Evaluating the Emergent Controls of Stream Water Quality with Similitude and Dimensionless Numbers
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 24, Issue 5
Abstract
The emergent hydrologic and land-use controls of coastal-urban stream water quality were evaluated by using similitude and dimensional analysis, considering southeast Florida a prototype of growing coastal-urban environments. The goal was to test a fundamental hypothesis that the coastal-urban stream water quality processes represent emergent ecohydrological-biogeochemical similitudes (parametric reductions). The in-stream total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP), and biomass () were normalized by their immediate upstream reach concentrations to formulate the dimensionless numbers of , , and . Stream dissolved oxygen (DO) was normalized by its saturated concentration () to obtain the dimensionless number—avoiding a misleading scaling by upstream concentrations in the presence of a DO sag phenomenon. The emergent controls of stream water quality were represented by a small set of dominant driver dimensionless numbers. For each water quality indicator, nine original variables (including predictors and response) were reduced to three to four important and mechanistically meaningful dimensionless numbers. The hydrologic control number (role of watershed hydrology versus the external Everglades) and salinity number (ratio of downstream to upstream salinity) exhibited the key controls on stream across the wet and dry seasons. In contrast, the land-use number (ratio of agricultural plus vegetated lands to built lands), hydrologic control number, and salinity number dominated and incorporating the two seasons. However, was controlled by the hyporheic exchange number (role of watershed groundwater versus surface hydrology) and land-use number in the wet and dry seasons, respectively. The formulated similitude and dimensionless numbers provided important insights and understanding that may help achieve healthy coastal-urban streams.
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Acknowledgments
The research was funded by a CAREER Award to Dr. Omar I. Abdul-Aziz from the US National Science Foundation (NSF CBET Environmental Sustainability Award Number 1561942/1454435). We thank Mr. Robert Bernhard of Broward County, Florida, for sharing an initial study area map and reports with us.
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Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 24 • Issue 5 • May 2019
Copyright
©2019 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: May 22, 2018
Accepted: Oct 18, 2018
Published online: Feb 26, 2019
Published in print: May 1, 2019
Discussion open until: Jul 26, 2019
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