Saltwater intrusion modeling of the Savannah harbor expansion project (original) (raw)
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Calibration of a 3-D Hydrodynamic and Salinity Model of the Savannah River Estuary
2003
In support of an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for a proposed harbor expansion project a three-dimensional hydrodynamic model was applied to serve as a tool to determine potential project impacts. The hydrodynamic model simulated salinity, currents, water surface elevation, and volume flows for the entire Lower Savannah River Estuary system (over 60 river miles). The model was calibrated and validated over two 100-day periods in 1999 and 1997, respectively. The model proved to be capable of reproducing complex, transient physical phenomena in this extremely dynamic system and provided good agreement with observed values of surface elevation, currents, and salinity. The model will be used to directly calculate project induced changes to the hydrodynamic and salinity environment, and will also provide the input to several other studies, including: a water quality model, a marsh vegetation model, and a river sedimentation model.
2007
The Upper Floridan aquifer underlies all of Florida, most of the Georgia and Alabama Coastal Plain, and large parts of coastal South Carolina. The aq- uifer is composed primarily of carbonate rock of varying permeability that ranges in age from middle Eocene to early Miocene. In the study area, the Upper Floridan aquifer is confined above by the upper confining unit of Miocene age that, in turn, is overlain by more recent un- differentiated surficial sediments. Prior to groundwater development, potentiometric heads in the Upper Floridan aquifer ranged between 5 and 35 feet above mean sea level throughout most of the study area until about 1888 when groundwater withdraw- als began in the vicinity of Savannah, Georgia. By 1998, withdrawals totaled approximately 80 million gallons per day in the Savannah, Georgia and Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, area. The cone of depression created by the 1998 pumpage lowered the potentiometric surface below mean sea level over an area greater t...
The Savannah Harbor is one of the busiest ports on the East Coast of the United States and is located downstream from the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge, which is one of the Nation's largest freshwater tidal marshes. The Georgia Ports Authority and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers funded hydrodynamic and ecological studies to evaluate the potential effects of a proposed deepening of Savannah Harbor as part of the Environmental Impact Statement. These studies included a three-dimensional (3D) model of the Savannah River estuary system, which was developed to simulate changes in water levels and salinity in the system in response to geometry changes as a result of the deepening of Savannah Harbor, and a marsh-succession model that predicts plant distribution in the tidal marshes in response to changes in the water-level and salinity conditions in the marsh. Beginning in May 2001, the U.S. Geological Survey entered into cooperative agreements with the Georgia Ports Authority to ...
2015
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Scientific Investigations Report
Appendix 1. Description of the artificial neural network models used in the Model-to-Marsh Decision Support System-Version 2 (M2M-2 DSS) Appendix 2. Descriptions of variables used in the Model-to-Marsh Decision Support System-Version 2 (M2M-2 DSS) artificial neural network models Appendix 3. Summary of performance statistics for the specific conductance models used in the Model-to-Marsh Decision Support System-Version 2 (M2M-2 DSS) Appendix 4. User's Manual for the Pee Dee River and Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway Salinity Intrusion Model Decision Support System (Version 2) Appendix 5. User's Manual for Model-to-Marsh Decision Support System (Version 2) vii 10. Schematic diagram showing the conceptual modeling approach for evaluation of the effects of climate change on salinity intrusion, North and South Carolina ..
This work presents a three-dimensional model of a portion of the upper section of the coastal aquifer in Israel, which suffers from seawater intrusion. The objective of the model is to serve as a management tool. The model was built by using the Finite Element framework, taking into account the development of a transition zone and the variation of fluid density within it. First, the model was run for long periods of time, without pumping, in order to create initial conditions of seawater intrusion (salt concentration distribution) prior to the exploitation of the aquifer. Then the model was used to analyze seawater intrusion induced by a pumping well in the vicinity of the coast (coastal collector). The model was able to adequately represent the behavior during periods of seawater intrusion, upcoming, and recovery, in response to well activation and shut-off.
Scientific Investigations Report, 2007
Six reservoirs in North Carolina discharge into the Pee Dee River, which flows 160 miles through South Carolina to the coastal communities near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. During the Southeast's record-breaking drought from 1998 to 2003, salinity intrusions inundated a coastal municipal freshwater intake, limiting water supplies. To evaluate the effects of regulated flows of the Pee Dee River on salinity intrusion in the Waccamaw River and Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources and a consortium of stakeholders entered into a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Geological Survey to apply datamining techniques to the long-term time series to analyze and simulate salinity dynamics near the freshwater intakes along the Grand Strand of South Carolina. Salinity intrusion in tidal rivers results from the interaction of three principal forces-streamflow, mean tidal water levels, and tidal range. To analyze, model, and simulate hydrodynamic behaviors at critical coastal gages, data-mining techniques were applied to over 20 years of hourly streamflow, coastal water-quality, and water-level data. Artificial neural network models were trained to learn the variable interactions that cause salinity intrusions. Streamflow data from the 18,300-square-mile basin were input to the model as time-delayed variables and accumulated tributary inflows. Tidal inputs to the models were obtained by decomposing tidal water-level data into a "periodic" signal of tidal range and a "chaotic" signal of mean water levels. The artificial neural network models were able to convincingly reproduce historical behaviors and generate alternative scenarios of interest. To make the models directly available to all stakeholders along the Pee Dee and Waccamaw Rivers and Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, an easy-to-use decision support system (DSS) was developed as a spreadsheet application that integrates the historical database, artificial neural network models, model controls, streaming graphics, and model output. An additional feature is a built-in optimizer that dynamically calculates the amount of flow needed to suppress salinity intrusions as tidal ranges and water levels vary over days and months. This DSS greatly reduced the number of long-term simulations needed for stakeholders to determine the minimum flow required to adequately protect the freshwater intakes.
Development of a Three Dimensional Dissolved Oxygen Model for the Lower Savannah River Estuary
Proceedings of the Water Environment Federation, 2002
WEF 2002 Manuscript_6-ALT1.doc 11/16/01 3 1.2 CHARACTERIZATION OF THE LOWER SAVANNAH RIVER ESTUARY The study area for the Savannah Harbor Modeling Effort is shown in Figure 1-1. The primary area of interest for all of the studies is the upper portion of the Lower Savannah River Estuary, which is characterized by the transition between the saline and freshwater environments. For the purposes of the SHEP modeling efforts that area is defined between River Mile (RM) 10 (Fort Jackson) and RM 30 (immediately above Interstate-95). The delineation of this study area is derived from the ecological interests of concern, which were defined in the Tier I EIS as: • Impacts of salinity changes upon the freshwater marsh species within the Savannah River National Wildlife Refuge. • Impacts of salinity changes upon the striped bass spawning areas within the Front, Middle, Back, and Little Back Rivers. • Impacts of salinity changes upon the shortnose sturgeon population within the upper Estuary. • Impacts of dissolved oxygen changes upon the striped bass spawning areas within the Front, Middle, Back, and Little Back Rivers. • Impacts of dissolved oxygen changes upon the shortnose sturgeon population within the upper Estuary.
JAWRA Journal of the American Water Resources Association, 2013
A numerical model, the Curvilinear Hydrodynamics in 3-Dimensions, Waterway Experiment Station version (CH3D-WES), was applied to represent transport processes of the Chesapeake Bay. Grid resolution and spatial coverage, tied with realistic bathymetry, ensured dynamic responses along the channel and near the shoreline. The model was run with the forcing ranges from high frequency astronomical tides to lower frequency meteorological forcing, given by surface wind and heat flux, as well as hydrological forcing given by fresh water inflows both from upstream and distributed sources along the shoreline. To validate the model, a long-term simulation over seven-year time period between 1994 and 2000 was performed. The model results were compared with existing observation data including water level time series, which spans over a wide spectrum of time scales, and long-term variations in salinity structures over varying parts of the Bay. The validated model is set to provide an appropriate transport mechanism to the water quality model through linkage, warranting that the model takes into account the complexity in time and spatial scales associated with the dynamic processes in the Chesapeake.