Water Quality

FVCOM encompasses three water quality modules: FVCOM-WQM, UG-CE-QUAL-ICM, and UG-RCA. These modules were the unstructured grid versions of EPA’s Water Quality Analysis Simulation Program (WASP), Army Corps’ water quality model named originally “CE-QUAL-ICE,” and HydroQual’s Row Column Advance ecological system modeling program (RCA). FVCOM-WQM is coupled with FVCOM (called “online”), while UG-CE-QUAL-ICM and UG-RCA can be run independently by FVCOM output (called “offline”). We applied UG-RCA to assess the water quality condition in Massachusetts Bay over the period 1995-2016. The water quality simulation captured general patterns in seasonal variations, geographic distributions, and vertical structure for many variables. The simulation results were used to investigate the importance of variations in physical transport due to the flow into Massachusetts Bay south of Cape Ann, to variations of dissolved oxygen and chlorophyll in northern Massachusetts Bay, including the Waste Water Treatment Plant (WWTP) outfall site. Click here to view the major findings highlighted in the examples.

The animation provides a view of the changes in pH, pCO2, DO, and nutrients in Massachusetts Bay. The simulation was done for the year 2016 using NeBEM.