THE USE OF MATHEMATICAL MODELING TO EVALUATE STRATEGIES TO MEET WATER QUALITY STANDARDS IN A HEAVILY URBANIZED TIDAL BAY

Jamaica Bay is a shallow bar-built estuary located on the south shore of western Long Island, New York. The Bay has had a long history of being influenced by development along its borders and currently suffers from degraded water quality conditions, including noncompliance with current New York State water quality standards for dissolved oxygen. In an effort to develop a more complete understanding of the factors, which cause these poor water quality conditions, and to explore possible management alternatives, which could be used to remedy the poor water quality conditions, the Department of Environmental Protection of the City of New York provided funding to conduct a comprehensive field monitoring program and to develop a mathematical model of water quality within the Bay. The purpose of this paper is to provide overviews of (1) the historical changes that have occurred within the bay due to man, (2) the field monitoring efforts, (3) the development and calibration of the water quality model, and (4) results of model projections obtained from the water quality model for various management alternatives being considered for the Bay.