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Tracking the raindrop from the sky to the summit to the sea...

Sea... manage and mitigate

The Tar-Pamlico river basin meets the Atlantic Ocean in the Pamlico Sound, where the impacts of coastal storms on densely populated areas create tremendous economic impacts. U.S. Census data indicates over half of our nation’s population, 153 million people, live in coastal counties, and an estimated 12 million more are expected to move to the coasts by 2015. CI-FLOW research will demonstrate the value of incorporating storm surge and wind characteristics in coastal watershed streamflow predictions. Ensembles of storm surge models currently operating in Carolina academic institutions and at the NOAA Tropical Prediction Center and NWS Southeast River Forecast Center will be coupled with the ensemble of water quantity and quality models to help improve forecasts for these areas. CI-FLOW research will also include inundation estimates, and fresh water streamflow flood predictions. Resulting forecasts will be made available, as appropriate in a research mode, to interested forecasters and decision makers to help mitigate loss of life and property.

Goal: Demonstration of CI-FLOW ensemble for storm surge information, including water quantity and quality

Existing CI-FLOW storm surge ensemble members:

Current activities:

Water Quality Monitoring

A precipitation-driven watershed water quality model has just been implemented for the Tar-Pamlico River. The output from the watershed model will be directly coupled with an estuary water quality model, and linked with the existing NCSU estuary lower-river flood model. This integrated modeling system will be capable of exploring responses of primary ecosystem parameters, such as nutrients, dissolved oxygen, and primary production, to upland flooding events.

The watershed water quality model is based on a public domain software program HSPF (Hydrologic Software Program – Fortran) distributed by the U.S. EPA's Center for Exposure Assessment Modeling. HSPF is a comprehensive watershed simulation model designed to simulate a wide range of hydrologic and water quality processes (Bicknell et al., 2001). The model simulates various forms of nutrients (e.g. ammonium, nitrate, organic nitrogen and phosphate) based on time series of precipitation data and land use characteristics at the river basins.

The estuary water quality model is based on CE-QUAL-ICM from US Army Corps of Engineers, Waterways Experiment Station (Cerco and Cole, 1994) and HEM3D (Hydrodynamic Eutrophication Model in Three Dimension) from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (Part et al., 1995). Both models have been heavily used in water quality modeling in Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries (Cerco, 1995; Lin and Kuo, 2003). Upon receiving the nutrient loadings from the watershed model, the estuary water quality model simulates spatial and temporal distributions of multiple components of nutrients, dissolved oxygen, carbon and phytoplankton.

Assessments/Case Findings

IOOS FY08-10
NOAA NC/SC SeaGrant FY08 support

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