Nonlinear Water Quality Response to Numerical Simulation of In Situ Phosphorus Control Approaches

• Main Authors: Baichuan Zhang, Ningya Lin, Xi Chen, Qiaoming Fan, Xing Chen, Tingyu Ren, Rui Zou, Huaicheng Guo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-03-01
• Series: Water
• Subjects: nonlinear; intelligent design; scenario analysis; eutrophication; phosphorus; Phoslock
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/13/5/725

The nonlinear and heterogeneous responses of nutrients to eutrophication control measures are a major challenge for in situ treatment engineering design, especially for large water bodies. Tackling the problem calls for a full understanding of potential water quality responses to various treatment schemes, which cannot be fulfilled by empirical-based methods or small-scale tests. This paper presents a methodology for Phoslock application based on the idea of object-oriented intelligent engineering design (OOID), which includes numerical simulation to explore the features of responses to numerous assumed schemes. A large plateau lake in Southwestern China was employed as a case study to illustrate the characteristics of the water quality response and demonstrate the applicability of this new approach. It was shown by the simulation and scenario analysis that the water quality response to Phoslock application always reflected nonlinearity and spatiotemporal heterogeneity, and always varied with objects, boundary conditions, and engineering design parameters. It was also found that some design parameters, like release position, had a significant impact on efficiency. Thus, a remarkable improvement could be obtained by cost-effective analysis based on scenarios using combinations of design parameters.