Transport and Dispersion in Large Rivers: Application of the Aggregated Dead Zone Model

Abstract

The Aggregated Dead Zone (ADZ) model developed by Peter Young and Tom Beer is here applied to the analysis of tracer data from larger rivers. The model provides excellent fits to the observed concentrations, with a dispersive fraction parameter that varies relatively little with discharge. It is also shown how the information on transport and dispersion at different discharges can be augmented by pollution incident and continuously logged water quality data. The model can then be applied to predict the downstream dispersion of pollutants at any arbitrary discharge, taking account of the uncertainty in estimating the ADZ model parameters. Further work remains to be done on relating the parameters of the model to the physical and hydraulic characteristics of river reaches and in gathering data on the gain factor for different pollutants.