Author(s): M. Elshemy; T. T. H. Le; G. Meon; M. Heikal
Linked Author(s): Gunter Meon
Keywords: No Keywords
Abstract: Water quality of reservoirs is of particular concern. With increasing environmental degradation and multiple uses of reservoirs, water quality has become an issue of great concern. Egypt is extremely dependent on the River Nile; the country hardly has any other fresh water resources. Full control of the Nile water was achieved in the 1970s after the construction of the Aswan High Dam (AHD). In this paper, the southern part of the AHD reservoir, Lake Nubia, was modeled to investigate the hydrodynamics and water quality of the reservoir water body. For this, a two-dimensional hydrodynamic and water quality modeling system CE-QUAL-W2 was applied. The model was calibrated with data from the year 2006 and verified with data from the year 2007 by applying the same set of parameters and constants which were used in the calibration process. The presented model simulates the hydrodynamic characteristics (water surface level and water temperature) profiles with excellent agreement. The simulated concentrations of key water quality constituents such as dissolved oxygen, nutrients, and algal biomass closely match the measured values. In the following, the calibrated model is going to be used to simulate the impact of changed inflow characteristics related to pollution and water quantities and of different reservoir operation strategies on the water quality.
Year: 2010