Civil Engineering / İnşaat Mühendisliği
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/11147/13
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Article Citation - WoS: 64Citation - Scopus: 109Irrigation of World Agricultural Lands: Evolution Through the Millennia(MDPI Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, 2020) Angelakis, Andreas N.; Zaccaria, Daniele; Krasilnikoff, Jens; Salgot, Miquel; Bazza, Mohamed; Roccaro, Paolo; Fereres, Elias; Baba, AlperMany agricultural production areas worldwide are characterized by high variability of water supply conditions, or simply lack of water, creating a dependence on irrigation since Neolithic times. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the evolution of irrigation of agricultural lands worldwide, based on bibliographical research focusing on ancient water management techniques and ingenious irrigation practices and their associated land management practices. In ancient Egypt, regular flooding by the Nile River meant that early agriculture probably consisted of planting seeds in soils that had been recently covered and fertilized with floodwater and silt deposits. On the other hand, in arid and semi-arid regions farmers made use of perennial springs and seasonal runoff under circumstances altogether different from the river civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, and early dynasties in China. We review irrigation practices in all major irrigation regions through the centuries. Emphasis is given to the Bronze Age civilizations (Minoans, Egyptians, and Indus valley), pre-Columbian, civilizations from the historic times (e.g., Chinese, Hellenic, and Roman), late-Columbians (e.g., Aztecs and Incas) and Byzantines, as well as to Ottomans and Arabs. The implications and impacts of irrigation techniques on modern management of water resources, as well as on irrigated agriculture, are also considered and discussed. Finally, some current major agricultural water management challenges are outlined, concluding that ancient practices could be adapted to cope with present challenges in irrigated agriculture for increasing productivity and sustainability. © 2020 by the authors.Article Citation - WoS: 54Citation - Scopus: 65Flood Hydrograph Prediction Using Machine Learning Methods(MDPI Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, 2018) Tayfur, Gökmen; Singh, Vijay P.; Moramarco, Tommaso; Barbetta, SilviaMachine learning (soft) methods have a wide range of applications in many disciplines, including hydrology. The first application of these methods in hydrology started in the 1990s and have since been extensively employed. Flood hydrograph prediction is important in hydrology and is generally done using linear or nonlinear Muskingum (NLM) methods or the numerical solutions of St. Venant (SV) flow equations or their simplified forms. However, soft computing methods are also utilized. This study discusses the application of the artificial neural network (ANN), the genetic algorithm (GA), the ant colony optimization (ACO), and the particle swarm optimization (PSO) methods for flood hydrograph predictions. Flow field data recorded on an equipped reach of Tiber River, central Italy, are used for training the ANN and to find the optimal values of the parameters of the rating curve method (RCM) by the GA, ACO, and PSO methods. Real hydrographs are satisfactorily predicted by the methods with an error in peak discharge and time to peak not exceeding, on average, 4% and 1%, respectively. In addition, the parameters of the Nonlinear Muskingum Model (NMM) are optimized by the same methods for flood routing in an artificial channel. Flood hydrographs generated by the NMM are compared against those obtained by the numerical solutions of the St. Venant equations. Results reveal that the machine learning models (ANN, GA, ACO, and PSO) are powerful tools and can be gainfully employed for flood hydrograph prediction. They use less and easily measurable data and have no significant parameter estimation problem.Article Citation - WoS: 17Citation - Scopus: 28Effect of Geogenic Factors on Water Quality and Its Relation To Human Health Around Mount Ida, Turkey(MDPI Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, 2017) Baba, Alper; Gündüz, OrhanWater-rock interactions strongly influence water quality. Waters originating from highly altered zones affect human health. Mount Ida region in western Anatolia is an example for such geogenic interactions and additional anthropogenic impacts. A water quality monitoring study was held and a total of 189 samples were collected from 63 monitoring stations to characterize the quality of water resources and its relation with human health. The results indicated that waters originating from altered volcanic rocks that are mainly used for drinking purposes have low pH, high conductivity and elevated trace element levels. In addition, a number of acidic mining lakes were formed in the open pits of abandoned mine sites in the study area and pyrite oxidation in altered volcanic rocks resulted in extremely acidic, high mineral content and toxic waters that demonstrate an eminent threat for the environmental health in the area. Overall, the water quality constituents in Mount Ida region had a spatially variable pattern and were locally found to exceed the national and international standards, mainly due to geogenic alteration zones and anthropogenic intervention.