Proceedings of the 2019 Mississippi Water Resources Conference

Year: 2019 Authors: Armandei M., Linhoss A.

The development of a hydrodynamic and water quality model for the Western Mississippi Sound is addressed here. The hydrodynamic part of the model simulates flow, salinity, and temperature. The hydrodynamic part of the model is also the driving mechanism for nutrient transport. The water quality part of the model simulates the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of Western Mississippi Sound. The model has been developed using the Visual EFDC program that links the hydrodynamic model to the water quality model. A computational grid has been generated consisting of 4 layers, each having 3000 cells. The input data for the hydrodynamic model are; water level, water temperature, salinity, precipitation, solar radiation, wind speed, wind direction, air pressure, and air temperature. The input data for the water quality model are; dissolved oxygen, nutrients (such as Carbon, Nitrogen, Phosphorus and their compounds) and Algae. The simulation time period is from Jan 1st, 2009 to Dec 31st, 2017. The hydrodynamic part of the model is finalized, whereas the water quality part is still being calibrated. The model will be used to identify the most appropriate locations for oyster bed restoration and cultch deployment in the Mississippi Sound.