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Susan Gaskin

Associate Professor
Eng, PhD

Susan GaskinEducation

BSc Civil Engineering (Queen's, 1991)
PhD Civil Engineering (Canterbury, NZ, 1996)

Contact

Tel: 514-398-6865
Fax: 514-398-7361
susan [dot] gaskin [at] mcgill [dot] ca (E-mail)

General information

Professor Gaskin joined McGill in 1997, adding to the environmental engineering expertise in the Department. Environmental hydraulics and water resources is her specialty. Her teaching includes open channel flow, hydraulics and river engineering. Her research is in the general area of environmental fluid mechanics and water resources management. Specifically looking at topics in experimental fluid mechanics: modelling of jets and plumes, river engineering, sediment transport in surface waters, and in water resources management: sustainable water supply management and basin wide modelling.

Appointments and Affiliations

  • Brace Associate Professor in Civil Engineering
  • Associate Member, McGill School of the Environment
  • Director of Graduate Studies, Civil Engineering
  • Member of International Association for Hydraulic Research

Courses offered

  • CIVE 206 Dynamics
  • CIVE 428 Water Resrces & Hydraulic Eng.
  • CIVE 577 River Engineering

Awards

Doctoral Commonwealth Scholarship held at University of Canterbury, New Zealand

Research interests

(with funding from NSERC, FQRNT, CFI and, municipal and industrial collaborators)

Environmental Hydraulics Laboratory (Director)

The laboratory has a 1.5 m x 6 m x 1 m glass towing tank. Experiments can be run in a quiescent and turbulent ambient or in a simulated flow. The approximate homogeneous turbulent ambient with no mean flow is created using a random jet array (1.5 m x 1 m). Two small shallow flumes can be used for sediment and recirculation studies. Experimental data on flow velocities and concentrations can be acquired using particle image velocimetry (PIV), acoustic Doppler velocimetry (ADV) and planar and point laser induced fluorescence (LIF) at high spatial and temporal resolution (100 μm at 1600Hz). The equipment available includes a 5 W argon ion laser, a number of CCD digital cameras, a Nortec ADV and assorted optics. (lab picture)

Current graduate research

  • David Carré (Ph.D): Flow dynamics and sediment transport around paired deflectors for fish habitat enhancement: a field study in the Nicolet River (Co-supervision with Pascale Biron, Geography, Concordia University).
  • France Suerich-Gulick (Ph.D): Complex open channel flows at hydro power intakes. (Collaboration with Groupe Conseil LaSalle, VATech, IREQ, Ansys)
  • Khorsandi, Babak (Ph.D): Effect of ambient turbulence on jet dynamics. (Co-supervision with Laurent Mydlarski, Mechanical Engineering, McGill).
  • Folifac, Fidelis (Ph.D): Towards improving participatory stakeholder local water management, governance, and decision-making in Sub Saharan Africa: Case of Buea, Cameroon. (Co-supervision with Madhav Badami, Urban Planning, McGill & George Nkeng, Ecole Nationale Superieure des Travaux Publics, Yaounde, Cameroon).
  • Baccard, Matthieu (M.Eng.): Sediment loadings in the Maracas-St.Joseph catchment, Trinidad. (Co-supervision with Vincent Cooper, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of the West Indies).
  • Sally, Zian (M.Eng.): Integrated water resources management considering climate change in Buea, Cameroon. (co-supervision with Sunny Kometa, Geography, University of Buea).
  • Hochet, Sylvana (M.Eng.): Effect of Eucalyptus plantations on the hydrology of high Andean catchments.
  • Akutina, Yulia (M.Eng.): Environmental hydraulics (co-supervision with Laurent Mylarski, Mechanical Engineering, McGill).
  • Perez, Alejandro (M.Eng.): Environmental hydraulics (co-supervison with Laurent Mydlarski, Mechanical Engineering, McGill).

Recent graduate theses/research

  • David Morisette (M.Eng. 2009): Parametric study of vortex formation at a hydropower intake.
  • Gacek, Julian (M.Eng. 2007): Numerical simulation of flow through a spillway and diversion. (Collaboration with Groupe Conseil LaSalle)
  • Jaramillo, Fernando (M.Eng. 2007): Estimating and modelling soil loss and sediment yield in the Maracas-St. Joseph catchment with empirical models (RUSLE,and MUSLE) and a physically based model (EROSION 3D). (Co-supervision with Vincent Cooper, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of West Indies).
  • Jamie Carrera (Ph.D. 2007): Spatio-temporal analysis of aquifer recharge and groundwater potentiometric levels in the Basin of Mexico through the development of a regional database and an open source tool for groundwater flow modelling.
  • Kameel Virjee (Ph.D. 2006): Willingness to Pay for Change: The use of contingent valuation and choice experiments in the Trinidad and Tobago water services sector.
  • Thomas Lavertu (Ph.D. 2006): Differential diffusion in a turbulent jet. (Co-supervised with L. Mydlarski, Mechanical Engineering, McGill University).
  • Karen Ng (M.Eng. 2006): Two dimensional hydraulic-habitat modelling of a rehabilitated river.
  • Devin Hayward (M.Eng. 2006): Sustainable waste management systems and their application in Trinidad and Tobago. (Co-supervision with Vincent Cooper, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of West Indies).
  • Elizabeth Jamieson (M.Eng. 2005): Experimental investigation of recirculating flow in an open channel embayment using three-dimensional particle tracking.
  • Walid Khawam (M.Eng. 2004): Water demand management in the Caribbean: a case study in Barbados.
  • Tarek Hamade (M.Eng. 2004): An experimental study on a fish louver system. (Collaboration with Groupe Conseil LaSalle)
  • Linda Kemp (M.Eng. 2002): Photo-tagged particle tracking: An investigation of recirculating flow in an embayment.
  • Abdellatif Al Shafie (M.Eng. 2001): Erosion of post-glacial clay due to waves in the St. Lawrence River. (Collaboration with Serge Lapage, Centre St.Laurent, Environment Canada)
  • Furong Xue (M.Eng. 2000): The effect of ambient turbulence on the concentrations of a plane jet in a shallow coflow.
  • Anne-Titia Bove (M.Eng. 2000): Photo-activated tracer particles -- a preliminary study.
  • Matthew McKernan (M.Eng. 2000): The effect of ambient turbulence on a plane jet in a shallow coflow.

Representative publications

Journal publications

  • Virjee, K. & Gaskin, S. (2010) Coping with poor water services and the demand for change in Trinidad and Tobago, Water International, 35(3): 285-297. doi:10.1080/02508060.2010.487299.
  • Kemp, L., Jamieson, E. & Gaskin, S.J. (2010) Phosphorescent tracer particles for Lagrangian flow measurement and particle tracking velocimetry, Experiments in Fluids, 48:927-931. DOI: 10.1007/s00348-009-0818-z
  • Folifac, F., Lifongo, L., Nkeng, G. & Gaskin, S.J. (2009) Municipal drinking water source protection capacity in low income countries: case of Buea Municipality - Cameroon, International Journal of Ecology and the Natural Environment, 1(4): 73-84.
  • Carrera-Hernandez, J.J & Gaskin, S.J.(2009) Water management in the Basin of Mexico: current state and alternative scenarios. Hydrogeology Journal, 17:1483-1494. (DOI 10.1007/210040-009-0442-2)
  • Lavertu, T., Mydlarski, L. & Gaskin, S.J. (2008) Differential diffusion of high-Schmidt-number passive scalars in a turbulent jet, Journal of Fluid Mechanics, Volume 612 (2008): 439-475.
  • Carrera-Hernandez, J.J & Gaskin, S.J. (2008) The Basin of Mexico Hydrogeological Database (BMHDB): Implementation, queries and interaction with open source software, Environmental Modelling and Software, 23 (10): 1271-1279.
  • Carrera-Hernandez, J.J & Gaskin, S.J. (2008) Spatio-temporal dynamics of potential aquifer recharge: Application to the Basin of Mexico, Journal of Hydrology, 353(3-4): 228-246.
  • Carrera-Hernandez, J.J & Gaskin, S.J. (2007) The Basin of Mexico aquifer system: Regional groundwater table dynamics and database development, Hydrogeology Journal, 15:1577-1590. (DOI 10.1007/s10040-007-0194-9)
  • Carrera-Hernandez, J.J. and Gaskin, S.J. (2007) Spatio temporal analysis of daily climatological variables: Application to the Basin of Mexico. Journal of Hydrology, 336(3-4): 231-249. (DOI 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2006.12.021)
  • Carre, D., Biron, P.M. and Gaskin S.J. (2007) Flow dynamics and sediment transport around paired deflectors for fish habitat enhancement: a field study in the Nicolet River, Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering, 34:761-769.
  • Walid Khawam, K. Virjee and S. Gaskin (2006) Water demand management in the Caribbean: analysis of water tariffs and metering in Barbados, Journal of Eastern Caribbean Studies, 31(2):1-24.
  • Carrera-Hernandez, J.J. and Gaskin, S.J.(2006) The groundwater modelling tool for GRASS (GMTG): Open source groundwater flow modelling, Computers and Geosciences, 32(3): 339-351.
  • Virjee, K. and Gaskin, S.J. (2005) "A fuzzy cost-recovery criterion for sustainable rural water supply systems." Energy, Vol. 30, Issue 8, pp. 1329-1341.
  • Biron, M. P., Robson, C., Lapointe, M.F. and; Gaskin, S.J. (2004) "Comparing different methods of bed shear stress estimates in simple and complex flow fields." Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 29, 1403-1415.
  • Gaskin, S.J., McKernan, M. and Xue, F. (2004) "The effect of background turbulence on jet entrainment: an experimental study of a plane jet in a shallow coflow." Journal of Hydraulic Research, 42 (5), pp. 531-540.
  • Biron, P.M., Robson, C., Lapointe, M.F.and Gaskin, S.J.(2004) "Deflector designs for fish habitat restoration." Environmental Management, Vol. 33, 1, 25-35.
  • Gaskin, S.J., Pieterse, J., AlShafie, A. and Lepage, S. (2003) "Erosion of undisturbed clay samples from the banks of the St. Lawrence River." Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering, pp. 585-595.
  • Davidson, M.J., Gaskin, S.J. and Wood, I.R. (2002) "A study of a buoyant axisymmetric jet in a small co-flow." Journal of Hydraulic Research, 40(4), pp. 477-489.
  • Gaskin, S.J and Wood I.R. (2001) "The axisymmetric and the plane jet in a coflow." Journal of Hydraulic Research, 39(5), pp. 451-458.
  • Gaskin, S.J and Wood, I.R. (2001) "Flow structure and mixing dynamics of the advected line thermal." Journal of Hydraulic Research, 39(5), pp. 459-468.

Conference proceedings and presentations

  • Khorsandi, B., Gaskin, S.J. & Mydlarski, L.M. (2010) Flying-hot-film anemometry measurements of the effect of back-ground turbulence on a turbulent jet, 6th International Symposium on Environmental Hydraulics (ISEH), 23-25 June, 2010, Athens, Greece.
  • Suerich-Gulick, F.,Gaskin, S., Villeneuve, M. & Parkinson, E. (2009) Predicting Vortex Stretching at Hydropower Intakes, 33rd IAHR Congress: Water engineering for a sustainable environment, pp. 4006-4013. Aug 9-14, 2009, Vancouver, Canada.
  • Khorsandi, B., Gaskin, S. & Mydlarski, M (2009) A laboratory study of noise in turbulence measurements using acoustic Doppler velocimetry, 33rd IAHR Congress: Water engineering for a sustainable environment, pp. 3551-3557, Aug 9-14, 2009, Vancouver, Canada.
  • Moradi-Larmaei, M., Mahdi, T. & Gaskin, S. (2009) Vegetation and shallow water hydraulics, 33rd IAHR Congress: Water engineering for a sustainable environment, pp. 4417-4424, Aug 9-14, 2009, Vancouver, Canada.
  • Biron, P., Carre, D. & Gaskin, S.J. (2009) Hydraulics of stream deflectors used in fish habitat restoration schemes, River Basin Management V, WIT Transactions on Ecology and the Environment, 124: 305-314. Doi:10.2495/RM090281.
  • Khorsandi, B., Gaskin, S.J. & Mydlarski, L.M. (2008) The effect of background turbulence on the entrainment into an axisymmetric turbulent jet, 2nd International Symposium on Shallow Flows (IAHR), Dec 10-12, 2008, Hong Kong.
  • Folifac, F., Gaskin, S.J. & Lifongo, L. (2008) Water quality risk assessment in rapidly growing municipalities in sub-Saharan Africa: case of Buea-Cameroon, 24th Eastern Canadian Association of Water Quality Symposium and 8th Annual Symposium of the Brace Centre, McGill University, Montreal, Canada, Friday, November 7, 2008.
  • Khorsandi, B., Gaskin, S.J. & Mydlarski, L. (2007) Effect of background turbulence on thevelocity field of a turbulent jet, Proceedings of Fifth International Symposium on Environmental Hydraulics (ISEH-V) IAHR, eds.: D.Boyer & O. Alexandrova, Abst. p.144, paper pp.1-6., Tempe, Arizona, 4-7 December, 2007.
  • Jaramillo, F., Gaskin, S.J. and Cooper, V. (2007) Application of the Erosion 3D model to a developing catchment, 11th Diffuse Pollution Conference and 1st Meeting of Diffuse Pollution and Urban Drainage Specialist Groups, 26 – 31 August 2007, Belo Horizonte, Brazil.pp.1-8.
  • Khorsandi, B., Lavertu, T., Gaskin, S.J. & Mydlarski, L.B. (2007) A random jet array for laboratory studies of jet dilution within a turbulent environment, 18th Canadian Hydrotechnical Conference and Symposium, CSCE, Winnipeg, Manitoba, 22-24 August, 2007. pp.1-10.
  • Jamieson, E. & Gaskin, S.J. (2007) Laboratory study of 3 dimensional characteristics of recirculating flow in a river embayment, 32nd Congress of IAHR, July 1-6 2007, Venice, Italy.pp.1-9.
  • Carrera-Heranadez, J.J. & Gaskin, S.J. (2007) Spatial dynamics of aquifer recharge in the Basin of Mexico, 32nd Congress of IAHR, July 1-6 2007, Venice, Italy. pp.1-10.
  • Suerich-Gulick, F., Gaskin S., Villeneuve, M., & Parkinson, E.(2007,) Numerical simulation of a free surface vortex formed in the wake of a pier at a hydropower intake, 32nd Congress of IAHR, July 1-6 2007, Venice, Italy, pp.1-10.
  • Suerich-Gulick, F., Gaskin S., Villeneuve, M., Holder, G. & Parkinson, E. (2007 extended abstract, poster) Impact of geometry on free surface vortices in a scale model of a hydropower intake, Hydraulic Measurements and Experimental Methods, EWRI & IAHR, Lake Placid, New York, Sept 10-12, 2007.pp 1-5.
  • Suerich-Gulik, F., Gaskin, S., Parkinson, E., Villeneuve, M., Holder, G. (2006) Experimental and numerical analysis of free surface vortices at a hydropower intake, Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Hydroscience and Engineering, ICHE 2006, Philadelphia, USA, Sept. 10-13, 2006.pp.1-11.
  • Carre, D.M., Biron, P.M. & Gaskin, S.J. (2006) A three dimensional model around paireddeflectors for fish habitat enhancement, Proceedings of the RiverFlow 2006 Conference, Lisbon, Portugal, Ferreira, R.M.L., Alves, E.C.T.L., Leal, J.G.A.B. and Cardosa, A.H. (Eds.), Taylor and Francis, 1889-1895.
  • Suerich-Gulick, F., Gaskin, S. Parkinson, E. & Villeneuve, M. (2005) Free surface simulation of hydraulic turbine intakes, 23rd CADFEM Users’ Meeting 2005,International Congress on FEM Technology with ANSYS CFX & ICEM CFD Conference, Bonn, Germany, 9-11 Nov., 2005. pp. 1- 8.
  • Lavertu, T., Wahab, A.,Mydlarski, L. and Gaskin, S.,(2005). The effect of background turbulence on differential diffusion in a turbulent jet. - Presented at The Fifty-Eighth Annual Meeting of the Division of Fluid Dynamics of the American Physical Society, Chicago, IL, 20-22 November, 2005. - Abstract published in the Bulletin of the American Physical Society, 50(9): 121.
  • Carre, D., Biron, P.M. & Gaskin S.J. (2005) Flow dynamics and sediment transport around paired deflectors for fish habitat enhancement, 17th Canadian Hydrotechnical Conference, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, August 17-19, 2005.pp.345-353. Prize for best student paper/presentation at conference.
  • Lavertu, T., Pohl, W., Gaskin, S.J. and Mydlarski, L. (2004) "Punctual and planar measurements of differential diffusion in a turbulent jet, Advances in turbulence X." Proceedings of the 10th European Turbulence Conference, H.I. Andersson and P.A. Krogstad (Eds.), 235D, pp.1-4. CIMNE, Barcelona 2004. (In Tronheim July 2004.)
  • Virjee, K. and Gaskin S.J. (2003) "Water supply and sanitation provision under privatisation: A case study of Trinidad." Proceedings of XI World Water Congress, International Water Resource Association(IWRA), pp. 1-10 Madrid, 5 - 9 October 2003.
  • Gaskin, S.J., Aubel, T. and Holder, G. (2003) "Air demand for a ramp-offset aerator as a function of spillway slope, ramp angle and froude number." Proceedings of XXXIAHIR Congress, Thessaloniki, Greece, August 24 - 29, 2003, Theme D, pp. 719-726.
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Updated on Wed, 2011-06-01 14:11
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