James Edward Ball

• Phd
• Professor (Associate) at University of Technology Sydney

Urban impervious surfaces, a symbol of urbanisation, have permanently changed urban hydrology behaviour and play a critical role in modelling rainfall-runoff process. The distribution pattern of impervious surfaces is intrinsically connected with functional land zoning schemes. However, estimating impervious fractions for catchment modelling is bec...

Catchment modelling is an effective approach to simulating the rainfall-runoff process. Estimating parameters is challenging in urban catchments with heterogeneous land use land cover (LULC). This paper describes a novel and reproducible approach to initialise the parameters for modelling catchment hydrology. The Alexandra canal catchment, Australi...

This study aimed to predict evaporation from dam reservoirs using artificial intelligence considering climate change. Mahabad Dam, near Lake Urmia, in northwestern Iran, is used to investigate the proposed approach. There are three parts to the study presented herein. In the first part, two machine learning models, namely group method of data handl...

This study describes the sister buildings Daramu house and International house in Barangaroo, Sydney (Australia's largest metropolitan city), with and without a green roof, respectively. Trace metal samples were collected from both roofs and analysed using ICP-MS to determine the bioretention potential of the green roof to remediate soluble and par...

Throughout the world, the likelihood of floods and managing the associated risk are a concern to many catchment managers and the population residing in those catchments. Catchment modelling is a popular approach to predicting the design flood quantiles of a catchment with complex spatial characteristics and limited monitoring data to obtain the nec...

Green roofs and the integration of greenery into building structures is a vital component in building resilient cities in a changing climate. However, there is currently a lack of research that confirms many of the well understood (but often anecdotal) benefits of green roofs, including hosting biodiversity, counteracting air pollution; reducing am...

Management of flood risk remains a major problem in many urban environments. To generate the data needed for estimation of the flood risk, catchment models have been used with the reliability of the predicted catchment response for design flood estimation dependent upon the model calibration. However, the level of calibration required to achieve re...

Separating the effects of human activities/climate change on lotic ecosystems is one of the important components of environmental management as well as water resources maintenance. A Mann-Kendall analysis of hydro-climatic parameters and vegetation cover (VC), calculated using normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), during the period 1985-20...

Identifying suitable parameter sets for use in catchment modelling remains a critical issue in hydrology. This paper describes an early stopping technique (EST) for use during calibration of a multi-parameter urban catchment modelling system. The proposed method takes advantage of MODE and lower confidence limit (LCL) functions in statistical analy...

To reduce local scour around bridge piers, a mitigation measure requiring a submerged triangular flow diversion structure is proposed. Different dimensions, locations, and submergence ratios were examined experimentally. Using Taguchi’s method to minimize the number of alternative tests, 27 alternative tests were undertaken to ascertain the optimum...

Flood Management remains a major problem in many urban environments. Commonly, catchment models are used to generate the data needed for estimation of flood risk; event-based and continuous-based models have been used for this purpose. Use of catchment models requires calibration and validation with a calibration metric used to assess the predicted...

In recent decades On-site Stormwater Detention (OSD) systems have been implemented in many cities around the world. However, a few studies have evaluated the effectiveness of OSD policies. Therefore, this paper compared the use of OSD in Australian and Brazilian cities, evaluating aspects of regulations, technical details and management matters. Th...

Catchment management is a complex task that, over the past decade, has become increasingly important to urban communities. While there are many water related management issues, estimation of the magnitude and likelihood of flood events is one that remains a concern to many mangers of urban drainage systems. Data is an essential component of any app...

This work introduces an unprecedented flash flood that resulted in nine casualties in Shimen Valley, China, 2015. Through field survey and numerical simulation the causes of the disaster are systematically analyzed, finding that the intense storm, terrain features, and the large woody debris (LWD) played important roles. The intense storm induced f...

In the last few decades tremendous progress has been made in the use of catchment models for the analysis and understanding of hydrologic systems. A common application involves the use of these models to predict flows at catchment outputs. However, the outputs predicted by these models are often deterministic because they focused only on the most p...

An adequate understanding of the (actual) groundwater recharge is necessary for sustainable groundwater resource management. The objective of the research presented herein is to apply a water balance model for the Sukhuma District of Southern Laos using the combination between field observation data and alternative data sources to estimate annual g...

This study is presented to estimate net soil infiltration and groundwater recharge in Sukhuma District of Southern Laos. A soil water balance approach is used to estimate the net infiltration from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) and Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) data. The groundwater recharge is estimated by using the...

Previous studies indicate that local scour is a leading cause of most waterway bridge failures during flood events. Using armouring countermeasures such as riprap and gabions is a conventional way of reducing scour around bridge piers, but is very costly and time consuming. As an alternative, a flow-diversion structure is proposed that has a triang...

The influence of rigid vegetation on the longitudinal dispersion coefficient in a compound open channel was examined using an image processing technique. To simulate floodplain vegetation, cylinders of 5 mm diameter were attached to the floodplain surface. Potassium permanganate solution was used as a conservative tracer. Instantaneous velocity com...

Previous investigations indicate that scour around bridge piers is one of the most important factors for the failure of waterway bridges. Hence, it is essential to determine the accurate scour depth around the bridge piers. Most of the previous studies were based on scour around a single pier; however, in practice, new bridges are usually wide and...

Previous studies have found there are a variety of factors that influence heavy metal concentrations and Pb isotope ratios in roadside soil. One issue in assessing these factors is the need to distinguish between the natural sample variability at a single site and the variability between different sites. Data constraint often results in the lack of...

Sparse hydrogeological data is a significant limitation to the study of groundwater in many areas. The objective of this study was to assess the hydrogeology in Sukhuma District of Champasak Province in Southern Laos where such a limitation occurs. The connection between surface water and groundwater was assessed by comparing groundwater levels and...

Estimation of parameter values is an essential step in the application of catchment modelling systems. This step is time-consuming and requires considerable effort. While a variety of approaches have been developed to accelerate the process, this paper proposes a method to reduce significantly the number of parameters for a large catchment when a s...

The objective of this study is to investigate the seasonal fluctuation of groundwater level in Sukhuma District by using observed data on groundwater, rainfall and streamflow from June 2015 to May 2016 and remote sensing data derived from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and the Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) for th...

Groundwater is the main source of domestic water supply in many developing regions. In Sukhuma District of Southern Laos, for example, groundwater pumping has been increasing in recent years due to population growth and increased climate variability. Within the context of limited data on groundwater resources and the essential need of such informat...

Previous investigations indicate that local scouring is one of the most common causes of waterway bridge failure. The scour mechanism around bridge piers is complicated by the interaction of flow and structure. To explore the local scouring process, it is therefore essential to study the flow-structure interaction around bridge piers. Most previous...

Southern Laos is undergoing economic and agricultural development, resulting in a large increase in groundwater and surface water use. However, these water resources are not known in detail. This study aims to investigate the groundwater and surface water interactions in the Sukhuma District of Champasak Province using a network of sixteen rain gau...

Estimation of design ?ood flow has been and remains a concern for both hydrologic research and hydrologic practice. Knowledge of design flood flows provides a basis for sustainable ?ood management which has the aim of reducing ?ood risk thereby protecting people?s lives and property. Design ?oods for a given location can be estimated by a number of...

Reservoir inflow predictions are essential to ensure effective operations of Sydney’s main drinking water reservoir. The reservoir’s forecast system is based on empirical rainfall forecast scenarios. Those scenarios are only indicators of possible significant future rainfall events. Recently, the Short-Term Ensemble Prediction System (STEPS) has be...

In this study, the fractal dimensions of velocity fluctuations and the Reynolds shear stresses propagation for flow around a circular bridge pier are presented. In the study reported herein, the fractal dimension of velocity fluctuations (u′, v′, w′) and the Reynolds shear stresses (u′v′ and u′w′) of flow around a bridge pier were computed using a...

In this study, the effect of single and double row piles for reducing scouring in a mild-curve river meander was studied experimentally. The experimental study focused on the effect of vegetation on bed topography in a mild curve meander bend. The experimental tests were conducted in a laboratory flume under clear water flow condition. A series of...

Culverts are built at locations where a waterway crosses a road or railway and creates a limitation to flow passage. Furthermore, blockage commonly occurs during flood events with accumulation of debris at the culvert inlet. The inlet blockage changes the flow structure at the outlet and may result in culvert failure. Despite this, the impacts of b...

SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS FOR POLICYMAKERS ON ADAPTION TO CLIMATE CHANGE IN WATER ENGINEERING

In this study, a comprehensive experimental study was performed to find an equation for the estimation of flow discharge over a sharp-crested side weir in a trapezoidal channel. A physical model with side slopes of 1.5, 1, 0.5 and 0 was used and sharp-crested side weirs with different lengths and heights were tested under different flow conditions....

The coherent turbulent flow around a single circular bridge pier and its effects on the bed scouring pattern is investigated in this study. The coherent turbulent flow and associated shear stresses play a major role in sediment entrainment from the bed particularly around a bridge pier where complex vortex structures exist. The conventional two-dim...

Culverts are built at a location in a waterway that crosses a road or railway. The narrowing cross section of waterway creates a limitation to flow passage and therefore blockage occurs during flood events with accumulation of debris at the inlet. The blockage of the culvert can accelerate bed scouring and consequently causes failure of the culvert...

This experimental study is concerning scouring at the outlet of partially blocked box culverts under unsteady fl ow condition. The blockage of culverts is considered as an important factor on the scouring pattern at the outlet of the blocked box culverts. To investigate the effect of blockage on scouring pattern downstream of a box culvert under un...

Among various hydraulic structures, culvert is the most likely one which usually blocks by the debris that are carrying by flow during large flood events. The size of the structure and its location where a waterway crosses a road or railway increases the possibility of clogging. The blockage of culvert accelerates bed scouring at the outlet hence a...

One of the most common problems facing flood engineers is how to predict flows from ungauged catchments. Various techniques have been developed by engineers to solve this problem. When time and resources are limited one option is to use Regional Flood Frequency Estimation (RFFE) to give an estimate of the flood quantile, acknowledging the added unc...

Rainfall is one of the more important factors influencing flows in a river and particularly so for flood flows in a river. Hence there is a need to adequately model rainfall if flows in rivers are to be predicted with reliability. There are three components to a rainfall model, namely the rainfall depth, the spatial distribution of rainfall and the...

This experimental study is concerning scouring at the outlet of partially blocked box culverts under unsteady flow condition. The blockage of culverts is considered as an important factor on the scouring pattern at the outlet of the blocked box culverts. To investigate the effect of blockage on scouring pattern downstream of a box culvert under uns...

Flow pattern in the mild meandering rivers is completely different from that of strongly curved meanders. The results of this experimental study showed that in mild meander rivers, the maximum velocity is about 1.3 times the mean flow velocity. The maximum dimensionless radial and vertical velocity components was found to be about 8% of the mean ve...

River channel change and bed scourings are source of major environmental problem for fish and aquatic habitat. The bed form such as ripples and dunes is the result of an interaction between turbulent flow structure and sediment particles at the bed. The structure of turbulent flow over ripples is important to understand initiation of sediment entra...

An experimental study was undertaken to optimise a 55° round-edged entrance irrigation water intake. The tests were carried out under different flow conditions in a laboratory flume with a rectangular cross-section under closeended and open-ended flow conditions. To improve the efficiency of water intake, its entrance was rounded with three differe...

Spur dikes are structures, which are normally designed to prevent river banks from scouring. In this study, three sequential spur dikes with zero height above the bed were installed at one side of an experimental flume with a rectangular cross-section. The top of spur dikes was set at same level as the bed level. Sequential spur dikes were tested w...

The detailed study of three dimensional flow structures around two bridge piers is presented in this paper. Eight sets of laboratory experiments were carried out with no pier, a single pier and two piers with different spacing between piers. Two bridge piers were aligned in the direction of flow and at the centre of a laboratory flume. The experime...

An experimental study of the role of coherent structures and their effect on initiation of sediment particles has been carried out using a laboratory flume. Experiments were conducted under different flow conditions and fixed bed. Spherical gravels with diameter of 65 mm were installed at the bed of flume. The spherical gravels exposed 20 mm above...

The flow structure around a bridge pier is complicated, particularly in the flow immediately downstream of a bridge pier. In the study reported herein, the fractal dimensions of velocity fluctuations (u, v) were investigated. Two dimensional velocity fluctuations at horizontal surface were measured using Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV). At each ho...

In the paper, the structure of flow is investigated using fractal scaling of 3-D velocity fluctuations and the Reynolds shear stresses around a bridge pier. The fractal dimensions were computed using a Fractal Interpolation Function algorithm. The velocity data were collected in a series of experimental test within a laboratory flume. Three dimensi...

River channel change and bed scourings are source of major environmental problem for fish and aquatic habitat. The bed form such as ripples and dunes is the result of an interaction between turbulent flow structure and sediment particles at the bed. The structure of turbulent flow over ripples is important to understand initiation of sediment entra...

The coherent structure of flow around a single circular bridge pier and its effects on bed scouring pattern is investigated in this study. The bursting events and associated shear stresses play a major role in sediment entrainment from the bed and in particular around a bridge pier. In this study, the three-dimensional velocity of flow was measured...

While the existing spatiotemporal approaches provide an estimation of the rainfall over geographical areas, they in effect provide only for an interpolation of the data. The proposed approach introduces the concept of the construction of the likelihood function of the repartition of rain over a territory using historical storm data, both radar and...

Hybrid membrane filtration processes involve complex physical, chemical, and biological phenomena, thus their mechanistic modelling is overly challenging. In this study we use multivariate polynomials to model the fouling of an in-line flocculation– submerged membrane filtration system. The performance of obtained models is comparable to that of ar...

Urban stormwater runoff is a transport medium for many contaminants from anthropogenic sources. There are many alternative management strategies available to treat these contaminants. One of the technologies suggested for this purpose is the use of permeable pavements to minimise the quantity of surface runoff generated by impervious surfaces withi...

This paper aims to understand the flow structure around submerged dike in the main channel and flood plain of a compound cross section. The study undertaken to develop this understanding was carried out in a labo-ratory flume using a submerged vane installed at a 90 degree angle to the bank. In order to study the flow structures, the flow velocity...

The structure of turbulent flow over the ripples in an open channel is very important for sediment entrainment and transport and it is a flow characteristic that is not completely understood at present. In this study, the flow structure over ripples was investigated experimentally. To investigate flow structure, the velocity of flow over the ripple...

This paper presents a case study on streamf ow data preparation for a regional f ood frequency analysis (RFFA) project for the states of Victoria and NSW, in connection with the forthcoming edition of Australian Rainfall and Runoff. The study gathered annual maximum f ood series data for a large number of stations from Victoria and NSW, and applied...

Algal blooms are problematic for estuarine areas and are often associated with discoloration of marine water, depletion of oxygen, fishkills and potential shellfish poisoning. Globally, Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) have become more frequent, more extensive and more severe (Hallegraeff, 1993, Anderson, 1994). Current approaches to algal bloom managem...

Estimation of the design rainfall for design flood estimation remains a problem for many engineering hydrologists despite many research studies into appropriate methodologies. An important aspect of flood flow estimation through catchment simulation is the design rainfall. Presented herein is a new approach for estimation of the temporal pattern of...

To aid prediction of the flow hydrograph in a basin with limited data, a practical approach to determining a regionalized Clark instantaneous unit hydrograph (IUH) model is presented. The proposed model is described in terms of the synthetic time–area concentration curve, the concentration time, and a special regional similarity value that is valid...

Implementation of catchment modelling systems is an accepted approach for obtaining information about the hydrological response of catchments under either existing or potential future conditions. The successful implementation of a catchment modelling system requires careful parameter evaluation during the system calibration. Evaluation of spatially...

Successful implementation of a catchment modelling system requires careful consideration of the system calibration which involves evaluation of many spatially and temporally variable control parameters. Evaluation of spatially variable control parameters has been an issue of increasing concern arising from an increased awareness of the inappropriat...

The inability of current stormwater quality models to reproduce historical pollutographs accurately and reliably has prompted the need to introduce alternative approaches to simulate stormwater runoff from urban catchments. In view of the increasing popularity of designing urban stormwater systems using the Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) appro...

A literature review highlighted a deficiency of information pertinent to the Australian context in regards to rainwater quality and runoff from roof surfaces. In this study, a novel approach has been developed to determine the runoff volumes and pollutant loads from a roof catchment for different storm events. Rainwater samples were also taken. Det...

A new technique for drawing isovel patterns in an open or closed channel is presented. It is assumed that the velocity at each arbitrary point in the conduit is affected by the hydraulic characteristics of the boundary. While any velocity profile can be applied to the model, a power-law formula is used here. In addition to the isovels patterns, the...

Sorption experiments were used to assess the ability of various materials (sand, compost, packing wood, ash, zeolite, recycled glass and Enviro-media) to remove heavy metal contaminants typically found in stormwater. Compost was found to have the best physicochemical properties for sorption of metal ions (Cu, Zn and Pb) compared with sand, packing...

Concentrations of microbiological contaminants in streams increase during rainfall-induced higher flow 'event' periods as compared to 'baseflow' conditions. If the stream feeds a drinking water reservoir, such periods of heightened pathogen loads may pose a challenge to the water treatment plant and subsequently a health concern to water consumers...

A catchment modelling system for simulation of both the quantity and quality of stormwater runoff can be considered to consist of four conceptual components, which are generation, collection, transport and disposal. Within each of these components, there are many alternative transformations available, with each of these transformations being the re...

The application of catchment modelling systems is now a common approach for management of catchments. Fundamental to the application of a catchment modelling system is the calibration and validation of the many control parameters used to ensure that the simulated catchment response adequately reproduces the actual catchment response. The calibratio...

The application of catchment modelling systems is now a common approach for management of catchments. Fundamental to the application of a catchment modelling system is the calibration and validation of the many control parameters used to ensure that the simulated catchment response adequately reproduces the actual catchment response. Recorded infor...

The 1977 edition of Australian Rainfall and Runoff introduced the concept of Hydraulic Grade Lines (HGLs) as a measure of the surcharge potential for piped or underground urban stormwater drainage systems. This concept was included also in the 1987 edition of Australian Rainfall and Runoff. As a result of these publications, many authorities vested...

Thermal stratification occurs in most natural water bodies, however, its occurrence in drinking water service reservoirs has not been thoroughly investigated in the past. In order to facilitate the use of a lumped model to simulate the mixing and water quality within reservoirs, temperature monitoring studies have been conducted in some reservoirs...

Inference models for estimation of the parameters necessary to implement the Stormwater Management Model (SWMM) were developed and implemented using the Centennial Park Catchment in Sydney, Australia as a test catchment. A number of alternative inference models were developed to assess the influence of inference model complexity and structure on th...

Over the last decade, it has been recognized that the spatial and temporal variability of rainfall is a significant influence on the robustness of predictions from catchment modelling systems. However, there have been few, if any, attempts to differentiate storm events occurring on urban catchments according to their variability in both the space a...

Accurate estimation of the control parameters for spatially distributed physically based catchment modelling systems requires considerable work to establish credibility. Presented in this paper is a methodology for estimation of control parameter values based on the application of a decision support system within a hydroinformatic system. The propo...

Current trends in catchment management and the desire of the community for an enhanced aquatic environment require information about the water environment within the catchment. This information may be obtained from environmental monitoring programs or from the application of catchment modelling systems. Where an assessment of the effects of potenti...

Contemporary Australian policy for `stormwater quality planning', advocates best practice by adopting the principles of ecological sustainable development. The purpose of the policy is engendering community ownership and reducing stormwater contaminants at the source, reflecting the preventative paradigm. Research into the resultant plans has demon...

Rainfall forecasting is important for many catchment management applications, in particular for flood warning systems. The variability of rainfall in space and time, however, renders quantitative forecasting of rainfall extremely difficult. The depth of rainfall and its distribution in the temporal and spatial dimensions depends on many variables,...

Artificial neural networks (ANNs), which emulate the parallel distributed processing of the human nervous system, have proven to be very successful in dealing with complicated problems, such as function approximation and pattern recognition. Due to their powerful capability and functionality, ANNs provide an alternative approach for many engineerin...

The influence of turbulence on the entrainment of sediment particles from a plane mobile bed was investigated using image processing techniques to record sediment particle motion in an experimental flume while simultaneously monitoring the turbulence characteristics of the flow. The importance of the image processing techniques applied arise from t...

Simulation of catchment processes that influence the quantity and quality of storm water runoff are employed in many circumstances where it is proposed to modify the existing catchment management practices and it is infeasible to trial physically the proposed management practice. An essential and necessary component of any catchment simulation is t...

An important aspect of flood management is the estimation of catchment response to storm events by simulation of flood wave propagation through the catch­ ment storage. A derivation of the wave speed (c) is presented in terms of discharge (0 and the exponent (m) in the storage (5)-discharge relationship S = kÇT, The wave speed-discharge relationshi...

The quality of stormwater runoff from the urban environment is of increasing concern to urban communities and, consequently, greater emphasis is now being placed on the management of stormwater quality. An essential need for this management is information about the drainage system and the impacts of alternative management approaches. This informati...

A knowledge of rainfall is an important component of the information needed for effective flood management. For those catchments with a short response time, forecasting of likely rainfall is necessary for the opportunity to implement relevant action plans. Due to the complexity involved with incorporation of physical parameters in a process model,...

Entrainment of sediment particles from channel beds into the channel flow is influenced by the characteristics of the flow turbulence which produces stochastic shear stress fluctuations at the bed. Recent studies of the structure of turbulent flow has recognized the importance of bursting processes as important mechanisms for the transfer of moment...

In this study, the characteristics of bursting processes and, in particular, the sweep event were investigated in a flume with a rough bed. From a statistical analysis of the experimental data, it was found that the magnitude of the turbulent shear stress in sweep and ejection events had a normal distribution after application of a Box-Cox transfor...