Water quality modelling

Water quality present special problems to environmental managers who have to control rivers, lakes, groundwaters and wetlands to meet both environmental standards and water supply standards. The new Water Framework Directive is having a major impact on the control of water quality and ecology as the new standards are set and applied at the catchment scale. New techniques on modelling catchments are required in order to cope with the increasing complexity of water quality issues.

HYDRA has developed a range of water quality models for modelling river systems and catchments. These include the HERMES model for simulating the transport of pollution events down river systems and this model simulates flow, Dissolved Oxygen, Biochemical Oxygen demand, Ammonia, E Coli and any conservative or nominally unreactive pollutant. We have also developed a suite of catchment based models collectively know as the INCA models. These take into account the land surface and land use and route the water and associated quality into the river network. Current versions of the model include INCA-N for flow, nitrate and ammonia, INCA-P for phosphorus, sediments, macrophytes, epiphytes and phytoplankton, INCA- SED for a sediments and INCA-Trit for radio active components. All the models are process based, dynamic, daily and generate fluxes estimates and concentrations of all the variables at key locations along river systems.

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