| Abstract: | Thermal pollution is a growing concern as communities strive to protect and improve the nation's waters. The purpose of this study was to develop and analyze a geospatial model that predicts the relative risk of contribution of thermal energy to surface runoff throughout an urban watershed. A geospatial‐based solution could serve as a screening method or planning element, prior to or instead of the development of a more complex simulation of mass‐load transport of thermal energy. The study's theoretical methodology integrated the thermal potential of land cover and thermal decay due to overland travel to inlets. The resulting thermal pollution potential (TPP) index value was then assigned to individual model grid cells for comparison. Analysis of results from application to a case study watershed in Blacksburg, Virginia, indicated the computational methodology is not very sensitive to changes in spatial resolution. The thermal decay constant used in the analysis was varied, and results indicated a low sensitivity to selection of this parameter. A comparison between methods of watershed delineation also indicated use of infrastructure‐corrected watershed delineation yields better results than derivation from automated techniques. The geospatial method presented may be used to reproduce a TPP risk map to prioritize thermal pollution mitigation efforts. |
