I would like to whole heartedly thank my advisor Dr. Melanie Sattler and Dr. Victoria Chen for guiding and supporting me throughout the research. This research would not have been possible without their continuous technical guidance and encouragement. Dr. Sattler has truly been a mentor and has always believed in me through the thick and thin. I would especially like to like thank Dr. Chen for her invaluable inputs, guidance and support that took me through this research. I would also like to thank my committee members Drs. Andrew Kruzic, Stephen Mattingly, and Seoung Bum Kim for their guidance and support. A research of such a large scope also required technical support and professional guidance. I would like to extend my gratitude to Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) for providing me with the modeling data. Further, I would like to thank Pete Breitenbach and Ronald Lee Thomas from TCEQ for giving me valuable inputs during modeling. Also, I would like to thank Gary Wilson and Edward Tai from ENVIRON for their technical support in helping me understand the CAMx and EPS3 models used in this research. I also take this opportunity to thank Dr. Syed Qasim. He has been a constant motivator and a guardian to me. I consider myself fortunate to having known him. I would also like to extend my thanks to Barbara Howser for helping me with the various library resources. I appreciate critical help of Industrial Engineering doctoral students Chingfeng Lin, Panaya Rattakorn, and Subrat Sahu for conducting data mining and Industrial iii iv Engineering master students Chintan Thakkar and Akshay Nawathe for conduction regression analysis. I also appreciate the assistance of Civil Engineering doctoral