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Projects:

Scope of Projects

Everglades regional: Sulfer & MeHg

Everglades subregional: WCA2A Wading Bird Suitability

Florida Coastal Everglades LTER

Everglades regional: SERES project

Spain Segura Basin: Ecological Economics

Everglades regional: CERP ASR

Everglades regional: CERP Decomp

Everglades WCA-1: unique restoration

Louisiana Davis Pond: restoration prototype

Everglades regional: cal/val (ELM v. 2.8)

Everglades regional: cal/val (ELM v. 2.5)

Everglades regional: CERP ASR project

The target audience for this page is the inter-agency team evaluating the CERP Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR) Project.

In support of this project, we developed a new ELM (v2.8.6) module to simulate sulfate fate and transport within the greater Everglades region. Given the application objectives, the new sulfate module simply employs a "first-order" settling rate approach to aggregate the multiple ecological processes involved with in-marsh sulfate losses from the surface water column. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is funding this ELM development and application project.

This page provides the ASR Project team with results of their requests to provide ELM simulation results under the different Baseline and Alternative planning scenarios.

The Model Documentation report on the ELM v2.8.6 historical hindcasting (calibration) performance assessment for the new sulfate module (including data, code, and model performance assessment) is found in the Publications link.

Note: That Model Documentation Report is separate from the documentation of the ELM applications that supported analysis of ASR alternatives, which is the topic of this web page.

After acceptable calibration/validation model performance assessments, the regional 500 m grid resolution ELM application was used to evaluate a suite of future scenarios of sulfate loading into the Everglades. As described below, different ASR scenarios route ASR-derived sulfate through Lake Okeechobee, then into the Everglades Stormwater Treatment Areas (STAs) and the greater Everglades (domain of ELM). The Lake Okeechobee Environment Model, a new Simple Model of STAs (SMSTA), and other quantitative tools (see below) were used to establish boundary-condition sulfate loads to the Everglades, with the ELM simulating the downstream landscape patterns of sulfate availability over decadal time scales in the greater Everglades.

The results of this Everglades sulfate modeling effort will be utilized by U.S. Geological Survey mercury methylation experts (Drs. William Orem and David Krabbenhoft) to quantify potential (sulfate-influenced) mercury methylation patterns in the Everglades under the ASR future scenarios - for use in CERP team evaluation of this aspect of the ASR project.


Documentation of ELM v2.8.6 ASR Project results

This section links to documentation of model assumptions, inputs, and outputs for the 2050B2 and CERP0 ELM simulation runs for the ASR Project.

pdf Final summary report of the evaluations of ASR project Alternatives (4.4 Mb)

Timeline of updates to this page.

  • May 30 2013 -- Posted (above) summary report of the evaluations of ASR project Alternatives.
  • May 6 2013 -- Posted daily time series of sulfate concentrations within all Basins/Indicator-Regions.
  • May 05 2013 -- Posted new simulations of all Project Bases and Alternatives (2050B2, ASR_BASE, ASR_ALT2C, ASR_ALT2V, ASR_ALT4V), which a) correct tidal (Gulf and Bay) boundary condition sulfate concentrations, and b) incorporate the new Basin/Indicator Region (BIR) input map used for postprocessing. (These changes had no effect on model results within domain of interest to ASR Project). However, the new runs were post-processed with sulfate snapshot Performance Indicators using the new"ASR stress periods" instead of the standard wet&dry season snapshots for wet/avg/dry years. See a) new Perfomance Measure Descriptions, b) the addition of the document defining "ASR stress periods", and of course, c) the updated Performance Measure/Indicator output summaries.
  • Mar 29 2013 -- Posted (March 20 output version) raw model sulfate outputs in NetCDF format; (reminder to ASR team - pending - we will re-run all sims after we get consensus on our final pre-processing & post-processing configurations & data, and will thus replace all post-processed and raw model outputs from March 20; little/no effect on sulfate results specific to ASR Project).
  • Mar 21 & 26 2013 -- Posted additional documentation.
  • Mar 20, 2013 -- Posted results for simulation of the 2050B2, the CERP0 ASR_BASE, and three CERP0 ASR scenarios (Performance Measures may be modified in near future).

    Page Contents - Links to Major headings

  • SFWMM and ELM simulations used in ASR Project
  • ELM input data common to all 2050B2 and CERP0 simulations used in ASR Project
  • ELM input data specific to individual 2050B2, CERP0 ASR Base, and CERP0 ASR Alternative simulations
  • Perfomance Measure/Indicator Descriptions
  • Results: Bases and Alternatives   
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    SFWMM and ELM simulations used in ASR Project

    Table of SFWMM and ELM simulation runs

      
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    ELM input data common to all 2050B2 and CERP0 simulations used in ASR Project

      
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    ELM input data specific to individual 2050B2, CERP0 ASR Base, and CERP0 ASR Alternative simulations

    Simple Model of STAs (SMSTA), for estimating Stormwater Treatment Area (STA) sulfate outflow concentrations (input to the ELM/Everglades)

    ELM water management infrastructure data

    Note: For detailed hydrologic assumptions used by the SFWMM (whose managed water control structure flows drive these ELM simulations), please see the relevant documentation for the application of the SFWMM.

      
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    Performance Measure/Indicator Descriptions

      
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    Results: Bases and Alternatives

    For highly dynamic surface water quality variables (e.g., SO4 concentrations), Performance Measures/Indicators (see above Descriptions) include:

    a) two Performance Measures of landscape Period of Simulation mean ("MeanPOS" in variable's name) sulfate concentration and sulfate reduction (loss), and

    b) multiple Performance Indicators of seasonal "snapshots" which are end-of-season 30d averages ("MeanRAW" in variable's name) for "ASR stress periods". These stress periods are defined in this document, with associated model outputs to be used as Performance Indicators to estimate sulfate loads during the highest ASR-outputs (i.e., to be conservative, seeking the "worst case" periods of potentially high sulfate loads to the Everglades). Those "snapshots" are for:


    end of a dry season, above average Lake (and ASR) discharges (May 1974)
    end of a wet season, above average Lake (and ASR) discharges (Oct 1974)
    end of a wet season, below average Lake (and ASR) discharges (Oct 1981)
    end of a dry season, below average Lake (and ASR) discharges (May 1982)
    end of a wet season, average Lake (and ASR) discharges (Oct 1989)
    end of a dry season, average Lake (and ASR) discharges (May 1990)

    c) for Performance Indicators that are only available to compare the two Bases (2050B2 and ASR_BASE), we used our past standards for snapshots associated with hydrologic variation: those (Bases only) seasonal "snapshots" are end-of-season 30d averages ("MeanRAW" in variable's name) for three example years:


    Dry season end is April,
    Wet season end is September
    Example-Dry-Year is 1989,
    Example-Wet-Year is 1994,
    Example-Average-Year is 1978.

    Summary of Sulfate Performance Measure/Indicator Results (all Bases and Alts).

    Summary graphicpdf 1.6 Mb, May 5, 2013 - 2050B2, ASR_BASE, ASR_ALT2C, ASR_ALT2V, ASR_ALT4V: Summary graphic (area of marsh within the model-domain) of the sulfate Performance Measure/Indicator differences between 2050B2 and ASR_BASE, and between each ALT simulation relative to the ASR_BASE base.

    0.1 Mb xls file, May 5, 2013 - Excel (.xlsx) file containing the data table and graphics that generated the above pdf graphic.


    Time Series of Sulfate Concentrations within Basin/Indicator-Regions (all Bases and Alts).

    BIR map graphic
    98.1 Mb, May 5, 2013     - Excel (.xlsx) file containing raw output data for 2050B2, ASR_BASE, ASR_ALT2C, ASR_ALT2V, ASR_ALT4V: Daily time series of sulfate concentrations (and several other metrics) within each Basin/Indicator-Region.


    Bases Results: 2050B2 vs CERP0 (ASR_BASE)

    As indicated above in the SFWMM and ELM simulation run descriptions, we considered two future-baseline runs: a) the 2050 future without CERP is the 2050B2 baseline, and b) the ASR_BASE is the formal baseline for evaluating ASR Project Alternatives - the ASR_BASE is the future with CERP (updated to CERP0), but without the additional ASR Alternatives that are being evaluated for this ASR Project.

    NOTE: thus, the (CERP0) ASR_BASE and all ASR_ALTs use the same CERP0 managed hydrology; in this Project, the only hydrologic differences are between the 2050B2 and the CERP0 (ASR_BASE) runs.

    Budget results: Water inflow/outflow budget summary - 2050B2 vs CERP0 (ASR_BASE)

    Budget results: Sulfate inflow/outflow budget summary - 2050B2 vs CERP0 (ASR_BASE)



    In addition to the formal sulfate Performance Measures (comparing each ASR_ALT to the ASR_BASE) to be used in ASR Project evaluations, below we provide supplementary hydro-ecological Performance Indicators to compare the without-CERP (2050B) and with-CERP (ASR_BASE) baseline simulations, so that the team can best understand the hydro-ecological flows/dynamics associated with future CERP relative to future-without-CERP.

    Supplementary Peformance Indicators included below are difference-maps for



    ASR_ALT2C Results

    ASR_ALT2V Results

    ASR_ALT4V Results



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