River Water Quality Calibration

Management of river water quality has become increasingly important due to its decline caused by human activities, and this decline in river quality can be managed through implementation of effective strategies. Water quality models can be used as tools to simulate and assess the cause and effect relationships of river water quality and then to implement appropriate management strategies to improve river water quality. In order to use river water quality models effectively, it is necessary to estimate model parameters when they cannot be measured physically. This process is often referred as model calibration. Manual and automatic methods are the two main techniques used in model calibration. It has been proven that automatic methods are better than manual methods as it provide some measured of objectivity to parameter estimation. Genetic algorithms are one such automatic method and it has been proven as one of the promising calibration method in efficiently identifying the optimum parameter set in many water related applications. The paper will begin with an overview on different calibration methods. A case study on the overall development of a river water quality model on Yarra River, Australia will then be provided