Author(s): Chengcheng Zhang; Qiuwen Chen; Jing Guo; Fei Ye
Linked Author(s): Qiuwen Chen, Fei Ye
Keywords: Taihu Lake; SELFE; SALMO; Eco-hydrodynamic model
Abstract: The study developed an eco-hydrodynamic model that integrates the simulation by means of an analytical lake model SALMO with the hydrodynamic model SELFE. The integrated model was applied to simulate the dynamics and spatial distribution of three algal species in Taihu Lake, China. The lake was divided into 8, 181 elements using unstructured triangle grids. For each grid, the water volume and substrate flux were computed by the SELFE model, and then the SALMO was applied to calculate the water quality parameters such as dissolved oxygen, nitrate, phosphate, detritus, zooplankton and biomass of three types of algae (diatoms, green algae and blue-green algae). The model was calibrated by genetic algorithm using the data collected at Meiliang bay from 2009 to 2011. The validation results showed that the modeled algal biomass didn’t quite follow the observed seasonal patterns, especially for diatoms and green algae, and the simulated concentration of nitrate continuously raised during the modeling period, reaching a peak eventually. The phosphate and dissolved oxygen were generally in agreement with the filed data. It indicated that the integrated eco-hydrodynamic model might be a promising tool for the predictions of algal blooms in Taihu Lake, but added efforts had to be taken for the improvement of model performance before actually applying it to the whole Taihu Lake.
Year: 2013