Modeling Surface Water Quality and Nutrient Correlation with Sediment Oxygen Demand at Dam Water Reservoirs

The work presented here is a model approach based on WASP8 (Water analysis simulation program) a water quality model simulated to represent contaminants at the surface and bottom sediments of Kurtboğazı dam reservoir in Ankara city. However, our water quality output variables: are temperature, nitrate, total phosphorus, total Kjeldahl nitrogen, dissolved oxygen, Chlorophyll a, and ammonia. To ensure the model represents the actual case at the reservoir, the results from the simulation model were calibrated using actual data from the Kurtboğazı dam site, the calibration utilizes statistical techniques. The first method was the goodness-of-fit, R2 between model variables and field data, and the results were in the range of 0.86 to 1.0 indicating excellent linear association. The second technique was the RE, the values of which obtained were less than 1, elaborating acceptable results. The dam reservoir Kurtboğazı had been affected by the negative impact arising from dissolved oxygen depletion in the hypolimnetic layer during stratification periods and that had been well documented. However, the processes of oxygen consumption at the sediment-water interface are still difficult to grasp conceptually and mainly linked to sediment oxygen depletion and the phenomena of sediment oxygen demand SOD. The novelty of this research work is the development of a quality model to predict the reactions of state variables that are occurring at the water body and how they interact with each other and their influence on the overall quality status of the Kurtboğazı reservoir, and the crucial factors influencing the depletion of oxygen at the water column; secondly, the effect of anoxic condition on the benthic flux and the impact of anoxia condition on the ratio of nitrogen to phosphorus ratio at the reservoir. It was evident from the results of calibration that the model successfully simulated the correlation of the parameters influencing the anoxic condition, and benthic flux and ratio shift from nitrogen-limited during the summer to phosphorus-limited at the beginning of winter.