You are here:
DEVELOPMENT OF NEAR-SHORE HYDRODYNAMIC MODELS FOR BEACH CLOSURE FORECASTING IN THE GREAT LAKES
Citation:
SCHWAB, D., D. BELETSKY, W. E. FRICK, Z. GE, M. MCCORMICK, A. WINKELMANN, AND A. FOLEY. DEVELOPMENT OF NEAR-SHORE HYDRODYNAMIC MODELS FOR BEACH CLOSURE FORECASTING IN THE GREAT LAKES. Presented at 2006 Ocean Sciences Meeting, Honolulu, HI, February 20 - 24, 2006.
Impact/Purpose:
A main objective of this task is to combine empirical and physical mechanisms in a model, known as Visual Beach, that
- is user-friendly
- includes point and non-point sources of contamination
- includes the latest bacterial decay mechanisms
- incorporates real-time and web-based ambient and atmospheric and aquatic conditions
- and has a predictive capability of up to three days to help avert potential beach closures.
Description:
Water quality managers and other planning and decision entities are increasingly calling for up-to-the-minute data on present water quality conditions or forecasts of these data that can be used to adjust or respond to quickly developing activities with environmental implications. Examples include the forecast of short term water quality conditions for the withdrawal of water for drinking water supply; short range predictions of potentially dangerous conditions at water supply intakes; the forecast of beach closings and openings from bacterial contamination from combined sewer overflow (CSO); the knowledge of the trajectory of materials from dangerous spills; short range prediction of the impact of shoreline activities at one site or another shoreline site; and the forecasting of upwelling and downwelling events and the associated nutrient and bacterial redistributions required for toxic plankton blooms. This project intends to develop predictive nearshore hydrodynamic transport models of these phenomena.