Simulation of Water Quality in Urban River Networks in Hong Kong Based on Coupled Hydrodynamic Models and Geographic Information System

Water resources management is important for today’s society to better utilize the limited water resources. The rapid increase of urban modernization results in an increase of pollutant loads by at least one order of magnitude over natural catchments conditions. Typical water pollutants include suspended solids, nutrients, biochemical oxygen demand, pathogenic organisms and trace metals. The water quality in urban river networks has been worsen by intaking waters from sewages and surface runoff in day-to-day cycles. Nowadays, the distribution and restoration of water quality play a key role in sustainable development in modern city. In addition, the water pollution resulting from sewages water is not negligible because of relative high ratio of sewages water in urban river networks. Fortunately, the modelling capacity of computational fluid dynamics is recognized as a useful tool to analyze and predict the water flow process and the evolution of pollutants in urban river besides the field monitoring approach. Further, the geographic information system (GIS) becomes common to solve complex planning and management problems related to water resources via data collecting, integrating, retrieving, modifying, geographical and spatial displaying. This proposal aims to develop a coupled hydrodynamic model integrating GIS to satisfy the simulation, the assessment and the management of water quality in urban river networks in Hong Kong.