Water quality modeling in the Mediterranean river basins

The Mediterranean Sea is a semi-closed sea connected with the open sea through the Strait of Gibraltar. Due to the circulation pattern and the long residence time, the Mediterranean Sea is a sensitive environment to eutrophication and it is put at risk from direct and indirect impacts of human activities. In this study, a modified version of the model GREEN, originally developed for estimating nutrient loads from diffuse and point sources in Europe, was used based on a grid cell discretization (GREEN-Rgrid). The spatial resolution is 5 arc-minute resolution (9.2 km at the equator) and the model inputs consist of the latest and best available global data. The nitrate (N-NO3), total nitrogen (TN), orthophosphate (P-PO4) and total phosphorus (TP) loads were successfully calibrated for the period 2003-2007 (baseline). The nutrient source apportionment and retention in basins, rivers and lakes were also assessed. The baseline was then compared with two different scenarios: S1, a scenario of agricultural sources reduction that consists in reducing the nitrogen and phosphorus surplus by 50%; and S2, a scenario that consists in upgrading all wastewater treatment plants efficiency to tertiary treatment. The S1 scenario resulted most effective than S2 in reducing TN loads in the Mediterranean, whereas the most efficient scenario for reducing TP was S2.

MALAGO Anna;  BOURAOUI Faycal; 

2018-01-18

Springer,Charm.

JRC109622

978-3-319-70548-4,   

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-70548-4_28#citeas,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC109622,   

10.1007/978-3-319-70548-4_28,