MODELING TIDAL HYDRODYNAMICS OF SAN DIEGO BAY,CALIFORNIA1

ABSTRACT: In 1983, current data were collected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration using mechanical current meters. During 1992 through 1996, acoustic Doppler current profilers as well as mechanical current meters and tide gauges were used. These measurements not only document tides and tidal currents in San Diego Bay, but also provide independent data sets for model calibration and verification. A high resolution (100-m grid), depth-averaged, numerical hydrodynamic model has been implemented for San Diego Bay to describe essential tidal hydrodynamic processes in the bay. The model is calibrated using the 1983 data set and verified using the more recent 1992–1996 data. Discrepancies between model predictions and field data in both model calibration and verification are on the order of the magnitude of uncertainties in the field data. The calibrated and verified numerical model has been used to quantify residence time and dilution and flushing of contaminant effluent into San Diego Bay. Furthermore, the numerical model has become an important research tool in ongoing hydrodynamic and water quality studies and in guiding future field data collection programs.     

NORMALIZED UNIT HYDROGRAPH AGGREGATION1

ABSTRACT: The unit hydrograph is a common tool in hydraulic design. Used correctly, it allows a design engineer to estimate a runoff hydrograph from a drainage basin given a rainfall event. The typical method for estimating a unit hydrograph for a gaged watershed is by deconvolution. However, distinct storms produce different unit hydrographs for a single watershed. Consequently, a design engineer usually develops a composite, or average, unit hydrograph based on several recorded storm events. Common methods for estimating this composite unit hydrograph include curve fitting, simple aggregation, and multistorm optimization techniques. This paper introduces a new method to perform aggregation of unit hydrographs. The method is an extension to the simple averaging technique, in which prior to averaging, the individual unit hydrograph time ordinates are normalized with respect to the average time to peak. The normalization method is compared to a simple averaging technique and two multistorm aggregation techniques at six rural watersheds in Alabama. The results indicate that on average the normalization method predicts runoff nearly as accurately as the multistorm techniques, and displays improvement for 60 percent of the storms tested when compared with the simple averaging technique.     

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF LINEAR AND NONLINEAR TIME SERIES MODELS FOR WATER QUALITY1

ABSTRACT: Surface water quality data are routinely collected in river basins by state or federal agencies. The observed quality of river water generally reflects the overall quality of the ecosystem of the river basin. Advanced statistical methods are often needed to extract valuable information from the vast amount of data for developing management strategies. Among the measured water quality constituents, total phosphorus is most often the limiting nutrient in freshwater aquatic systems. Relatively low concentrations of phosphorus in surface waters may create eutrophication problems. Phosphorus is a non-conservative constituent. Its time series generally exhibits nonlinear behavior. Linear models are shown to be inadequate. This paper presents a nonlinear state-dependent model for the phosphorous data collected at DeSoto, Kansas. The nonlinear model gives significant reductions in error variance and forecasting error as compared to the best linear autoregressive model identified.     

MODELING THE HYDROLOGIC IMPACTS OF FOREST HARVESTING ON FLORIDA FLATWOODS1

ABSTRACT: The great temporal and spatial variability of pine flat-woods hydrology suggests traditional short-term field methods may not be effective in evaluating the hydrologic effects of forest management. The FLATWOODS model was developed, calibrated and validated specifically for the cypress wetland-pine upland landscape. The model was applied to two typical flatwoods sites in north central Florida. Three harvesting treatments (Wetland Harvesting, Wetland + Upland Harvesting, and Control) under three typical climatic conditions (dry, wet, and normal precipitation years) were simulated to study the potential first-year effects of common forest harvesting activities on flatwoods. Long-term (15 years) simulation was conducted to evaluate the hydrologic impacts at different stages of stand rotation. This simulation study concludes that forest harvesting has substantial effects on hydrology during dry periods and clear cutting of both wetlands and uplands has greater influence on the water regimes than partial harvesting. Compared to hilly regions, forest harvesting in the Florida coastal plains has less impact on water yield.     

HYDROLOGIC RESPONSE TO PUMPING AND CONTAMINANT ADVECTION IN A FRACTURED ROCK ENVIRONMENT1

ABSTRACT: Ground water flow and supply at the Whiteshell Research Area (WRA) in southeastern Manitoba and the advective movement of contaminants from a hypothetical nuclear fuel waste disposal vault to the adjacent biosphere and a nearby ground water supply well are simulated using finite-element modeling and numerical particle-tracking technique. The hypothetical vault is located at a depth of 500 m, below the water table, in low-permeability plutonic rock of the Canadian Shield. The rock mass is intersected by high-permeability fracture zones (aquifers), which also act as conduits for vault contaminants to migrate to the ground surface. The ground water resource is, therefore, limited in quantity and quality and should be explored with care. A 30 m deep well, which pumps water at a rate of 120 m³/yr from a low-dipping fracture zone, LD1, reduces natural discharge from the system to augment natural recharge. At this pumping rate, a 100 m or 200 m deep well neither reduces discharge nor induces recharge into the system. Thus, at the WRA, a 30 m deep domestic water supply well best meets the water requirements of a one-person household at the rate of 120 m³/yr. The 100 m and 200 m wells best meet the requirements of a family of six and a family of six with light irrigation, respectively, without capturing contaminants’pathways from the vault to the ground surface. By virtue of the proximity of the 200 m well intake to the hypothetical vault, this well performs best as a purge well at pumping rates of 0,000 m³/yr and greater. Finite-element modeling is useful in evaluating the water supply potential of a fractured rock environment in which a nuclear waste disposal vault is proposed to be sited.     

HEAD LOSS AT MANHOLES IN SURCHARGED SEWER SYSTEMS1

ABSTRACT: A laboratory investigation was conducted to determine the head losses at sewer pipe junctions (manholes) under surcharged conditions. A physical model of a manhole/pipeline system was constructed for head-loss measurements. Head-loss coefficients were determined for a variety of outlet-flow Reynolds numbers, surcharge levels, pipe sizes, flow configurations, and inlet-flow rates. Empirical formulas were also developed to estimate head-loss coefficients. The results indicate that head loss is insensitive to the amount of surcharge, but depends heavily on the flow configuration, relative flow rate, and the change of pipe diameter within the pipelines.     

PREDICTION OF MEAN ANNUAL FLOWS IN NORTH AND CENTRAL FLORIDA1

ABSTRACT: A frequency analysis approach for the prediction of flow characteristics at ungaged locations is applied to a region of high annual precipitation and low topography in north and central Florida. Stationary time series of annual flows are fitted with the lognormal distribution and estimated parameters of the distribution are fitted by third order trend surfaces. These explain 65 and 74 percent of the observed variances in the mean and standard deviation, respectively. Predictions of parameters are then made for several locations previously unused in the study and they are used to estimate the return periods of various flows from the lognormal distribution. Application of the Kolmogorov-Smirnov goodness-of-fit test suggests that only one of the five test stations can be considered significantly different from the observed data, confirming the applicability of this technique.     

SPATIAL MODELLING WITH GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS FOR DETERMINATION OF WATER RESOURCES VULNERABILITY APPLICATION TO AN AREA IN MASSIF CENTRAL (FRANCE)1

ABSTRACT: A method for water resources protection based on spatial variability of vulnerability is proposed. The vulnerability of a water resource is defined as the risk that the resource will become contaminated if a pollutant is placed on the surface at one point as compared to another. A spatial modelling method is defined in this paper to estimate a travel time between any point of a catchment and a resource (river or well). This method is based on spatial analysis tools integrated in Geographical Information Systems (GIS). The method is illustrated by an application to an area of Massif Central (France) where three different types of flow appear: surface flow, shallow subsurface flow, and permanent ground water flow (baseflow). The proposed method gives results similar to classical methods of estimation of travel time. The contribution of GIS is to improve the mapping of vulnerability by taking the spatial variability of physical phenomena into account.     

Mass conservation and atmospheric dynamics in the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS)

This paper examines the spatio-temporal patterns of atmospheric carbon dioxide transport predicted by the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS). Forty-eight hour simulations over northern New England incorporating a simple representation of the diurnal summertime surface carbon dioxide forcing arising from biological activity indicate that, in its native formulation, RAMS exhibits a significant degree of mass non-conservation. Domain-wide rates of non-physical mass gain and mass loss are as large as three percent per day which translates into approximately eleven parts per million per day for carbon dioxide — enough to rapidly dilute the signature of carbon dioxide fluxes arising from biological activity. Analysis shows that this is due to the approximation used by RAMS to compute the Exner function. Substitution of the exact, physically complete equation improves mass conservation by two orders of magnitude. In addition to greatly improving mass conservation, use of the complete Exner function equation has a substantial impact on the spatial pattern of carbon dioxide predicted by the model, yielding predictions differing from a conventional RAMS simulation by as much as forty parts per million. Such differences have important implications both for comparisons of modeled atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations to observations and for carbon dioxide inversion studies, which use estimates of atmospheric transport of carbon dioxide in conjunction with measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations to infer the spatio-temporal distribution of surface carbon dioxide fluxes. Furthermore, use of the complete Exner function equation affects the vertical velocity and water mixing ratio fields, causing significant changes in accumulated precipitation over the region.