Chesapeake Bay Sediment Flux Model

The Chesapeake Bay Model development project has as it goal the development of a comprehensive model of eutrophication in the estuary. It is a mass balance model that relates the inputs of nutrients to the growth and death of hytoplankton and the resulting extent and duration of the hypoxia and anoxia. The aim is to identify and quantify the causal chain that begins with nutrient inputs and ends with the dissolved oxygen distributions in space and time. The modeling framework is based on a mass balance of the carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, silica, and dissolved oxygen in the bay. It requires a detailed specification of the transport that affects all these components and the kinetics that describe the growth and death of phytoplankton biomass, the nutrient cycling, and the resulting dissolved oxygen distribution in the bay and estuaries. A critical component of the model is the role of sediments in recycling nutrients and consuming oxygen. This report presents the formulation and calibration of a sediment model which quantifies these processes within the context of mass balances in the sediment compartment.Cheasapeake Bay Program Office, U.S. Enviromental Protection Agency, U.S. Army Engineer Distric