Near- and far-field model coupling methodology for wastewater

discharges
T. Bleninger & G.H. Jirka
Institute for Hydromechanics, University Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany

ABSTRACT: The prediction of pollutant concentrations in the coastal waters is essential for
water quality control. The description of physical processes and their implementation in computer models shows that there is neither a complete model including all important spatial and
temporal scales of the dominant processes nor a standard procedure for the coupling of models.
This is explained by deficiencies in either implementing dominant physical near-field processes
into a far-field model and/or coupling the models to each other. Capabilities and limitations of
modeling techniques applied to waste plume mixing and dispersion from submerged multiport
discharges are discussed for environmental impact analysis. The recommended procedure combines the relative strengths of the near-field mixing zone model CORMIX and the Eulerian farfield flow and water quality models within Delft3D.
1 INTRODUCTION
There is worldwide increasing utilization of controlled treatment facilities in combination with
submarine outfalls to achieve better coastal water quality. Outfalls transport the effluent offshore through a pipe or tunnel and discharge commonly through a multiport diffuser. The latter
is a linear structure with a (usually large) number of ports mounted on, or connected through
risers to a submerged pipe laid on the ocean floor. Multiport diffusers are effective mixing devices which by the choice of discharge point and hydraulic design can influence the short-term
impact. Long-term influence of the discharge needs to be addressed in terms of levels of bacteria or persistent substances in the effluent. There are several diagnostic and predictive methodologies for examining the mixing from point sources and showing compliance with environmental quality standards. Beside costly and difficult field measurements and hydraulic model
studies, which both are usually limited to certain ambient conditions computer models became
the most important tool. Existing scientific approaches and techniques for predicting environmental impacts for large regions and long time periods are still very complex and do not allow
standard engineering design solutions. Therefore capabilities and limitations of modeling techniques applied to waste plume mixing and dispersion from submerged multiport discharges are
discussed in terms of model selection and the linking of mixing zone models (near-field) and
general water quality models (far-field).
Mixing Processes for multiport diffuser plume predictions
The hydrodynamics of an effluent continuously discharging into a receiving water body can be
conceptualized as a mixing process occurring in two separate regions. In the first region, the initial jet characteristics of momentum flux, buoyancy flux (due to density differences), and outfall
geometry influence the effluent trajectory and degree of mixing. This region, the "near-field",
encompasses the buoyant jet flow and any surface, bottom or terminal layer interaction (fig. 1).
Outfall designers can usually affect these initial mixing characteristics through appropriate manipulation of design variables. A review of these processes has been given by Fischer et al.

(1979), Jirka & Lee (1994), Baumgartner et al. (1993) and Roberts et al. (1989 a, b, c). As the
turbulent plume travels further away from the source, the source characteristics become less important and the far-field is attained. A pool of wastewater is formed either at the surface or at the
level of submergence under stratification conditions. Ambient environmental conditions will
control trajectory and dilution of the turbulent plume through buoyant spreading motions, passive diffusion due to ambient turbulence, and passive advection by the often time-varying, nonuniform, ambient velocity field. The flow is forced by tide at the open boundaries, wind stress at
the free surface, pressure gradients due to free surface gradients (barotropic) or density gradients
(baroclinic). Vertical mixing in stratified water bodies is damped by buoyancy, so subsequent
dilution is mainly due to horizontal mixing by the turbulent eddies (Zielke & Mayerle, 1999).
2 WASTEWATER PLUME DISPERSION MODELLING
Near-field models describe with good resolution the details of physical mixing processes (mass
advection and diffusion), but are limited to relatively simple pollutant kinetics by assuming either conservative substances or linear decay kinetics. This is acceptable for most applications,
since residence times in the near-field are typically short so that chemical or biological mass
transformations are usually unimportant. In simple water bodies, such as coastal regions or estuaries with well defined uni-directional current regimes or with simple reversals, and with moderate pollutant loadings, the use of near-field mixing zone models alone may suffice to arrive at,
or to evaluate, a design of a point source discharge that meets regulations. However, regions
with multiple current regimes (inertial, tidal, wind- or buoyancy driven) and with large pollutant
loadings, especially where several sources may interact and additional diffuse sources may exist, near-field models must be supplemented by larger-scale (far-field) transport and water quality models. The latter are capable of prediction over greater distances in the water body of the
concentration distributions for different pollutants, but also for nutrients and other bio-chemical
parameters with due consideration of mass transformation and exchange processes. They do not,
however, have the high spatial resolution that is required to predict near-field mixing processes,
a coupling approach is necessary.
2.1 Near-field model
The near-field focused expert-system CORMIX (Jirka et al., 1996) was chosen because it addresses the full range of discharge geometries and ambient conditions, and predicts flow configurations ranging from internally trapped plumes, buoyant plumes in uniform density layers
with or without shallow water instabilities. Boundary interaction, upstream intrusion, buoyant
spreading and passive diffusion in the intermediate field are also considered.

Fig. 1: Left: Laboratory investigation of near-field mixing of submerged discharge into a stratified water
body. The initial buoyant jet motion is followed by trapping and internal spreading at the terminal level
Right: Physical processes, length and time scales for discharge in coastal environment (Jirka et al., 1976).

CORMIX assumptions are a cross-section of the water body be described as a rectangular

straight uniform channel, uniform ambient velocity and steady-flow conditions (however recent
developments allow the analysis of unsteady mixing in tidal environments). If the assumptions
are too rigorous, influences of ambient non uniformities can be analyzed within CORMIX using
CORJET, a 3-D buoyant jet integral model that predicts the jet trajectory and dilution characteristics of a single round jet or of a series of merging jets from a multiport diffuser with arbitrary
discharge direction and positive, neutral or negative buoyancy in a general ambient environment
(Jirka, 2004). The ambient conditions can be highly non-uniform with both ambient current
magnitude, current direction, and density a function of vertical distance. CORJET can be used
as an enhancement to the near-field predictions. The major limitation of CORJET lies in the assumption of an infinite receiving water body, similar to all other available jet integral type models (e.g. UM or RSB in Visual Plumes or JetLag in VisJet). Thus, CORJET (and so far all the
other models with the infinite receiving water body assumption) should only be used after an
initial CORMIX classification has shown that the single or multiple port discharge is indeed of
the deep water type, i.e. hydrodynamically stable, without boundary interactions.
2.2 Far-field flow model
The velocity field may be obtained from a numerical calculation of the equations of motion (a
so-called circulation model) or from field surveys, or occasionally from a physical scale
model. Three-dimensional modeling is needed where the horizontal flow field shows significant
variation in the vertical direction. This variation maybe generated by wind forcing, bed stress,
Coriolis force, bed topography or density differences. A number of public-domain or commercial codes are available at present to aid in the prediction and engineering design of coastal effluent discharge schemes. These include the models Delft3D (Delft Hydraulics), ECOM (Hydroqual), Mike 3 (Danish Hydraulic Institute), POM (Princeton University) and Telemac-3D
(HR Wallingford). For this study the model suite Delft3D from Delft Hydraulics (2001) was
chosen for the following reasons.
The hydrodynamic module Delft3D-FLOW solves the unsteady shallow water equations in
three dimensions (hydrostatic assumption). The effect of variable density is only taken into account in the horizontal pressure gradient term (Boussinesq approximation). The equations are
formulated in orthogonal curvilinear co-ordinates or in spherical co-ordinates on the globe. The
utilization of sigma grids tolerates much smaller levels of horizontal viscosity and diffusivity
(Mellor et.al., 2002). It includes: tidal forcing, Coriolis force, density driven flows (pressure
gradient terms in the momentum equations), advection-diffusion solver included to compute
density gradients with an optional facility to treat very sharp gradients in the vertical, space and
time varying wind and atmospheric pressure, advanced turbulence models to account for the
vertical turbulent viscosity and diffusivity based on the eddy viscosity concept. For this paper
the k- turbulence closure model was chosen. Depending on the near-field coupling procedure
typical far-field processes like buoyant spreading and the damping of vertical exchange due to
stratified conditions may be directly modeled and represented in the flow field. Further transport
modeling allows for considerations of mixing, diffusion and decay processes in direct relation to
occurring far-field processes.
2.3 Far-field transport model
Given the velocity field, the pollutant concentration field is typically obtained by solving the
Eulerian convective diffusion equation in three dimensions for different substances (bacteria,
nutrients, indicators, ) from different sources. The hydrodynamic conditions (velocities, water
elevations, density, salinity, vertical eddy viscosity and diffusivity) resulting from the flow field
module Delft3D-FLOW are therefore used as input to the other modules of Delft3D, which are:
Delft3D-WAQ: Eulerian far-field water quality module or Delft3D-PART: Lagrangian midfield particle tracking module. A disadvantage for grid based Eulerian approaches is numerical
diffusion due to often large grid sizes. Detailed analysis of the applied numerical methods and
tests with varying grid sizes are indispensable for Eulerian transport modeling. If numerical diffusion is not neglectable the flow field is not represented sufficiently and a Lagrangian particle
tracking approach should be chosen.

Lagrangian plume tracking models treat the development of the unsteady far-field pollutant
plume by superimposing individual patches (particles) of released pollutant masses. During a
time step each pollutant patch is advected by the instantaneous advective velocity field and diffused by a random time-dependent diffusion process. Particle tracking models are grid size independent. In addition, reaction or decay processes can be simulated using different particle attributes (density, surface area, ages). Various realistic features (e.g. the return of previously
diluted sewage over the outfall and different source conditions) can be readily simulated by superposition methods. However (as opposed to the Eulerian models) proper formulations for representing horizontal spreading and damped vertical exchange are often not implemented and
time-scales of simulations are usually limited to a few weeks, in order to simulate accurately using a large number of particles.
The chosen Delft3D model suit allows for both, the direct coupling of the flow field with either a Eulerian water quality model or a mid-field particle tracking model.
3 COUPLING NEAR- AND FAR-FIELD MODEL
The previous description of physical processes and their implementation in computer models
shows that there is neither a complete model including all important spatial and temporal
scales of the dominant processes (fig. 1) nor a standard procedure for the coupling of near and
far field models or even flow field and transport models. This is explained by deficiencies in either implementing dominant physical near-field processes into a far-field model and/or coupling
the models to each other. Suggested approaches (e.g. Blumberg et al., 1996, or Zhang & Adams,
1999) have various redundancies or shortcomings.
Generally, the coupling is less complicated for the case of integral type near-field models and
a Lagrangian tracking far-field model since both model types have a similar structure (Roberts,
1999, Zhang, 1995). However, considerable conceptual and data handling difficulties exist for
linking a near-field integral model to a Eulerian far-field circulation model.
To allow a more detailed representation of fluctuating components on the mean currents a
field-class approach will be used to couple the near-field model CORMIX with the far-field
models within Delft3D. Classes in both, the near and the far field summarize similar flow patterns and certain parameters into a qualitative description of the flow situation and characteristics. This qualitative description allows to choose process-, numerical domain- and modelcharacteristics to account for the occurring processes. Thus, field-class models have a considerable advantage in the mathematical treatment and improved accuracy and detail in the solution.
The recommended coupling procedure is based on four steps: ambient baseline conditions
modeling (ambient velocity field, density field, background concentrations), near-field mixing
and transport modeling, coupled near-field far-field flow modeling, far-field transport and water
quality modeling.
Step I: Ambient baseline modeling with Delft3D flow (hydrodynamics)
The baseline modeling has to represent the prevailing velocity and density field for the coastal
region for different ambient conditions. Calibration has to be done using existing field-data. The
results of the grid cell(s) containing or overlapping the diffuser (depending on horizontal grid
resolution) are passing a classification procedure. Density profiles are spatially averaged and
classified into two density classes: uniform and stratified profiles. The stratified profiles are
passing further classification according the A, B, C type profiles in CORMIX. This allows to
describe density profiles with very few parameters. If no clear matches are found an intermediate run of CorJet will allow for better classification.
Velocity field data from baseline modeling is analyzed separately for the previous two
classes. Each class is classified into two velocity profile classes: vertically uniform or nonuniform. The non-uniform profiles are passing further classification in unidirectional and nonunidirectional profiles.
Time series files for all classes are computed as preparation for the near-field model. These
files contain time, general density profile data according to CORMIX definitions (Jirka et al.,
1996), and an average ambient velocity (uniform class) or the whole velocity profile (nonuniform class) as well as the average water level at the discharge location.

Step II: Near-field modeling with CORMIX (hydrodynamics and transport)

CORMIX is applied using the baseline time-series as input files. Furthermore effluent data and
the diffuser geometry have to be specified. The short travel time of the effluent in the near-field
region allows to run CORMIX without decay processes. CORMIX results are plume trajectories
and dilutions or concentrations (fig. 3, inner graph). These are classified into two classes: surfacing plume and internally trapped plume. For each class time series files are computed containing plume geometries (horizontal and vertical extent in respect to the centerline), plume centerline orientation and vertical location (in respect to the diffuser and its midpoint), volume flux
and mass flux at the coupling position defined as a distance from the diffuser midpoint. For
coarse grids (larger than diffuser length) the coupling position is generally the center of the farfield grid cell nearest the diffuser (fig. 3, overlayed Eulerian grid over CORMIX prediction
graph) in the direction of the prevalent flow, but at least five times the water depth apart. For
fine grids (diffuser length is multiple of grid size) an iterative procedure has to be undertaken to
find the coupling position where only horizontal advection is a prevalent process and density
spreading processes are considered in the far-field model.

Fig. 2: Example of a CORMIX prediction of a diffuser discharge into a stratified flowing environment
with an oblique alignment angle (45) seen in the plan view, leading to an internally trapped plume, seen
in the side view. Superposed are far-field grid characteristics and the grid cell centre point, where source
characteristics may enter the far-field model.

Step III: Coupling of CORMIX with Delft3D flow (hydrodynamics)

For each class all coupling position cells are identified. In Delft3D flow a discharge is specified
for these cells using the resulting time series from step II. These are therefore analyzed and divided so that for every cell a discharge volume and mass flux is specified. For coarse horizontal
grids, the discharge effects generally only one cell. For finer horizontal grids the fluxes have to
be distributed on several cells according to the near-field concentration profile predictions. For
the vertical location of the discharge it is best to modify the vertical layer distribution in approximation for the predicted near-field plume class. The plume location (surface or internal
layer) should be highly resolved (layer thickness = 1 - 1/2 plume width). If the plume affects
more than one cell in the vertical the mass and volume flux have to be distributed on these cells
according the CORMIX concentration profiles. The far-field model run is repeated with the additional discharge sources and eventually a modified vertical grid distributions.

Step IV: Far field transport modeling with Delft3D Part / WAQ (mixing, transport, decay)
Delft3D allows a direct coupling of hydrodynamic results for the different flow classes for water
quality modeling (Eulerian or Lagrangian). If step III shows either uncorrectable effects of high
numerical diffusion or minor influences of the effluent induced velocity field on the plume
transport in the far-field a particle tracking approach will be more convenient for mid-field bacteria concentration distribution. In any other case, especially for long prediction periods and
multiple hydrodynamically interacting sources an Eulerian water quality model should be used.
4 CONCLUSIONS
A coupling methodology for near- and far-field models has been described. The methodology is
focused on representing mixing and transport processes resulting from multiport diffuser
wastewater discharges in coastal waters. Scale and time disparities are overcome by a field-class
approach, summarizing similar flow and mixing patterns into a qualitative description. Model
coupling and numerical implementations are optimized for each class providing more precise
and faster results. Capabilities and limitations of either Eulerian or Lagrangian transport modeling approaches are included in the coupling approach. The recommended procedure uses CORMIX for the near-field and the Delft3D suit for far-field predictions.
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