Combining Inverse and Transport Modeling to Estimate Bacterial Loading and Transport in a Tidal Embayment
1
Virginia Institute of Marine Science, College of William & Mary, Gloucester Point, VA 23062, USA
2
Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, Central Office, 629 East Main Street, Richmond, VA 23218, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editor: Rich Signell
J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2016, 4(4), 69; https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse4040069
Received: 2 August 2016 / Revised: 28 September 2016 / Accepted: 9 October 2016 / Published: 2 November 2016
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Selected Papers from the 14th Estuarine and Coastal Modeling Conference)
Poquoson River is a tidal coastal embayment located along the Western Shore of the Chesapeake Bay about 4 km south of the York River mouth in the City of Poquoson and in York County, Virginia. Its drainage area has diversified land uses, including high densities of residence, agricultural, salt marsh land uses, as well as a National Wildlife Refuge. This embayment experiences elevated bacterial concentration due to excess bacterial inputs from storm water runoff, nonpoint sources, and wash off from marshes due to tide and wind-induced set-up and set-down. Bacteria can also grow in the marsh and small tributaries. It is difficult to use a traditional watershed model to simulate bacterial loading, especially in this low-lying marsh area with abundant wildlife, while runoff is not solely driven by precipitation. An inverse approach is introduced to estimate loading from unknown sources based on observations in the embayment. The estimated loadings were combined with loadings estimated from different sources (human, wildlife, agriculture, pets, etc.) and input to the watershed model. The watershed model simulated long-term flow and bacterial loading and discharged to a three-dimensional transport model driven by tide, wind, and freshwater discharge. The transport model efficiently simulates the transport and fate of the bacterial concentration in the embayment and is capable of determining the loading reduction needed to improve the water quality condition of the embayment. Combining inverse, watershed, and transport models is a sound approach for simulating bacterial transport correctly in the coastal embayment with complex unknown bacterial sources, which are not solely driven by precipitation.
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Keywords:
transport modeling; inverse modeling; bacterial loading estimation; traditional watershed modeling
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MDPI and ACS Style
Sisson, M.; Shen, J.; Schlegel, A. Combining Inverse and Transport Modeling to Estimate Bacterial Loading and Transport in a Tidal Embayment. J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2016, 4, 69.
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