Three-dimensional Modeling of Water Quality and Ecology in Narragansett Bay
Citation:
Abdelrhman, M. Three-dimensional Modeling of Water Quality and Ecology in Narragansett Bay. U.S. EPA Office of Research and Development, Washington, DC, EPA/600/R-16/203, 2017.
Impact/Purpose:
The presented three-dimensional water quality and ecological model provides a reliable tool to predict nutrient and chemical concentrations in estuarine and coastal systems. This model can be used to examine future scenarios of environmental and anthropogenic stressors in estuarine and coastal systems to guide future management decisions related to improving water quality, reducing nutrient loading, and improving hypoxia.
Description:
This report presents the methodology to apply, calibrate, and validate the three-dimensional water quality and ecological model provided with the Environmental Fluid Dynamics Code (EFDC). The required advection and dispersion mechanisms are generated simultaneously by the EFDC hydrodynamic model. The methodology is applied to Narragansett Bay to predict spatial and temporal concentrations and transport patterns for 20 water quality state variables for a full year—2009. This year was one within which extreme hypoxia had been observed, and was an atypically wet summer year. The model has not been validated using data from more typical wet (e.g., 2006) and dry years (e.g., 2007).