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January 2001
ASA Makes Impact on the Gold Coast, Australia
The
Gold Coast, just south of Brisbane on the east coast of Australia, is home to
a perfect climate, picturesque beaches, and the famous Surfer’s Paradise.
Winding its way through the Gold Coast is the Nerang River, with beautiful homes
nestled against the riverbanks. The Nerang River is the largest and most significant
river system on the Gold Coast, consisting of numerous canal and freshwater lake
environments. The river provides the Gold Coast’s drinking water and plays
a significant role in recreation and tourism. Hence, the Nerang River not only
requires a standard of water quality capable of supporting aquatic/marine life
and meeting appropriate environmental health standards for primary contact, but
must also maintain the high aesthetic standard expected by both residents and
visitors to the region. Asia-Pacific ASA successfully secured a contract for water quality modeling with the Gold Coast City Council (GCCC), making it the first Australian Local Government to incorporate ASA’s water quality model, WQMAP. The GCCC will use WQMAP to assist with decision support in determining potential impacts caused by new developments to the Nerang River system, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia.
A field program was established as part of the project to measure water quality parameters within the water column. Two forms of field data were used to determine the acute and chronic impacts on the river from local land use and runoff. The field program particularly focused on monitoring significant rainfall events, with more frequent sampling undertaken at these times. The second set of data consists of ten years worth of water quality measurements collected in the Nerang River system by the GCCC as part of their commitment to creating sustainable development in the Gold Coast region. The combination of the datasets and external forcing (i.e., wind, rainfall, freshwater inflow and water elevation) enabled a comprehensive understanding of the time-varying two-dimensional structure of these parameters within the Nerang River system.
Brian King and Sasha Zigic of Asia-Pacific ASA trained members of the GCCC to use WQMAP and worked actively with them to ensure that WQMAP meets all of their water quality management requirements. The GCCC currently uses WQMAP to analyze system dynamics and to predict the impacts of actual events or potential river design and management alternatives. They anticipate that the WQMAP system will be a useful tool in decision support for future land use consideration within the Nerang River region and for planning and monitoring the health of the Gold Coast waterways.
OILMAP used by MMS and Scripps for Southern California
The
Minerals Management Service (MMS) and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography,
University of California, San Diego entered into a series of Cooperative Agreements,
the first beginning in July 1991, in order to determine and describe the oceanic
circulation in the Santa Barbara Channel-Santa Maria Basin area. The information
coming out of this research is being used in support of decision-making concerning
OCS oil and gas activities in this area. As part of this program, ASA’s OILMAP
system has been incorporated into the project by MMS. OILMAP has been customized
to integrate the oceanographic data developed by Dr. Ed Dever at Scripps and time
varying gridded wind fields. OILMAP’s GIS will also be used to store and
view results from the extensive set of moored current and free-floating drifter
studies that have been performed. 
Integration
of this data with OILMAP’s visualization and trajectory models will help
researchers study the performance of the model using synoptic current fields developed
by Scripps. Eoin Howlett from ASA recently met with David Browne and Lu Tan from
MMS and Ed Dever and Jerry Wanetick from Scripps for the incorporation of OILMAP
into the project. Dave Browne, project manager for the study was very positive,
“ASA has been very cooperative in customizing their product to fit our needs
in the Pacific Region. Their latest modeling product, OILMAP, coupled with one
of the best oceanographic data sets ever acquired, will serve as an accurate planning
and response tool for MMS’s oil spill risk assessment efforts.”
Insuring Good Habitat for Scallops
Nantucket
Bay Scallops are famous the world over for their sweet taste, tenderness and size.
Thus the island is very sensitive to any degradation of water quality in Nantucket
Harbor, where the scallops are fished. In order to evaluate impacts of harbor
watershed development and to assess engineering alternatives to preserve and improve
water quality, the town contracted with a team headed by ASA to study these issues.
One of the concerns that the team addressed was elevated nutrient levels resulting
from increased development on the island, which causes eutrophic conditions and
thus low dissolved oxygen in harbor waters. To assess the potential sources of
this problem and to develop management options, ASA provided a WQMAP application
consisting of a hydrodynamic model, a flushing model, a nutrient loading model
and a total nitrogen model. The calibrated circulation and flushing models were
the basis for evaluating effects of several harbor modifications. These conceptual
configurations focused on changes to the entrance channel, creating dredged channels
to connect the Harbor basins, and creating a cut to the Atlantic Ocean at the
east end of the harbor. According to Craig Swanson, the ASA project manager, the
analysis found that little change would result from modifying the harbor entrance,
that dredging the channel connecting the basins would actually decrease flushing
by directing flow into the channels and away from the broad shallower areas, and
that the largest impact would be due to the creation of a cut to the Atlantic
Ocean. This configuration would dramatically reduce flushing times due to the
significant difference in the phase of the tides between the ocean and the Harbor.
Such a major change could also have unintended environmental consequences and
would need to be studied in much greater detail before proceeding. Nitrogen loading
to the harbor was also studied. WQMAP calculates nitrogen loads from land to shallow
estuaries and is based on land use in the watershed. Estimates of total nitrogen
concentrations in the harbor were modeled and found to be not significantly above
background levels because the loads are relatively small. Comparisons of nitrogen
measurements taken in the Harbor during 1997 through 1999 with model predictions
were found to be consistent. An application of ASA’s WQMAP model system was
installed that allows town personnel to track and predict flushing and water quality
changes. Matthew Ward, who performed the project modeling, conducted a training
session on the island. WQMAP was very well received by town personnel. The ease
of data entry and visual display of model results makes this application very
useful to them and should prove a valuable tool for water quality management.
Caption: Matt Ward (2nd from left) together with the Nantucket Harbor Model training
class. On 13 November, Deborah French presented her research on oil toxicity modeling at the 21st Annual Meeting of the Society of Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC). She has just completed preparation of a manuscript for submission to the journal, entitled: “Development and Application of an Oil Toxicity and Exposure Model, OilToxEx”.
Craig Swanson was invited to speak the Biology at Noon Seminar Series at the Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island on 29 November. He spoke on Modeling the Four Dimensional Structure of Mt. Hope Bay using ASA’s WQMAP boundary fitted hydrodynamic modeling system. A major focus of the modeling in Mt. Hope Bay is to understand the thermal effects of the cooling water discharge from an electrical generating facility located on the bay.
In
December 2000 Chris Galagan was appointed by the Rhode Island
State Planning Council to serve on the Rhode Island Geographic Information System
Executive Committee. The committee is tasked with coordinating and guiding the
use of geographic information technology in Rhode Island, supporting initiatives
for the use and implementation of GIS technology, and managing the database of
spatial information within the state. Deb French and Eric Anderson were invited speakers at the U.S. Minerals Management Service (MMS) information transfer meeting in New Orleans, December 5-6. Deb spoke about ASA's oil and chemical spill analysis systems, now in use in the Gulf of Mexico to analyze potential releases of chemicals used in deep water oil production. Eric spoke about the oil and gas bubble plume dynamics simulation work that ASA has completed for the oil industry in locations around the world. There was good interaction with other modelers from MMS and other contractors.
Bill
Saunders is a native Rhode Islander who
we are very pleased to welcome back to the Ocean State. Bill joined ASA in January
as a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) modeling specialist. Bill holds a Master
of Science in Civil Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. Bill has
extensive experience with GIS hydrologic modeling applications, specializing in
watershed modeling and the quantification of non-point source pollution. He comes
to ASA from the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission, where he managed
TMDL programs throughout the state. Bill continues his TMDL focus at ASA and is
currently applying hydrodynamic models for assessments of dam breach flooding
and near-field discharge mixing zones. Daniel Mendelsohn trained members of the City and County of Honolulu, Division of Environmental Quality in the use of ASA’s hydrodynamics and water quality model system, WQMAP. ASA’s WQMAP model system is being used to evaluate the distribution and fate of the effluent plumes from two of the City’s waste water treatment facility offshore outfalls. The training took place at the City and County offices in Honolulu, HI on 15-17 Nov, 2000.
Eoin Howlett and Roddy Thomas visited with the Maritime and Port Authority (MPA) of Singapore in November to deliver SARMAP, ASA’s Search & Rescue model system. SARMAP is now operational for a large region around Singapore and is integrated with hydrodynamic model predictions performed by MPA. SARMAP allows the user to quickly predict search areas for missing objects at sea and allocate search & rescue resources to the area.
ASA exhibited at Brasil’s International Oil & Gas Show, 16-19 October. Eduardo Yassuda and Roddy Thomas attended the show. Eduardo is ASA’s manager of their newly formed joint venture company ASATM, which will directly support their clients in Brasil and other South American countries.
Eoin Howlett and Roddy Thomas attended the Interspill Conference and Exhibition at Brighton, UK, 28-30 November. This is the first dedicated international oil spill conference in Europe, and the next Interspill will be hosted in France in 2003.
Sasha
Zigic from Asia Pacific ASA spent the
month of January in Rhode Island working with us on various projects. Sasha also
performed research for his PhD studies; the integration of culvert and lock structures
into a hydrodynamic and water quality model. By incorporating the culvert and
lock routines within WQMAP, researchers can examine the influence lock structures
have on water quality.