The implementation of the Water Framework Directive in European and many other countries of the world has its main objective to achieve "good status" for all water bodies through integrated river basin plans. For assessing the impact of measures in each river basin plan, water quality models are necessary. During the previous decades the progress in computer technology and computational methods has supported the development of advanced simulation models for pollutant transport in rivers and streams.
Water Quality Modelling for Rivers and Streams is written to provide all the fundamental knowledge for the deep understanding of these models and the development of new models, which will fulfil the future quality requirements in water resources management. Water Quality Modelling for Rivers and Streams focuses on the fundamentals of computational techniques required in water quality modelling. Advection and dispersion, with the effect of concentrated sources or sinks and the abatement of non-conservative contaminants, lead to formulation of the fundamental differential equation of pollutant transport.
Its integration, according to appropriate initial and boundary conditions and with the knowledge of the velocity field, allows for pollutant behaviour to be assessed in the entire water body. An analytical integration is convenient only in the one-dimensional approach with considerable simplification. Integration in the numerical field is useful to take into account particular aspects of the water body. To secure reliability, the models require an accurate calibration, based on proper data, taken from direct measurements in the water body.
Besides calibration, sensitivity and uncertainty analysis are also of utmost importance. All the above items are discussed in detail in the 21 chapters of Water Quality Modelling for Rivers and Streams which is written in a didactic form for professionals and students in water resources management.
Preface
1. Water Quality in the context of Water Resources Management
2. Basic notions
3. Mathematical interpretation of pollution transport
4. Fundamental expressions
5. Dispersion in rivers and streams
6. The biochemical pollution
7. The most frequent pollutants in a river
8. Temperature dependence
9. Application of the general differential equations
10. The steady-state case
11. Interpretation in finite terms
12. Progress in numerical modelling: the Finite Difference Method
13. The finite element method
14. The finite volume method
15. Multi-dimensional approach
16. Thermal Pollution
17. Optimisation models
18. Model calibration and validation
19. Water Quality Measurements and Uncertainty
20. Model reliability
21. Final thoughts and future trends
Appendix
Index