Evaluate the impact of hydrodynamic pressure on hydrologic exchange
fluxes and resident time for a large-scale river section over a
long-term period
Abstract
Quantifying hydrologic exchange fluxes (HEF) and subsurface water
residence times (RT) are important for managing the water quality and
ecosystem health in dynamic river corridor systems. Laboratory-scale
experiments and models have shown that hydrodynamic pressure variations
on the riverbed induced by dynamic river flows can strongly impact HEFs
and RTs. In this study, the impacts of hydrodynamic pressure on HEFs and
RT for a 30 km section of the Columbia River in Washington State over a
three-year period were quantitatively evaluated using a coupled
transient three-dimensional (3D) multi-phase surface and subsurface
water flow transport approach. Based on comparisons between model
simulations with and without considering hydrodynamic pressure, we found
that hydrodynamic pressure increase the net HEFs by 7% of flowing into
river from subsurface domain, and also leads to a reduction of the area
with long RT, and increase of area with short RT.