Analysis of solute transport in rivers with transient storage and lateral inflow: An analytical study

Abstract

Solute transport in rivers with transient storage and lateral inflow has been studied by Transient Storage Model (TSM). Analytical solution of the TSM is obtained by means of Laplace transform. In order to illustrate the use of present analytical solution, physical transport parameters are estimated for the observational data of Uvas Creek tracer experiment. Analytical concentration-time breakthrough curves are found to be in good agreement with the observed concentration-time breakthrough curves. A sensitivity analysis has been performed in order to identify the most critical parameter for predicting concentration. It has been found that lateral inflow rate is the most sensitive and the ratio of cross-sectional areas is the least sensitive parameter. A hypothetical situation has been considered to study the effects of background concentrations, lateral inflow concentration and its rate. The analytical solutions show that the solute concentration gets diluted or concentrated due to lateral inflow. Physical mechanisms of the problems are well reproduced by the present analytical solutions and these results can be used for analysis of tracer experiments.