Monitoring and modeling of microbial and biological water quality

Authors: Pachepsky, Yakov

Submitted to: Water Quality Meeting
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/3/2017
Publication Date: 5/11/2017
Citation: Pachepsky, Y.A. 2017. Monitoring and modeling of microbial and biological water quality. Water Quality Meeting. Ulsan, Korea on May 10-15, 2017.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Microbial and biological water quality informs on the health of water systems and their suitability for uses in irrigation, recreation, aquaculture, and other activities. Indicators of microbial and biological water quality demonstrate high spatial and temporal variability. Therefore, monitoring strategies have to develop to determine where, when, and how water samples can be taken and how point-scale sampling data can be upscaled to the water body or stream. This talk will outline the modern approaches to evaluating and predicting microbial and biological water quality for small water bodies and streams. For small water bodies, monitoring will be accomplished using remote sensing imagery, unsupervised image classification for sampling zone delineation, 3D water body probing, and hydrodynamic modeling of water intake and wind-driven circulation will be reviewed. Interactions between algae microbial water quality indicators will be addressed. For streams, the use of small-scale watershed models with the multitude of weather and land use scenarios will be discussed as the means to assess the uncertainty of water quality evaluation and to develop conversions of year-specific measurements to the long-term characterization of water quality. The role of streambed sediments in microbial and biological water quality will be elucidated, and the new small-scale watershed microbial water quality APEX-M will be introduced.