MEASURING AND MODELING LARGE-SCALE POLLUTANT DISPERSION IN SURFACE WATERS

Dispersion is an important process affecting the transport of pollutants from wet-weather discharges, like storm sewer outfalls and combined sewer overflows (CSOs). This paper briefly reviews the technology available for measuring and modeling large-scale dispersion in surface waters. Then, several case studies of instantaneous inputs of tracers and pollutants are discussed, including deliberate releases of tracers to the Hudson, Wind- Bighorn and Missouri Rivers and accidental releases of pollutants to the Rhine, Somes (Romania) and Sacramento Rivers. For each case, measurements and model simulations are presented and discussed. Future research opportunities to investigate the dead-zone storage mechanism using high-resolution geographic data (National Hydrography Dataset, NHD) and high-resolution three-dimensional hydrodynamic models are discussed. The HUSKY1 modeling framework is presented, which is an MS Excel-based one-dimensional modeling framework incorporating the dead zone storage mechanism.