Developing an independent, generic, phosphorus modelling component for use with grid-oriented, physically based distributed catchment models.

Abstract

Grid-oriented, physically based catchment models calculate fields of various hydrological variables relevant to phosphorus detachment and transport. These include (i) for surface transport: overland flow depth and flow in the coordinate directions, sediment load, and sediment concentration and (ii) for subsurface transport: soil moisture and hydraulic head at various depths in the soil. These variables can be considered as decoupled from any chemical phosphorus model since phosphorus concentrations, either as dissolved or particulate, do not influence the model calculations of the hydrological fields. Thus the phosphorus concentration calculations can be carried out independently from and after the hydrological calculations. This makes it possible to produce a separate phosphorus modelling component which takes as input the hydrological fields produced by the catchment model and which calculates, at each simulation time step, the phosphorus concentrations in the flows. This paper summarises the equations and structure of such a Grid Oriented Phosphorus Component (GOPC) developed by the authors for simulating phosphorus concentrations and loads using the outputs of a fully distributed physical based hydrological model. The GOPC performance is illustrated by an example of a simplified hypothetical catchment subjected to some ideal conditions.