Date of Award

7-7-2020

Publication Type

Master Thesis

Degree Name

M.A.Sc.

Department

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Keywords

Detroit River, Hydrodynamic Modelling, Microbial Water Quality Modelling, Water Intake

Supervisor

Rajesh Seth

Supervisor

Tirupati Bolisetti

Rights

info:eu-repo/semantics/embargoedAccess

Abstract

Detroit River is an important connecting channel of the Great Lakes system that is supplying drinking water to the surrounding people of US and Canada. In this study, an integrated hydrodynamic and microbial water quality model of the Detroit River is developed using TUFLOW-FV and AED2+ modelling framework, to simulate E. coli concentration at two Canadian drinking water intake locations. The high resolution three-dimensional hydrodynamic model is verified by comparing simulated water level, flow and water temperature with observed data from summer 2016. The model output is in good agreement with observed data showing RMSE, MAE and R2 of 0.04 m, 0.002 m and 0.84 for water level; 2o C, 4.25o C and 0.7 for temperature; and 191 m3/s, 158 m3/s and 0.6 for flow, respectively. A tracer transportation study using the developed hydrodynamic model shows 79% and 68% of source water respectively at Windsor and Amherstburg water intakes come from the Canadian side of Lake St. Clair. The pathogen module of AED2+ is integrated with the hydrodynamic model to investigate E. coli concentration in intake locations for different scenarios. The results from this integrated model shows that the highest percent contribution of E. coli at Windsor water intake and Amherstburg water intake are from Lake St. Clair (78%) and Canard River (53%) respectively while considering mean decay rate (k=0.91). The bypass from Little River Pollution Control Plant also affects the microbial water quality of the intake locations. By considering only inflow loadings as input, model under predicts E. coli concentration at the water intake locations, which suggests that nonpoint local washout, CSO and storm outlet discharges may affect the microbial water quality at these locations.

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