Research on assimilation simulation of chlorophyll a concentrations in a virtual geographic environment

Abstract

AbstractChlorophyll a concentration is an important parameter for the characterization of water quality and reflects the degree of eutrophication and the algae content in water bodies. Based on the idea of integrating models, data and visualization to build virtual geographic environments (VGEs), this article proposes a data assimilation scheme based on particle filters to assimilate the concentration of chlorophyll a in a VGE. The VGE is based on a modular concept to design function plugins and perform water quality assimilation simulations and GIS visualization. We conducted assimilation experiments using buoy observation data and forecast chlorophyll a concentrations. During the assimilation stage, the root mean square error and average relative error are notably reduced. The assimilation results indicate that the proposed data assimilation method can significantly improve accuracy in the prediction of chlorophyll a concentrations. An assimilation case study indicates that the VGE can be effectively used in water environment pollution and dynamic process simulations.