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Waterway Pollution Simulation

© Adam Hughes

Continuing our discussion of environmental simulation techniques and applications, this week we travel to the Water Resources Environmental Information Systems Laboratory at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Particularly interesting to us are the simulation models and software being developed there.

One of the more visible and controversial environmental issues has for decades been the effects of pollutants in water sources, from lakes to rivers to oceans. Many industries indirectly or directly affect the quality of surrounding bodies of water, and for many years large quantities of waste were deposited directly into our streams and lakes. This begs several questions, not the least of which is: "How does this impact humans?!?!". Other issues which need to be considered include determining what concentration of a pollutant is "safe" for organisms that come into contact with the water, how long the pollutant stays in the ecosystem of the waterway and how and at what rate the pollutant travels within the body of water.

All of these are pertinent concerns, and all are now being studied via computer simulation.

The method that has been developed to examine pollution in water at the Water Resources Environmental Information Systems Laboratory is called the IDOR3D model. This model allows researchers to study the hydrodynamics and pollutant transport of lakes, rivers, reservoirs, estuaries and coastal waters at a constant, homogeneous temperature or with a layered temperature layout. In addition to being able to model chemical contaminants, IDOR3D also provides the capability to simulate thermal discharges such as might be seen near a nuclear power plant.

The IDOR3D also includes utilities for producing a more realistic model, lending better accuracy to its results. For instance, there are methods for including liquid turbulence in the model, as well as dry banks and variable bottom friction. Obviously, in a real system one expects to encounter all of these things, as rivers hardly ever run through polished steel channels, and lakes generally are not observed in a perfectly motionless state. The accuracy enhancements provided by these features seems to be borne out in their application to real systems in Japan, Greece, and Canada.

In the coming weeks, we'll look at some of the other models being developed and used at the Water Resources Environmental Information Systems Laboratory, as well as some sample applications. In the meantime, visit their web site to learn more.

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