U.2.5 New Modelling Capability to Target Stormwater Interventions That Support Seagrass Health Along Adelaide's Coast | I
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New modelling capability to target stormwater interventions that support seagrass health along Adelaide's coast Project U.2.5 Karen Rouse, Dennis Gonzalez, Milena Fernandes, Jos van Gils, Shiroma Maheepala, Ying He, Fareed Mirza, Rob Daly, Susan Cuddy Goyder Institute for Water Research Technical Report Series No. 16/9 www.goyderinstitute.org Goyder Institute for Water Research Technical Report Series ISSN: 1839-2725 The Goyder Institute for Water Research is a partnership between the South Australian Government through the Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources, CSIRO, Flinders University, the University of Adelaide, the University of South Australia and ICE WaRM (The International Centre of Excellence in Water Resources Management). The Institute will enhance the South Australian Government’s capacity to develop and deliver science-based policy solutions in water management. It brings together the best scientists and researchers across Australia to provide expert and independent scientific advice to inform good government water policy and identify future threats and opportunities to water security. The following Associate organisation contributed to this report: Enquires should be addressed to: Goyder Institute for Water Research Level 4, 33 King William Street Adelaide, SA, 5000 tel: +61 8-8236 5200 e-mail: [email protected] Citation Rouse K, Gonzalez D, Fernandes M, van Gils J, Maheepala S, He Y, Mirza F, Daly R, Cuddy SM (2016) New modelling capability to target stormwater interventions that support seagrass health along Adelaide's coast, Goyder Institute for Water Research Technical Report Series No. 16/9, Adelaide, South Australia Copyright © 2016 CSIRO. To the extent permitted by law, all rights are reserved and no part of this publication covered by copyright may be reproduced or copied in any form or by any means except with the written permission of CSIRO. Disclaimer The Participants advise that the information contained in this publication comprises general statements based on scientific research and does not warrant or represent the completeness of any information or material in this publication. Contents Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................................................... vii Terms and abbreviations ................................................................................................................................ viii 1 Project description 1 1.1 Outline ................................................................................................................................................. 1 1.2 Policy context ...................................................................................................................................... 1 1.3 Scientific and technical context ........................................................................................................... 2 1.4 Description of the project area ........................................................................................................... 4 2 Methodology 8 2.1 Sourcing and assessment of general suitability of data to underpin modelling ................................. 8 2.2 Model development ..........................................................................................................................13 2.3 Coupling of models to create Adelaide Coast and Discharging Catchments (ACDC) model .............17 2.4 Scenario selection ..............................................................................................................................21 2.5 Approach to identifying coastal water quality targets and coastal impact hotspots ........................22 2.6 Linking hotspots to catchments .........................................................................................................25 3 Results 26 3.1 Filling key data gaps – Particle size distribution ................................................................................26 3.2 Constituent generation – improved TSS, TP and TN event mean and dry weather concentration (EMC/DWC) values ............................................................................................................................32 3.3 Overcoming lack of inflow data for the ICUWM model ....................................................................36 3.4 Comparison of ICUWM modelled and recorded annual flows and loads .........................................38 3.5 Use of ICUWM model to identify high TSS yielding sub-catchments ................................................46 3.6 Thresholds of coastal impact and Hotspots ......................................................................................49 3.7 Scenario modelling ............................................................................................................................59 4 Discussion 69 4.1 Suitability of models for identifying stormwater interventions ........................................................69 4.2 Targeting stormwater interventions using project results ................................................................72 5 Conclusions and recommendations 77 5.1 Conclusions ........................................................................................................................................77 5.2 Recommendations for further work ..................................................................................................78 References 81 Appendix A Details of water quality datasets used in the project 85 A.1 Catchment data .................................................................................................................................85 A.2 Coastal data .......................................................................................................................................91 A.3 New data ...........................................................................................................................................92 U.2.5 New modelling capability to target stormwater interventions that support seagrass health along Adelaide's coast | i Appendix B Alternate approaches to constituent generation modelling 95 B.1 Power Function ..................................................................................................................................95 B.2 Dynamic sediment budget river network (SedNet) model ................................................................95 B.3 Loads Regression Estimator and Random Forests .............................................................................96 Appendix C Summary of load information used in the AREMp 97 C.1 Rivers and stormwater ......................................................................................................................97 C.2 Wastewater treatment plants ...........................................................................................................98 C.3 Penrice ...............................................................................................................................................99 Appendix D Additional AREM outputs 101 D.1 Area specific load contours .............................................................................................................101 ii | U.2.5 New modelling capability to target stormwater interventions that support seagrass health along Adelaide's coast List of Figures Figure 1-1 Geographic extent of the project area (the Source sub-catchments), noting that the project area includes the waters adjoining the coastline ...................................................................................................... 5 Figure 1-2 The project area showing water catchment areas and major discharge locations to Adelaide’s coastal waters (reproduced from Figure 7, McDowell and Pfennig 2013 © Copyright Environment Protection Authority 2013) ................................................................................................................................ 6 Figure 1-3 Extent of seagrass meadows as mapped by DEWNR in 2013 (reproduced from Fig. 2, Hart 2013) 7 Figure 2-1 The water quality and flow monitoring sites considered in this project and their locations within the modelled sub-catchments. The legend identifies the custodians of the sites ..........................................10 Figure 2-2 Locations of coastal discharge points derived from ICUWM model ..............................................18 Figure 2-3 Annual rainfall at Adelaide Airport (023034) (Bureau of Meteorology Climate Data Services) (Adelaide airport selected as being representative of the project area) ........................................................20 Figure 2-4 Catchments discharging to the Adelaide coast (Maheepala et al. 2014). Also shown is the ICUWM model node-link network ................................................................................................................................21 Figure 3-1 Mean particle size of suspended solids versus flow in the Torrens River according to season (left) and, for winter samples, when the sample was taken in the hydrograph (right) ...........................................27 Figure 3-2 Distribution of particles in the Torrens River according to size in the winter of 2014 (top), summer/autumn of 2015 (middle) and winter of 2015 (bottom). The letters above the bars indicate when the samples were taken in the hydrograph: rising I, peak (P) and falling