Tag Archives: Sergey Rabotyagov

Thesis Defense: Joshua Simpson!

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Originally from Illinois, Joshua Simpson served in the Illinois Army National Guard from 1999 to 2005, including a 12-month tour in Iraq. He was awarded the Purple Heart and an Army Commendation Medal. He then studied GIS and environmental science at Northern Illinois University and graduated in 2007. He moved to Seattle immediately after and, before enrolling at UW to study applied economics and GIS, he built hiking trails, mapped hiking trails and restored environments in the Puget Sound area.

For the past couple years, Simpson has been completing his graduate study at SEFS, and the public is invited to see him present his thesis tomorrow, May 30, at 2:30 p.m. in Anderson 22: “An Econometric Analysis of Sewer Backup Claims in Seattle.”

Joshua SimpsonAbout Simpson’s Research:
Seattle is known for its high occurrence of rainfall events, and most of them are low-intensity events. When it rains heavily, sewer backups occur and, by all accounts, that’s bad news. Damage claims are filed and, in some cases, the city will cover the amount of damage. Sewer backups caused $8 million of damage from August 2004 to March 2011. Most of the damage claims were due to three major storms that occurred within that timeline.

For his thesis, Simpson examined factors that explain the damage caused by those three storms using a rare events logistic regression model. Sewer backups are rare events in Seattle, as the highest claim-producing storm in the city produced 147 claims, while there are more than 180,000 parcels in Seattle. Simpson used the claims from the three storms and a random stratified sample of parcels throughout Seattle to explain the causes of the backups.

Rainfall and soil saturation variables explain most of the damage that occurred, but other factors such as demographic and sewer system variables explain the cause of backups. Simpson used a spatial econometric model to measure the causes of various levels of sewer backup damage. Rainfall, soil saturation, demographic and sewer system variables, as well as tree density, explain the various levels of damage that occurred within the stated time line.

The results of both models were combined together to produce an expected sewer backup damage amount for the sample parcels. This data, along with the separate results of both models, were used to create three maps that represent probabilities of backups (given the results of a particular storm), potential damage and Expected Sewer Backup Damage.

These maps and data can be used to prioritize preventative maintenance before a storm season. There are many other risks that face utility customers in Seattle, but focusing on this risk allows for the application of two econometric models. Such an approach has not been utilized to analyze the occurrence of sewer backups to date. With the results of Salathe et al. (2010) and Zhu (2012) that suggest that higher frequency and higher intensity storms will affect the Puget Sound area, the accumulation of data and the use of the best information can mitigate future damage caused by these storms.

Simpson’s committee chair is Professor Sergey Rabotyagov, and the other members are John Perez-Garcia, Robert Halvorsen and Terry Martin. So come out and support him tomorrow at 2:30 p.m. as he completes his latest chapter in life!

Map graphic © Joshua Simpson.

Thesis Defense: John Simeone!

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Simeone Thesis Defense

An 18-wheeler carrying roundwood in Dalnerechensk, Russia.

SEFS graduate student John Simeone, who is working on a joint degree at the Jackson School of International Studies, will be defending his thesis for the latter program this coming Friday, May 3, at 10:30 a.m. in Anderson 22.

While the Russian forest sector languished for much of the first 15 years following the break-up of the Soviet Union, beginning in 2007 the Russian government instituted a set of policies designed to develop and modernize the Russian forest sector. This thesis is a policy analysis of Russia’s 2007 and 2008 forest sector initiatives—principally export taxes on roundwood and investment subsidies for value-added processing.

If you can’t make this Friday’s defense, then keep an eye out for Simeone’s SEFS defense later in August. His faculty advisor is Professor Sergey Rabotyagov, and he is also working closely with Professor Ivan Eastin and CINTRAFOR on Russia’s role in the timber trade. Should be great stuff!

Photo © John Simeone.

SEFS Seminar Series: Week 4 Preview

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Hypoxic ZoneA major federal effort quantifying the water quality impacts of cropland conservation practice investments was recently completed for the entire Mississippi-Atchafalaya River Basin (MARB). Additional scenarios of watershed-level targeted conservation practice investments were modeled, and the costs of their implementation were estimated.

Utilizing these unique data, Professor Sergey Rabotyagov will explore several questions about the Northern Gulf of Mexico hypoxic zone, including whether additional conservation investments in the Upper Mississippi River Basin—the basin responsible for the majority of riverine nutrient delivery to the Gulf of Mexico—could cost-effectively reduce the areal extent of the hypoxic zone.

Join Professor Rabotyagov this Wednesday, January 30, for a deeper discussion in Week 4 of the SEFS Seminar Series, “Cost-effective Subwatershed Targeting of Agricultural Conservation Practices to address Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia.”

The seminars, held in Anderson 223 on Wednesdays from 4 to 5 p.m., are open to all faculty, staff and students. Check out the rest of the seminar schedule for the Winter Quarter, and join us each week for a reception in the Forest Room from 5 to 6:30 p.m.

Map of hypoxic zone © Sergey Rabotyagov.

SEFS Seminar Series: Speakers & Topics Announced

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Seminar SeriesStarting on January 9, 2013, Director Tom DeLuca will kick off the SEFS Seminar Series (SEFS 550F) for the Winter Quarter with an introduction and the first topic, “Nitrogen dynamics in boreal ecosystems.” Check out the rest of the schedule below, and mark your calendars today!

The seminars, held in Anderson 223 on Wednesdays from 4 to 5 p.m., are open to all faculty, staff and students. Each week, a reception will follow in the Forest Room from 5 to 6:30 p.m. (Graduate students can receive course credit for attending 9 of 10 seminars by registering for SEFS 550F, SLN 20703. Please email sefsadv@uw.edu if you have any trouble registering.)

Seminar Schedule

1/9/2013
Introduction to SEFS Graduate Seminar Series: Nitrogen dynamics in boreal ecosystems
Tom DeLuca

1/16/2013
The really hidden half of the hidden half: The role of deep soil in forest ecocystem processes
Robert Harrison

1/23/2013
Suffer the Buffers: Population Growth and Resource Degradation in Pre-Modern China
Stevan Harrell

1/30/2013
Cost-effective subwatershed targeting of agricultural conservation practices to address Gulf of Mexico hypoxia
Sergey Rabotyagov

2/6/2013
Environmental stewardship, social equity and corporate profitability: Siblings or strangers?
Dorothy Paun

2/13/2013
How can we improve the production of fuels and chemicals from lignocellulosic biomass?
Renata Bura

2/20/2013
Reintroducing the water cycle in urban areas
Sally Brown

2/27/2013 (Doubleheader)
3 p.m.: Managing for resilience: Sustaining mountaintop ecosystems in the presence of white pine blister rust
Anna Schoettle

4 p.m.:  Chaos in federal forest policy in PNW: The situation and a proposal
Jerry Franklin

3/6/2013
No seminar scheduled.

3/13/2013
Modeling green‐up constraints in spatial forest planning
Sándor Toth

3/20/2013
TBD