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UWA Environment Seminar Water quality models for environmental management: Application to pit lakes

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Venue

Simmonds Lecture Theatre, University of Western Australia

This talk will present the recently published results of testing a water quality model against eight years of data from a pit lake, up to 2012.  The model was able to explain the main features of the lake hydrodynamics and biogeochemistry, including the acidic pH, and was used to test hypotheses regarding limitations on nutrient cycling and phytoplankton growth.

The greatest unknown affecting the water quality evolution was the inflow of acid-bearing groundwater. The simulation period covered a large river inflow into the lake in 2011; the model reproduced the short-term lake response. There was also an observed sustained increase in pH for a period after the connection to the river closed; it is hypothesized that this was due to the influx of river-borne organic carbon driving alkalinity generation in the carbon-limited lake sediments, a process that can be incorporated into future modelling studies.

Find out more here.

Details

Date:
22/03/2018
Time:
4:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Event Category: