ClearWater Water Quality Modules

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) has a major responsibility for the regulation of the Nations streams, rivers, and waterways. This often requires developing water quality models to resolve issues and concerns with regard to the environment and ecosystems. The development of a suite of WQ modules to support water quality analysis and ecosystem management on a system wide basis and at different model temporal and spatial fidelity was identified as a need by the USACE research and development community. ClearWater (Corps Library for Environmental Analysis and Restoration of Watersheds) is a library of environmental simulation software that leverages the capabilities of existing water resource simulation models to assess environmental impacts and design solutions to manage and restore aquatic ecosystems. ClearWater consists of a computational and transport engine, graphical user interface components, and several water quality and vegetation simulation modules. The water quality modules are: NSMs (Nutrient Simulation Modules, I and II), TSM (Temperature Simulation Module), MSM (Mercury Simulation Module), CSM (Contaminant Simulation Module), GCSM (General Constituent Simulation Module), SSM (Solids Simulation Module), and RVSM (Riparian Vegetation Simulation Module). This presentation will focus on discussing the ClearWater Water Quality Modules in more detail as well as current model linkages and future research and development directions.