Environmental and Water Resources Engineering

Projects

Overview

Nested Modeling for Nearshore Regions in Lake Ontario

Offshore regions of the Great Lakes have shown dramatic improvements in water quality over the past several decades, relative to the 1960s and 1970s, when excess nutrient loading was identified as the cause of hypereutrophic conditions that led to taste and and odor problems, algae blooms, fish kills, and other undesirable effects.  Phosphorus concentrations in offshore waters are now at or below target levels set in the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, while levels nearshore are elevated and still exceed these targets.  Working with a consortium of researchers from across New York, UB engineers are taking the lead in developing embedded hydrodynamic models to simulate nearshore regions at a much higher resolution than in typical whole-lake models.  In addition to better understanding water flows and temperature structure in these regions, the hydrodynamic models are currently being coupled with algal population models to simulate benthic algal biomass, one of the top concerns in these areas.

FACULTY & STAFF

• Joseph F. Atkinson, Ph.D.

 

FUNDING SOURCE

• New York Department of Environmental Conservation