and human health. A systematic CAO classification was developed from gridded NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data, from 1948 through 2017, based on a set of criteria concerning magnitude, duration, and spatial extent. Statistical analyses of the data were used to determine the overall trends in CAOs for different regions across the globe. This research will be used to further understand the large scale atmospheric mechanisms that precede these CAOs and how the specific mechanisms impact the location of CAOs.
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Bacterial colonization on different microplastics in a local stream in Northeast Ohio03/21/2019
Research was performed to understand bacterial colonization on different types of microplastics in a local stream in Northeast Ohio. Disks were placed in bags constructed mesh fabric with 1000 µm diameter. Sampling was done at various intervals to determine early and late colonizers within bacterial communities on microplastics in freshwater. Microplastics (diameters <5mm) are a global concern in environmental sciences and are readily colonized by bacteria in the environment. The term "plastisphere" has been used to describe bacterial communities residing on microplastics. The composition of the communities inside the plastisphere has been affected by the physicochemical properties of different microplastic types. Plastics have variations in physicochemical properties based on their intended applications. For example, polyethylene (PE) has a net negative charge while polypropylene (PP) has a net neutral charge at the pH of seawater. Subsequently, DNA was extracted from microbes adhering to disks and the plastisphere community composition will be determined from the V6 hypervariable region of 16S rDNA using 16S MiSeq 250 sequencing. Sampled disks will also be analyzed for differences in surface roughness, buoyancy, and weight after bacterial colonization. As the study progressed, microplastic disks broke down and had increased surface roughness.
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