Description:

NOVEMBER MEETING: Monday, November 23, 2020 at 5:30pm (Central) via Zoom and Gather

DATA SCIENCE NIGHTS are monthly hack nights on popular data science topics, organized by Northwestern University graduate students and scholars. Aspiring, beginning, and advanced data scientists are welcome!

AGENDA:

5:15: Welcome to Data Science Nights via Zoom
5:30: Presentation by William Miller, Northwestern University
6:00: Hacking session via Gather

SPEAKER: William Miller, Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering, McCormick School of Engineering, Northwestern University.

TOPIC: Distributed High-Frequency Sensing for Assessing Urban Green Infrastructure and Predicting Flooding

Cities worldwide are exploring green infrastructure (GI; rain gardens, green roofs, natural areas) to absorb stormwater and prevent flooding. GI is vital in cities with aging combined sewer systems, where heavy rainfall often leads to sewage discharges. Chronic stormwater-related flooding causes economic losses; degrades natural systems; and decreases the productivity, health, and psychosocial wellbeing of individuals, especially in underserved communities. There is an urgent need to quantify GI benefits. Engineers, data scientists, and social scientists at Northwestern and Argonne are conducting research at two sites with very different GI. The “greener” site is Gensburg-Markham Prairie (GMP), a high-quality tallgrass prairie in Markham, IL managed by Northeastern Illinois University and The Nature Conservancy. Data from a network of groundwater, surface water, and soil moisture sensors provides information on water storage and transport across GMP as a function of precipitation history, season, and time. This data is being used to develop hydrologic models to predict GMP water storage and release dynamics to understand GMP’s impact for mitigating flooding in surrounding neighborhoods. Research in Chatham, the Chicago neighborhood with the most flood insurance claims in 2007-2011, focuses on the physical and community impacts of installing GI, such as rain gardens and dry wells, in urban neighborhoods.

For more info: data-science-nights.org

Supporting Groups:

This event is supported by the Northwestern Institute for Complex Systems and the Northwestern Data Science Initiative.