Proceedings of the 19th IAHR-APD Congress 2014, Hanoi, Vietnam

ISBN 978604821338-1

two-dimensional model of algal bloom in the nakdong river, south korea

I. W. SEO(1) AND J. S. KIM(2)

(1)
Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea,
seoilwon@snu.ac.kr
(2)
Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea,
hyde17k@snu.ac.kr

ABSTRACT
Algal bloom is the natural biomass of diverse algae which degrades ecological values in aquatic systems. This
phenomenon causes enormous polluted river and threats the public health. Therefore, it is indispensable to implement a
forecasting model on analysis of algal bloom. Development of 2D model on non-conservative pollutant mixing is
essential in a real river system because the 1D model does not consider the direct hydraulic effect of changes like
tributary inflow and nutrient entry. This study is aimed at developing a 2D numerical model to analyze spatial and
temporal transport on algal boom forecasting using the finite element method to resolve complex geometry of a natural
river. Based on environmental factors such as nutrient, light, temperature and predation to primarily affect algae
growth, it allows building a new 2D advection-dispersion model adding a sink-source term which represents a
biochemical mechanism occurring between algae and the four factors. The application site is defined between Gangjung
weir and Dalsung weir in about 15 km section at Nakdong River. During summer, the river has suffered aberrant
growth of blue-green algae called cyanobacteria due to precipitation deficiency, high temperature and runoff from
industrial facilities. Furthermore, the weirs built across the river have impeded natural streamflow to stimulate
colonization of the cyanobacteria with brisk assimilation with plenty of the nutrients. Through simulations, using the
newly developed model in this study, it demonstrates that algae rapidly propagates away from center of an area where
flow velocity become slower in the condition of continuous intrusion of nitrate and phosphate from wastewater
treatment plants. During summer, temperature and light are relatively constant, so these two factors do not have large
impact on the algal growth. Consequently, control of nutrient runoff and flow are critical to restrain the cyanobacteria
propagation in the Nakdong River.

Keywords: 2D numerical model, algal bloom, advection-dispersion equation, finite element method, Nakdong River

1. INTRODUCTION restoration project, many weirs built across the river have
slowed natural streamflow, and nutrient loading from
Nakdong River, which is one of South Korea's major
both urban and agricultural land runoff has been
rivers, serves as water supply resources for the south
stagnant in the streams. Corresponding to this situation
eastern area. The river is 525 km long, and its drainage
with the latest climate change, Nakdong River has
area is 23,817 km 2, passing through the major cities such
especially suffered algal bloom during summer season.
Busan and Daegu. In contemporary, the river provides
drinking water for over 13 million people of local
households. Due to the industrialization, however,
sewage and wastewater treatments plants have been
located along the river. The discharge from the industrial
facilities has caused increase of the pollutant loading in
the Nakdong River in the Figure 1. The application of
advanced water treatment systems and enforcement of
effluent standards for wastewater have brought
noticeable improvements in some water quality
parameters. Despite such improvements, the
eutrophication remains to trigger a serious deterioration
of water quality.
In 2008, the South Korean government carried out the
Four Major Rivers Project amount of the $17.3 billion in
purpose of securing abundant water resources to combat
water scarcity; implementing comprehensive flood
control measures; improving water quality and restoring
Figure 1. Midstream of Nakdong River, Korea
river ecosystems, creating multipurpose spaces for local
residents; and regional development centered on the
Algal bloom is originated from aberrant propagation of
rivers in the four major rivers. As results of the huge
blue-green algae, which concerns with threat to water

1
quality through rapid accumulation of high biomass,
degrades aesthetic, ecological and recreational values of
the river systems. In general, algae are referred to aquatic
plant-like organisms that have chloroplast for
photosynthesis, which allows them to manufacture own
food reacting with phosphorus and nitrogen. Especially,
blue-green algae also known as cyanobacteria involve
toxicants or musty compounds such as microcystin, MIB
and geosmin. Microcystin is one of cyclic peptides, which
is responsible for the death of fish, birds, wild animals
and agricultural livestock in many countries where
freshwaters contain toxic cyanobacterial blooms, and
adverse effects of toxins on human health have been
recognized (Mackintosh et al., 1990). In order to diminish
future risk of harmful algae on public health, a numerical
model to analyze the fate of algae in water bodies,
regarding the effect of environmental or hydraulic
factors, is proposed and performed in this study.
Through the model, it allows to determine a cost-effective
way to predict algae at ungauged sites since water quality
monitoring has restrictively been conducted at essential
sites due to monetary and geological limitations.
2. NUMERICAL MODEL
2.1 Water Quality Models
Water quality in the water bodies temporally and
spatially changes, thereby applying environmental
interaction into the mathematical modeling for water
quality prediction. Since the Streeter-Phelps model was
proposed to solve equilibrium of dissolved oxygen,
diverse water quality models have been introduced.
QUAL2K (Chapra and Pellettier, 2003), which was
developed by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA), is one of the solid models to simulate various
water quality variables. However, this 1D finite element
model has limitation to describe complex geometry of the
natural streams. WASP7 (Di Toro et al., 1983; Connolly
and Winfield, 1984; Ambrose, R.B. et al., 1988) is dynamic
compartment-modeling program for aquatic system,
allowing 1D, 2D and 3D system, and generally known as
an advanced eutrophication module. CE-QUAL-W2 is a
longitudinal/vertical hydrodynamic and water quality
model developed by U.S. Army Corp., and this model
has been frequently used to simulate water quality in
reservoir.
As shown in the Table 1, most of the existing models
have been circumscribed in finite difference method. In
water quality analysis in natural rivers, furthermore, 2D
models are appropriate because 3D models require huge
amount of times and effort on manipulation to users.
However, CE-QUAL-W2 and WASP7 are preferred to
predict periphyton and phytoplankton not in stream
systems but in reservoir or estuary systems.
Table 1. Water quality models
Numerical
Models Dimension Media
scheme
QUAL2K 1D (L) stream FDM
reservoir,
1D, 2D, 3D
WASP7 lake, stream, FDM
(L, H, V) estuary
reservoir,
CE-QUAL-W2 2D (L, V) lake
FDM
EFDC 3D (L, H, V)
lake, stream,
FDM
estuary
EPD-RIV 1 1D (L) stream FDM
2.2 River Analysis and Modeling System (RAMS)
River Analysis and Modeling System (RAMS), which
has been developed by Seoul National University, Korea,
is a FORTRAN based-numerical program to simulate the
natural river flow and turbulent effect as well as the
pollutant behavior in a meandering stream and the
dispersion of various types of non-conservative
pollutants. Furthermore, RAMS-GUI provides a solid
mesh generator, and a pre-and post-processors in a
graphical environment to maximize the convenience of
users. RAM consists of two models; Hydrodynamic
Model 2D (HDM-2D) and Contaminant Transport Model
2D (CTM-2D). In this study, the transport of algae, which
is non-conservative pollutant, is analyzed using the CTM-
2D. This water quality module is a two-dimensional finite
element model, using Galerkin weighted residual
method, to yield more accurate simulation results in aid
of unstructured grids to implement complicated
topography of Korean natural rivers. The program is
conducted upon the 2D advection-diffusion equation
which is derived by integrating 3D advection-diffusion
equation with respect to depth in an incompressible fluid
2.3 Algae Modeling
2.3.1 Governing Equation
In the process of pollutant introduced and mixed in
near field of the river, advection and dispersion occur in
every direction, thus requiring a 3D model to analyze
pollutant transport in the near field. However, most of
the river in real world has width much larger than depth,
so longitudinal mixing rapidly occurs before transverse
mixing does. Therefore, the 2D advection-dispersion
equation (Lee and Seo, 2012) is used to numerically
analyze transport of a non-conservative substance in the
Eq. [1].
(hC ) (vx hC ) (v y hC ) C C
+ + = h Dxx + Dxy
t x y x x y
C C
+ h Dyx + Dyy + r (C , t )
y x y
[1]
where C is the depth-averaged concentration; h the local
depth of flow; t the temporal variable; vx and v y the depth-
averaged fluid velocity in the x and y directions,
respectively; and r(C, t) the reaction term also referred as
a sink/source term to consider biochemical mechanism
of pollutants.
Dispersion of contaminants is the most indispensable
process in the analysis of pollutant mixing in the river
because it is originated from instantaneous spills and
continuous discharges (Chin, 2012). Thus, longitudinal
and transverse dispersion process should be accounted
for simultaneously. Dxx, Dxy, Dyx, Dyy represent tensors of
dispersion coefficient (Alavian, 1986) defined as
2 2
vx vy [2]
Dxx = DL 2
+ DT 2
vs vs
2
 vx v y [3]
Dxy = Dyx = ( DL - DT ) 2
vs
2 2
vy vx
Dyy = DL 2
+ DT 2
[4]
vs vs
2 2 2
where vx = vx + vy , DL and DT are the longitudinal and
transverse dispersion coefficients, respectively. Using
this expression, the Lagrangian motion of contaminant
tracer clouds can be transformed into the fixed Cartesian
coordinate (Seo and Lee, 2006).
Figure 2. TP ratio in the midstream of Nakdong River, 2013
2.3.2 Reaction Term
To determine the reaction term r(C,t), Michaelis- The relationship between state variables of the algae
Menten kinetics was used to explain relationship between model is illustrated in the Figure 3. Algae growth occurs
algae and nutrients. The Eq. [5] describes reaction rate interacting with inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus to
depending on the position of the substrate-binding reproduce own food through photosynthesis process.
equilibrium and the rate constant. Further, decay process of the algae involves mortality,
excretion, respiration, and settling, which are treated as
one parameter in this model.
d [ P] Vmax [ S ]
v= = [5]
dt K m + [S ]

where v, P, S, Vmax and Km is growth rate, concentration of

product, concentration of substrate, maximum growth
rate and Michaelis constant, respectively. In this study, P
and S are substituted into algae and nutrients like
phosphorus and nitrogen for each, and the nutrients
would not affect growth of the product when they reach
at saturation level. Phosphorus is generally considered as
a limiting factor in a natural river, especially when the
concentration of nitrogen to phosphorus (N/P) ratio
exceeds a critical value which lies in the vicinity of 15.
When the N/P ratio falls below 10, nitrogen becomes
limiting and control measures and modeling have to be
done for nitrogen as a nutrient (Sakamoto, 1966 and
Baker et al., 1981).
Table 2. Typical range of algae model parameters (Thomann
and Mueller, 1987)
System N/P ratio Limiting
Rivers and streams
Point-source dominated
Without phosphorus removal <<10
With phosphorus removal >>10
Nonpoint-source dominated >>10
In the midstream of Nakdong River, amount of
nitrogen is relatively higher than amount of phosphorus
(Figure 2) because phosphorus removal facilities have
been installed at many sewage treatment plants. Using
phosphorus and nitrogen concentration measured by
water quality stations which are located along the study
area, the N/P ratio was calculated from 24 to 280 in the
Figure 2. Thus, phosphorus could be dealt as a limiting
nutrient in this research according to criteria in the Table
2.
Figure 3. Algae model mechanism
Therefore, the reaction term could be simply expressed
in the Eq. [6] (Schnoor, 1996) to illustrate biochemical
reactions between the algae and other dependent factors
specially temperature, light, nutrients and decay rate. To
determine the decay rate, grazing factor by zooplankton
was not regarded in this research, thus dealing with it as
a constant rate.
P N
N r (C , t ) = m f dq A(T - 20) min[ , ] - eq A (T - 20)
C [6]
P + K P N + K N
P
P
where , fd and A are maximum growth rate, fraction of
solar radiation or intensity of light, and temperature
coefficient, respectively. In addition, KN, KP and e are half
saturation constant of phosphorus, half saturation
constant of nitrate and decaying coefficient, respectively.
Phosphorus is limiting, hereby applying Liebigs law of
the minimum into the model to not overestimate the
effect of nitrogen on algal growth. The range of
parameter for algae modeling proposed by earlier studies
or existing water quality models appears in the Table 3.
Table 3. Typical range of algae model parameters (Bowie, 1985;
Chapra and Pellettier, 2003; Schnoor, 1996)
Parameter Range Unit
KN 0.01 ~ 0.30 mg/L

3
 KP 0.001 ~ 0.05 mg/L
1.0 ~ 3.0 /day
A 1.020 ~ 1.075 -
e 0.01 ~ 0.5 /day

3. CASE STUDY

3.1 Field Observations

The observation dataset was collected at about 9.3 km
downstream of the Gangjung weir located in the study
area, midstream of Nakdong River, using an automatic
water quality sensor YSI 6600 EDS (Figure 4) which has
been verified by U.S. EPA. The specification of Chl-a
sensor equipped in YSI 6600EDS to measure Chl-a, which
is a representative indicator for algae concentration, is
listed in the Table 4.

Figure 5. Mesh intersection and point sources

3.3 Simulation Conditions

To perform the HDM-2D for obtaining longitudinal
and transverse velocity to consider effect of advection
Figure 4. YSI 6600 EDS water quality sensor (a) Front view and (b) and dispersion on transport of algae, boundary
Installation site conditions were set for monthly flow at the Gangjung
weir and Guemho River for headwater, and water
elevation at the Goryung bridge for downstream during
Table 4. Specification of YSI 6600 EDS Chl-a sensor June 2013 to March 2014. Additionally, monthly
measurements of Chl-a concentration at the Gangjung
Detection
Range Resolution weir and Guemho River were used for boundary
Limit
condition in CTM-2D to conduct the algae modeling.
0 to 500 g/L 0.1 g/L Further, average values of monthly phosphorus and
Chlorophyll
~0.1 g/L nitrogen concentration, and solar radiation time are used
6025 Sensor
0 to 100 RFU 0.1% RFU for input variables.

4. RESULTS
Measurements of Chl-a have been taken every 10
minutes from June 2013. To perform the monthly
4.1 Model Evaluation
simulation, averages of the 24-hours measurements for
observation period from June 2013 to March 2013 used The Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) is a normalized
for model calibration, thus acquiring 10 monthly statistic that determines the relative magnitude of the
observations available. residual variance compared to the measured data
variance (Nash and Sutcliffe, 1970). NSE is one of model
3.2 Mesh Generation evaluation techniques to evaluate the predictive accuracy
of hydrological models, and NSE = 1.0 corresponding to
In the Figure 5, the mesh was generated, using a mesh
a perfect match of model simulations to observations.
generator featured in RAMS-GUI. The mesh elements
NSE is computed as
were comprised of the combination of structured and
unstructured grids to render geometry of Nakdong River
n obs sim 2
with irregular river width and meandering. (Yi - Yi )
NSE = 1 - in=1 (7)
(Y obs - Y mean ) 2

i =1
i

where Yi obs is the ith observation for the constituent, Yi sim

is the ith simulated value, Y mean is the mean of observed
data, and n is the total number of observations.
Percent bias (PBIAS) measures the average tendency of
the simulated values to be larger or smaller than their
observed ones (Gupta et al., 1999). The optimal value of
PBIAS is 0.0, with lower-magnitude values indicating
more accurate model simulation. Positive values indicate

4
model underestimation bias, while negative values although the calibration results shows a better match than
indicate model overestimation bias (Table 4). PBIAS is the validation results. In the Table 7, NSE value for the
calculated as calibration is 0.91, RSR value is 0.29, and PBIAS value is
1.35 %. Thus, the model after the calibration
n obs demonstrates that the model perfectly explained
(Yi - Yi sim )*100
PBIAS = i =1 (8) observation data, indicating Very Good performance
n
level achieved in all the model evaluation statistics. The



i =1
(Yi obs )

Table 6 shows the calibrated parameter for the algae
model.
RMSE is one of the commonly used error index
statistics (Singh et al., 2004). Even if it is generally
accepted that the lower the RMSE the better the model
performance, Singh et al. (2004) have published a
guideline to qualify what is considered a low RMSE
based on the observations standard deviation. A model
evaluation static, named the RMSE-observations standard
deviation ratio (RSR), was proposed. RSR can be
calculated as

n obs
(Yi - Yi )
sim 2

RMSE
RSR = = i =1 [9] Figure 6. Monthly Chl-a concentration at observation site 1
STDEVobs n
(Yi obs - Y mean ) 2
i =1
Table 6. Calibrated parameter
The optimal value of RMSE is 0, which means results
of the model simulation perfectly matched with Parameter Value Unit
observation data. Moriasi et al. (2007) have suggested KN 0.22 mg/L
general performance ratings for model evaluation KP 0.014 mg/L
statistics in the Table 5.
1.21 /day
A 1.047 -
e 0.39 /day

Table 5. General performance ratings for selected statistics for a

monthly time step (Moriasi et al., 2007) In the meanwhile, NSE value for the validation is 0.01,
and RSR value is 0.99. Consequently, the model showed
Performance
RSR NSE PBIAS (%) Unsatisfactory performance level in two of the model
Rating
evaluation statistics. However, PBIAS value for the
0.75 NSE
validation is -22.01 % with Very Good performance
Very good 0.0 RSR 0.5 PBIAS 25 level. Even if simulated results are slightly
1.00
underestimated with the negative value, it indicates that
the simulations have not large discrepancy from the
0.65 NSE observations.
Good 0.5 RSR 0.6 25 PBIAS 40
0.75
The Figure 7 represents that large error occurred at the
two cases, September 2013 and March 2014, because the
0.50 NSE
Satisfactory 0.6 RSR 0.7 40 PBIAS 70 simulations are more underestimated than observations.
0.65
The developed algae model in this study would not
Unsatisfactory RSR > 0.7 NSE 0.50 PBIAS 70 consider potential inflow of non-point sources including
nutrient loadings, which could dramatically increase Chl-
a concentration at a certain point. Compared with
4.2 Calibration and Validation measurements of Chl-a concentration at the existing
water quality stations located along the study area, the
The empirical and semi-empirical parameters and validation site included noticeably high concentration of
coefficients used in water quality modeling must by Chl-a caused by huge effect of non-point sources with
definition be selected by calibration. Given the large rainfall events. After excluding the simulated values at
number of empirical parameters involved, all calibrated those two points, NSE, RSR and PBIAS were highly
water quality models require testing to define, at least in improved to 0.91, 0.31 and -1.92 %, then all the model
a limited sense, the range of applicability for a particular evaluation statistics is satisfied with Very Good
water body. Terms such as verification and performance level in the Table 7.
validation have been used to describe the testing
procedure (Mccutcheon, 1989).
Graphical results for model calibration (Figure 6) and
validation (Figure 7) indicated adequate calibration and
validation over the range of Chl-a concentration,

5

Figure 7. Monthly Chl-a concentration at observation site 2
Table 7. Model evaluation results
Evaluation Statistic
NSE RSR PBIAS
Calibration Validation Calibration Validation Calibration
0.01 0.99
0.91 0.29 1.35 %
(0.91) (0.31)
5. CONCLUSION
The developed algae model in this research is based on
three environmental factors such as phosphorus, solar
radiation time, and temperature which primarily affect
the growth of algal bloom. Using a 2-D advection-
dispersion model combined with a reaction term
describing biochemical mechanism between algae and
other variables, the model can illustrate not only algal
growth but also its transport and dispersion in Nakdong
River. The simulation results demonstrate that excessive
amount of phosphorus magnifies the exponential or
growth phase of algae, and it causes the green tide or
blooming spreading out broadly through the river.
Through the simulation, the model well predicted
distribution of algae, reflecting its growth and transport,
excluding two unusual events. In this study, formation or
loss of phosphorus and temperature was not considered
but treated them as constant variables. However,
phosphorus and temperature are also classified as non-
conservative pollutants, and it means their concentration
might be not fixed during the simulation. In the future,
additional models for the two variables should be
coupled with the algae model proposed in this research.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research was supported by a grant (11-TI-C06)
from Advanced Water Management Research Program
funded by Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport
of Korean government. This work was conducted at the
Engineering Research Institute and the Integrated
Research Institute of Construction and Environment in
Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea.
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