CSDMS 2015 annual meeting poster SagyCohen

From CSDMS
Presentation provided during CSDMS annual meeting 2015

Spatially explicit modeling of particulate nutrient flux in global rivers

Sagy Cohen, University of Alabama, Alabama, United States. sagy.cohen@ua.edu
Albert Kettner, University of Colorado, INSTAAR, Colorado, United States.
Emilio Mayorga, University of Washington, Washington, United States.
John Harrison, Washington State University, Washington, United States.

Abstract:

Water, sediment, nutrient and carbon fluxes along river networks have undergone considerable alterations in response to anthropogenic and climatic changes, with significant consequences to infrastructure, agriculture, water security, ecology and geomorphology worldwide. However, in a global setting, these changes in fluvial fluxes and their spatial and temporal characteristics are poorly constrained, due to the limited availability of continuous and long-term observations. We present initial results from a new global-scale particulate modeling framework (WBMsedNEWS) that combines the Global NEWS watershed nutrient export model with the spatially distributed WBMsed water and sediment model. We compare the model predictions against multiple observational datasets. Early trials indicate that the model is able to accurately predict particulate nutrient (Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Organic Carbon) fluxes on an annual time scale. However, the model doesn’t capture particulate flux dynamics at a higher temporal resolution (seasonal, monthly, weekly or daily). We show that discrepancies between measurements and model output can be attributed to temporal-scale incompatibility between the model and observations, the Global NEWS governing equations, and the WBMsed sediment predictions.


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