Quantifying Hyporheic Exchanges in a Large Scale River Reach Using Coupled 3-D Surface and Subsurface Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulations

Hyporheic exchange between river water and groundwater is an important mechanism for biogeochemical processes, such as carbon and nitrogen cycling, and biodegradation of organic contaminants, in the subsurface interaction zone. The relationship between river flow conditions and hyporheic exchanges therefore is of great interests to hydrologists, biogeochemists, and ecologists. However, quantifying relative influences of hydrostatic and hydrodynamic drivers on hyporheic exchanges is very challenging in large rivers due to accessibility and spatial coverage of measurements, and computational tools available for numerical experiments. In this study, we aim to demonstrate that a high resolution computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model that couples surface and subsurface flow and transport can be used to simulate hyporheic exchanges and the residence time of river water in the hypothetic zone. Base on the assumption that the hyporheic exchange does not affect the surface water flow condition due to its small magnitude compared to the velocity of river water, we developed a one way coupled surface and subsurface water flow model in a commercial CFD software STAR-CCM+, that connects the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equation solver with a realizable two-layer turbulence model, a two-layer all y+ wall treatment, and the volume of fluid (VOF) method for tracking the free water-air interface as well as porous media flow in the subsurface domain. The model is applied to a 7-km long section of the Columbia River and validated against measurements from the acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP) in the surface water and hyporheic fluxes derived from a set of temperature profilers installed across the riverbed. The validated model is then employed to systematically investigate how hyporheic exchanges influenced by 1) riverbed properties such as the permeability and thickness of the alluvial layer; 2) surface water hydrodynamics due to channel geomorphological settings such as the location of islands or sandbars; and 3) river stages, which are strongly regulated by upstream hydroclimatic conditions and hydropeaking events created by dam operations.