Suitability of a Coupled Hydrodynamic Water Quality Model to Predict Changes in Water Quality from Altered Meteorological Boundary Conditions

Abstract

Downscaled climate scenarios can be used to inform management decisions on investment in infrastructure or alternative water sources within water supply systems. Appropriate models of the system components, such as catchments, rivers, lakes and reservoirs, are required. The climatic sensitivity of the coupled hydrodynamic water quality model ELCOM-CAEDYM was investigated, by incrementally altering boundary conditions, to determine its suitability for evaluating climate change impacts. A series of simulations were run with altered boundary condition inputs for the reservoir. Air and inflowing water temperature (TEMP), wind speed (WIND) and reservoir inflow and outflow volumes (FLOW) were altered to investigate the sensitivity of these key drivers over relevant domains. The simulated water quality variables responded in broadly plausible ways to the altered boundary conditions; sensitivity of the simulated cyanobacteria population to increases in temperature was similar to published values. However the negative response of total chlorophyll-a suggested by the model was not supported by an empirical analysis of climatic sensitivity. This study demonstrated that ELCOM-CAEDYM is sensitive to climate drivers and may be suitable for use in climate impact studies. It is recommended that the influence of structural and parameter derived uncertainty on the results be evaluated. Important factors in determining phytoplankton growth were identified and the importance of inflowing water quality was emphasized.