Abstract

This review is intended as a comprehensive but concise summary of present capabilities in coastal
pollutant, ecosystem and water quality modelling. The behaviour of conservative pollutants that act as
passive tracers is contrasted with those that have more complex behaviours, including oil spills. The
importance of sediment modelling is emphasised, since contaminants commonly exist in both a dissolved
and a particulate state, or adhere to sediments. Recently developed ecological models can have great
complexity, reflecting the complexity of the real ecosystem. These models are now being linked to
physical models of coastal waters and run with the same resolution. This has become possible only
recently because of increases in computer power, particularly the availability of parallel systems at
reasonable cost. The main advances in physical modelling are likely to come through greater
understanding of turbulence and other sub-gridscale processes as well as increased resolution. In the
coastal seas there is often a lack of oceanographic data, which is even greater for the many biological and
chemical variables than it is for physical variables. This is probably the single most important factor
limiting the progress of operational water quality models. 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights
reserved.

Keywords: Coastal; Pollutant; Ecological; Water quality; Modelling; Multidisciplinary; Review

1. Introduction

A general review paper covering the modelling of pollution, the ecosystem and water quality in
coastal waters, and the prospects for making this modelling operational. This subject is essentially
multidisciplinary: to ttempt to understand the whole system demands knowledge of disciplines ranging
over ecology, biogeochemistry, toxicology, sedimentology and fluid dynamics, while modeling the system
involves numerical analysis and, for complex simulation models, coding techniques for highperformance
computers such as massively parallel machines.

In this paper the view is taken that it is the physical system and the physical conditions that are
fundamental and set the stage for the chemical and biological systems. While there can be some
influence of these on the physics (for example, the effect on penetrating solar radiation of a surface
plankton bloom), in general a good representation of the physics can be achieved in a model without
considering biology and chemistry. Conversely, the physical conditions, which include currents, tides,
waves, turbulence, light, temperature, salinity, bed materials and suspended particles, determine the
transport and dispersion of all suspended and dissolved material in the sea, including contaminants and
nutrients, and affect all biological activity from the transport of larvae and bacteria and the growth of
phytoplankton to the behaviour of fish. Therefore it is a necessary condition for any model of an estuary
or coastal region to be used to help understand the present conditions and to make useful predictions that
the physics is properly represented.

Of course, no physical model can give information on physical variables on all space and time
scales: these have to be appropriate to the problem in hand. Despite the fundamental nature of the
physical model and the apparent simplicity of the physics in comparison with the complexity of an
ecosystem model or ontaminant behaviour, it should not be assumed that the physics is solved, easy to
model or even well understood. It involves non-linear equations which can lead to chaotic or turbulent
flow, a wide range of scales, and includes difficult problems such as the behaviour of suspended particles
of various shapes and sizes in fluid flow.

The history of surge modelling is the paradigm for the progress of all coastal modelling: the
original empirical methodsbased on statistical relationships between surge level and meteorological and
other variables have been replaced by deterministic numerical models based on the equations of motion,
which are time-stepped forward from an initial state. The following two sections review pollutant and
ecosystem modelling. Then follows a section on modeling the physics which underpins the pollutant and
ecosystem models.
2. Modelling pollutants in coastal waters

A pollutant may be defined as any substance that reduces the water quality. It may or may
not result from human activity. It may have a well-defined source (such as an oil spill) or a
diffuse source (such as radioactivity from the atmosphere or antifouling paints). Some pollutants
may be partitioned (divided) between several different phases (for example, metals may exist in
solution or as particulates). Some undergo chemical reactions during dispersion in the sea;
radioactivity decays with time.Oil may behave in several waysdepending on its type and the
prevailing conditions: itcan evaporate, spread out in a thin slick, become attached to sediments
and form emulsions. Pollutants can be measured by biological effects, which can cause
eutrophication.
The variety of pollutant behaviours means that each pollutant must have its own
algorithm (that is, rule for calculation) to describe its modelled behaviour. The concentration
equations are suitable for a widely dispersed substance, but care must be taken over the
numerical advection scheme used: more on this will be found in Section 4.Advection merely
describes the motion of a substance with the water velocity. Although this is a simple concept,
simple numerical advection schemes can cause either excessive diffusion or rippling near
sharp gradients.

The advection-difusion equation

is the core of any equations determining pollutant concentration C. Kij is the diffusivity
tensor: usually for shelf seas it is assumed that Kij = 0 if i j and that K11 = K22 = KH, a
horizontal diffusivity, and K33 = KV, a vertical diffusivity. If the flow is laminar, i.e. if there is no
turbulence, the diffusion is on the molecular scale, with a thermal diffusivity of the order of
1,410-7m2s-1 in pure water. In coastal waters, the flow is almost always turbulent and the
effective diffusivity is several orders of magnitude greater.

Nevertheless behaves like molecular diffusion: fluxes are always down-gradient and
sharp changes are always smoothed out. This does not necessarily represent the real processes of
mixing that may be taking place, and in reality there may be stirring of material into thin
filaments of high concentration that are ultimately diffused on the molecular scale. The
distinction could be important if the highest local concentration of a pollutant is important, rather
than the average within a model grid box. The ability of a model to predict concentrations from
the advectiondiffusion equation is always limited by the resolution of the model as well as the
representation of sub-grid-scale mixing in the diffusion term. In addition to the advection
diffusion equation are the terms that describe the way the pollutant behaviour differs from a
passive tracer. These must also be represented in a particle-tracking model, possibly by a change
in the properties of each particle. For a dissolved radioactive substance, this may simply be a
decay of the radioactivity with time. For a sediment, or other particulate matter, there may be a
fall velocity. For large particles, there may be other differences between the particle velocity and
the water velocity. For sediments there may need to be terms representing deposition and
resuspension at the sea bed, cohesion and flocculation. There can be terms representing
interaction, whether chemical or biological, with other variables. The algorithm for each
individual pollutant variable needs to be derived from a clear understanding of how that pollutant
behaves in coastal waters.
In the following subsections the simplest pollutants, which behave most like passive
tracers, is :
2.1. Pollutants as passive tracers
A passive tracer is subject simply to advection and diffusion and sources and sinks,
possibly including exchange across the sea surface and sea bed. The water movement is
independent of the tracer concentration, so can be calculated separately. Quantities behaving in
this way include some dissolved metals (Prandle et al., 1993; Charnock et al., 1994). Sources
may typically include rivers and the atmosphere; sinks for dissolved metals may include
adsorption on to particulates. The latter process is greater for some metals, for example lead, than
for others and for these the behaviour is less like a simple tracer. Nevertheless, Prandle et al.
(1993) calculated the distributions of salinity and metals in the southern North Sea on the basis
of residual flows from a two dimensional model and river and atmospheric sources. This process
is most straightforward for conservative quantities, where there is no significant source or sink
term apart from perhaps a river input. In the case of salinity, its influence on density cannot
usually be neglected when calculating currents, and certainly not near river outflows, so it is not
simply a passive tracer.
One pollutant that approximates closely to a tracer is a dissolved radioactive substance
with a long half-life. . Prandle (1984) used residual currents from a two-dimensional shelf model
137
to simulate the transport of Cs from Sellafield in this way. Recent discharges of technetium,
which has a very long half-life (2.13 105 years), from Sellafield (Leonard et al., 1997) and Cap
de la Hague have provided more tracer information. Dahlgaard (1995), in an overview of the EU
MAST-52 project, discusses radioactive tracers as a tool in coastal oceanography.

The relative importance of advection and diffusion in the dispersion of a tracer may be
represented by the Peclet number Pe = UL/K, where K is (horizontal) diffusivity,U the velocity
and L a length scale. Prandle et al. (1993) estimate that for the southern North Sea, and this may
be typical for tidal shelf seas in general, advection dominates diffusion for a conservative tracer
on space scales > O(10 km). This underlines the importance of accurate numerical advection
methods in pollutant models as well as the need for a realistic representation of the mean
circulation.

However, the less conservative the quantity of interest is and the more it responds to
local sources and sinks, the less it can be regarded simply as a tracer. . Here, the critical factor is
the specification of the vertical diffusion. The general conclusion is that for a pollutant to behave
as a tracer, it must be conservative and have well-defined non-local sources and sinks. Pollutants
that approximate most closely to this are dissolved radioactive substances with long half-lives,
metals with low values of partition coefficients (representing the ratio of particulate to dissolve
phase)

2.2. Sediment and SPM

Here, SPM is an abbreviation of "suspended particulate matter", while also including

sediment particles located on or near the seabed. abrasive materials with particle size of greater
than about 0.1 mm generally move only crawling on the base except during major storms.
Sediment cohesive and non-cohesive (at the time of the particles collected will be better).
Modelling sediment and SPM is important not only for its own sake but because of pollutants
may be present in the particulate phase involved or adsorbed to particles and for particulates is an
important part of the ecology and water quality models. For example, nutrients and detritus can
participate as a particle, and SPM in the murky waters of reducing the level of light.

The main requirement in the equation for the concentration of SPM is something that
describes the sinking, erosion and deposition on the seabed. Drowning preceded by the speed of
the fall, which could be an addition to the vertical advection in the model. Fall speed varies
according to particle size, so that the model must have a separate SPM variable for different
particle sizes. Sediment is deposited and eroded from benthic layer separately. This layer, in turn,
can be modeled in detail, including the effects of bioturbation.

SPM transport can be highly dependent on the sequence and timing of erosion and
deposition along with the circulation wind thrust. The emphasis, which is an important quantity
in the model formula, is heavily influenced by the storm (partly through increased because of the
waves in the shallow area) as well as tidal currents, varying through semi-neap cycle.

As an alternative to the concentration equation of particle-tracking method can be used

(Puls and Sundermann, 1990; Pohlmann and Puls, 1994; Sundermann, 1993). For both methods,
calculation increases as the number of types of particles and increased size. If SPM is passive,
hydrodynamic equations are not affected by the concentration of SPM. In this case, calculate the
residual flow and tidal currents so it can be used several times in various SPM runs
(Sundermann, 1993). Total flow, not the rest of the course, it is necessary to calculate the
pressure at any time. When the concentration of SPM is very high, however, it affects the density
of crystal clear water and very turbid water can flow as current density (Simpson, 1987). Self-
stratification of the boundary layer by either suspended sediment resuspension during storms can
limit further (Jago et al., 1993).

Some effects are not included in Holt and James (1999) model that is more difficult for
the parameter is flocculation, which is more effective in improving the particle size and affect the
speed of falling; biology, which may change, affecting and changing the pressure of sediment
resuspension by bioturbation; and trawling and dredging, which can be significant in many areas.
Willow et al. (1998) consider modeling biological effects on intertidal sediment erosion. SPM
parameters in the equation itself is just simplifying the process detailed in the ocean and under a
turbulent boundary layer. It includes a large phenomenon that affects the deposition, including
the rippling of the sediment. Detailed measurements of sediment resuspension (eg, Williams et
al., 1998) shows many complex process that just about accounted for in rack-width models.

The application of the model for coastal morphodynamics (bathymetry change due to
sediment movement) often require a high resolution so that it covers a lot of channels and
influence the structure. Near the beach, longshore currents driven by waves. Where the sediment
particles that drift may be caused by the movement of ripples, need to be taken into account.

2.3. Metal

Metal is a compound that can be dissolved or particulate. K d coefficient can be defined as

the ratio of the concentration of the metal, in particulate form has units (mg / kg) and the
dissolved form has units (mg / l). According to Burton et.al (1993) mentions the curve of epat
type of metal that is Mn, Pb, Cu, and Cd which also shows the curve of the coefficient K d is not
constant on each type of metal in which the copper has the largest coefficient Kd.

Friction is dissolved in a metal can be modeled by means of tracking while the particulate
metal friction can be modeled in the same way as SPM. If the constant K d and in equilibrium, it
will be easy to calculate the instantaneous movement between phases above. But it would be
complicated if there are variations in Kd and finite transfer of dissolved and particulate phases.
 Coefficient Kd relatively small in Cd and Cu, has a success rate in tracking on modeling
for their beaches, boundary, and the influence of the atmosphere.

2.4. Oil spills

Oil has a range of physical and chemical properties that need to be considered when
setting up a model. These properties may vary considerably between different types of oil. For a
particular spill, the oil type must be specified. The values of viscosity, volatility and density, for
example, affect the rate of spreading, evaporation and dispersion in the water column.

As for the other pollutants, oil is subject to advection and diffusion. As it is less dense
than water, much of the oil travels in a surface slick, which is affected by wind, waves and the
surface current in the water. Many spill models assume an empirically based wind- and

As the wind increases, oil droplets are dispersed into the water column and the water
current at depth becomes a significant factor. Although Proctor et al.(1994a,b) use a two-
dimensional numerical model to hind cast tide and surge currents for the Braer and Gulf oil
spills, the vertical variationin wind-driven currents in particular is important and a three-
dimensional model of currents would have advantages, but it needs to resolve strong current
gradients near the sea surface and preferably include wavecurrent interactions. The importance
of the advection of oil dispersed through the water column was shown in the Braer spill off the
Shetlands (Turrell, 1994): a southward transport did not follow the wind direction.

Vertical diffusion of oil can be calculated by vertical diffusivity in the water column,
modified by the buoyancy of the oil droplets. Elliott (1986) uses a random walk technique in the
vertical as well as the horizontal direction. Horizontal diffusion is often calculated by a random
walk, which is appropriate for particle tracking, which is clearly preferable to concentration
equations for modeling oil spills. The properties of the particles may change due to the effects of
other processes acting on the oil. The spill may be represented by a number of parcels or
droplets, which may have a size distribution (Elliott, 1986), or individual spillets may
represent a spill that is released over a period of time or over a wider area. Some near-surface
transport effects, such as those induced by Langmuir circulation (Faller and Auer, 1988), are
commonly neglected in models, but may have important effects on dispersion of oil. Additional
complexity is introduced if there is ice present (see, for example, Yapa and Weerasuriya, 1997),
and the reliability of predictions is limited by the ability of sea ice modeling at the appropriate
scale (Reed et al., 1999). Spreading is important in the early stages of an oil spill. This describes
the increase in area of the oil slick under the forces of gravity, viscosity and surface tension, and
is distinct from any expansion of the slick due to turbulent diffusion.

Wheather the oil is heavy or light. The most commonly used equations describing
evaporation are those of Stiver and Mackay (1984). The oil may be considered as consisting of a
number of different fractions, the evaporation of each fraction being considered separately. An
alternative approach (Proctor et al., 1994b), in a model based on the tracking of droplets, is to
introduce an evaporation time scale l_1, giving the probability p _ 1_e_l_t of a droplet being
removed within a time step _t. A similar use of a time scale can also describe other decay
processes, such as biodegradation. Further weathering effects, including photochemical
oxidation, can change the character of the oil and cause decay. Dispersion of the oil into the
water column follows the breakup of the slick into small droplets and the spread and diffusion of
these droplets in the vertical. Although the oil may be less dense than water, in certain conditions
turbulence and breaking waves may mix the oil well below the surface. Oil dispersed below the
surface is not subject to evaporation, but the processes of biodegradation and dissolution
(transfer to a dissolvedphase) are enhanced. Usually much less than 1% of the oil spilled will
dissolve, so this process is often neglected. Once oil droplets are dispersed below the surface
they are subject to advection and diffusion by the fluid flow, plus buoyancy (or rise velocity)
and the possibility of adsorption on to SPM or the sea bed. The methods of Delvigne and
Sweeney (1988) are often used to estimate the oil mass entrained into the water column per unit
area and unit time. Vertical dispersion followed by resurfacing, by the process of shear spreading
noted above, tends to result in the elongation of the slick in the wind direction.
Water-in-oil emulsions or mousses sometimes form when chemical conditions are right
and there is enough mixing energy. Algorithms for emulsification have been formulated by
Mackay et al. (1980a,b). Compared with the original oil, the emulsion has a much greater
volume, is denser and more solid, and has a very much larger viscosity. Evaporation and
spreading are much reduced. Of particular concern in relation to oil spills in the coastal zone is
the stranding of oil at the shoreline. Many models can predict the motion of oil until it reaches
the shore but cannot include beach and surf-zone processes. One exception is COZOIL (Reed et
al., 1989), which includes such processes as a wave-induced longshore current. Some
simplifying concepts that have been used to describe shoreline deposition are the holding
capacity of the shoreline type, removal rates and half-life values. On many coasts, tide
levels and the possibility of a tidal cycle of deposition on the shore are important. The number
and complexity of processes involved in the oil spill problem are clearly very great. This brief
review has already touched on advection, diffusion, spreading, evaporation, biodegradation,
dispersion
Very many toxic chemicals or contaminants that get into the environment of the
coastal rivers and estuaries began dumping and also through the atmosphere. Some
may takes the form of passive tracer but many were complex and sometimes lessphysical
and chemical speciation of . Some pollutants can be bound to the sediments and be released
from the seabed to the column through the waters of the biotubasi, the resuspensi of
hurricane activity, arrests, and dredging. Environmental quality standards, set by the national
Government and the European Union, gives what is considered a safe level based on various
tests biological testing. The standard is sometimes expressed as the rate
of PNEC (predicted no effect concentration) or level prediction of concentration does not
effect conferring the first purpose water quality modeling to predict concentration and make
conclusions about safety based on the quality of available on the standard.

The ability of coastal models to predict the concentration is still limited. For
example, Stolwijk et al. (1998) compared the five water quality models from the North
Sea, one of the areas most Sea shelf-many models in the world. It was claimed in the paper
that it was the first time that water quality models f rom the North Sea had checked and
compared with the data field. five substances were selected for comparison: cadmium, PCB-153,
two PAH (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), namely fluoranthen and benzo [a] pyrene,
and a trazin (apestisida) , but the only cadmium is common to all five models. This comes from
the BSH (Hamburg), NORWECOM from IMR (Bergen) (Skogen et al.,1995), Nostradamus
(Tappin et al., 1997) and SCREMOTOX and ZeeBOS-Tox from WL | Delft Hydraulics.
 Lack of data may limit the most sophisticated model of testability, and not only monitor
the Data required for interior models for but the data inputis also needed to provide boundary
conditions. In the upper interkomparasi (Stolwijket al., 1998) of substances selected some of
the Data limits are adequate and field data as well as process knowledge is considered
available. For other substances there is less data, and therefore there is a chance of even less
than the prediction is accurate, even if the understanding of their behaviour is good and good is
simulated by the model.

Functional group model has its limitations when it represents a larger scale, other
approaches such as structured population models and individual-based model, it can be used.
structured population models appropriate to consider a cohort of certain species with multi-stage
development, and can be combined with solving a spatial model (e.g. Bryant et al., 1997).
Individual-based model to track individuals through time and consider their interaction with the
environment. Although this technique has been used by larger animals such as wander (birds
crossing) (Wolff, 1994), Model functional groups commonly used to stimulate phytoplankton
and nutrient cycling. where the process of photosynthesis using sunlight to convert dissolved
inorganic substances into organic matter: in a simplified form this is represented by:

6CO2 _ 6H2OC6H12O6 _ 6O2 (2)

This process also needs nutrients, especially nitrogen, as nitrate ion (NO3-), nitrite (NO2-) or
ammonia (NH4+), phosphorus phosphate (PO4-) and silicates (SiO2). If one is not available
nutrients, phytoplankton growth may be limited. Zooplankton are small drifting animals that feed
on phytoplankton and other animals. Zooplankton provide food for larger animals such as fish,
and also break up some organic matter into which the inorganic component: This process is
known as remineralization. "Microbial loop" describes the process whereby dissolved organic
material decomposed by bacteria, which are then eaten by the single-celled animals, which
provide food for larger zooplankton.

he complexity of biological systems means that there is less consensus on the basic formula
described of the physical system. The model has been built with different levels of detail. One of
the simplest is the initial model of Riley (1946), where phytoplankton is represented by a single
variable P, and the rate of change is given by
DP / dt P (Ph R G), (3)
Where Ph is the rate of photosynthesis, respiration and G R is grazed by zooplankton. P, as given
by the above equation, then will find the number of observed populations well.
Fasham et al. (1990), in a mixed model layer marine, extending the concept of this model
of one of the variables P for seven carriages (phytoplankton, zooplankton, bacteria, nitrate,
ammonium, dissolved organic nitrogen and detritus), which each have ordinary differential
equations in its rate of change. Some biological model is now associated with three-dimensional
hydrodynamic model, or at least have incorporated estimates of horizontal transport, with a
horizontal resolution of various scales.

In ERSEM-I the model had been applied to a very coarse box model of the North Sea.
The reason for such a coarse box approach was the complexity of the biological model combined
with the limitations of computer power at the time. A few years later, in ERSEM-II, the North
Sea model had been refined to 130 boxes, the horizontal resolution being 1 1. It had also
been applied to a 4.5 km resolution grid, with hydrodynamics from a two-dimensional model,
around the Humber estuary, with 359 biologically active cells (Allen, 1997).
The enormous computational demand of a biological model such as ERSEM, in
comparison with the hydrodynamic model alone (there are some 100 extra variables, around 30
to 40 of which need to be advected and diffused), requires the power of a massively parallel
computing system if it is to be run with the resolution
in both space and time of a typical three-dimensional shelf-sea physical model. This has now
been achieved in the coupling of ERSEM with the POL3DB model (Allen et al., 2002). The
POL3DB model has been developed with the assistance of funding from the UK Met. Office, and
an earlier version is running operationally there (from June 2000), so in principle the physical
variables for the coupled model are available operationally.
As was remarked in the previous section, the ecological models have not generally
included any direct effect of contaminants such as oil or toxic chemicals. However, an important
aspect of water quality they have been used to study is that of eutrophication, the effect of excess
nutrient supply, which may come from sewage outflow or agricultural fertilisers in river run-off.
The capacity of a volume of water to consume oxygen is known as its biological oxygen demand
(BOD). If this is too high, oxygen will be depleted and animals including fish will die. The
concentration of dissolved oxygen (DO) is often taken as a key measure of the health of the
aquatic ecosystem.
One of the main challenges for an operational ecosystem model would be to predict the
timing and extent of blooms of plankton, not only the normal spring and autumn blooms but also
those due to an excess of nutrients, which may result in rapidly growing toxic algal blooms and
red tides. Hindcasts of the spring bloom have been successfully demonstrated in models
(Ruardij et al., 1997; Allen et al., 1998). This type of assessment has been made with several
ecological models, for example scenarios of the effect on the North Sea of reductions in the
nutrient transport in rivers, using ERSEM (Lenhart et al., 1997).
ERSEM has also been used in models of fish populations in combination with structured
population models, including a larval stage. Fish are predators for zooplankton and zoobenthos,
while fish excretion and mortality can be returned to ERSEM from the fish model as dissolved
and particulate organic matter (Bryant et al., 1995; Heath et al., 1997). The complexity of
biological models with their many variables and parameters raises the question of how they may
be compared with measurements and hence validated and improved. Some data sets for a
selection of variables are obtainable from individual experiments and more extensively for
relatively well-monitored seas; for example, climatological cycles of nutrients and chlorophyll in
the North Sea (Radach and Patsch, 1997). There are many models with somewhat different
structures aimed at describing the same phenomenon, such as phytoplankton growth, and it
would be useful to have some way of deciding which is superior. Vallino (2000) describes the use
of mesocosm experiments and data assimilation for parameter estimation. A mesocosm is an
enclosed experimental ecosystem which, being generally well-mixed, can reduce the number
of dimensions to that of time only, allows controlled experiments to explore several regions of
state space, and allows intensive sampling. If parameter uncertainty can be reduced, then model
comparisons can concentrate on differences in structure. However, model results may still lack
robustness through sensitivity to parameter values, which may not in reality be constant.
The complexity of biological models with their many variables and parameters raises the
question of how they
may be compared with measurements and hence validated and improved. Some data sets for a
selection of variables are obtainable from individual experiments and more extensively for
relatively well-monitored seas; for example, climatological cycles of nutrients and chlorophyll in
the North Sea (Radach and Patsch, 1997). These data sets can be used for a straightforward
comparison with model data. If parameter uncertainty can be reduced, then model comparisons
can concentrate on differences in structure. However, model results may still lack robustness
through sensitivity to parameter values, which may not in reality be constant Mesocosms cannot
include all of the processes found in the open sea, where there is a need for comprehensive data
sets including estimates of fluxes across the open system boundaries. If such a data set were
available, data assimilation may be able to determine whether the model is able to fit it well by
adjustment of parameters, and if not it may be concluded that there is some structural deficiency
in the model

Physical Modelling
As stated in the Introduction, a good representation of the physics is the necessary basis for a
water quality model. Physical modelling will not be reviewed comprehensively here; an
overview of coastal models may be found in Greatbatch and Mellor (1999). We concentrate first
on the modelling of diffusion and dispersion and then outline some further topics that are
important for a physical model underpinning a water quality model.

Diffusion and Dispersion

While present physical models may be expected to give reasonable results for sea level, currents,
temperature and salinity at medium (10 km) resolution, given good boundary forcing
information, it is not completely clear that they are able to predict accurately the dispersion of
pollutants. One of the main reasons for this is the central importance of the advectiondiffusion
equation, which involves turbulence, which is generally unresolved in these models and remains
a challenging problem in itself.

Vertical Diffusion
In the coastal ocean, the disparity between horizontal and vertical scales means that horizontal
and vertical diffusion are usually considered separately and have very different values. There is
an extensive literature on the parameterisation of vertical eddy viscosity and diffusivity, reviewed
by Davies et al. (1995). Some ocean models, however, involve large eddy simulation (LES), in
which there is sufficient resolution to include explicitly the most energetic turbulent eddies: this
implies a vertical and horizontal resolution of the order of metres in the upper ocean (Large and
Gent, 1999; Wang, 2001). The LES models do not indicate a simple parameterization of
Langmuir circulation or convection, which, together with the effects of internal waves, can
explain some of the shortcomings of the turbulence energy closure schemes particularly in
stratified flow, which then determines cross-thermocline exchange. Convection caused by
surface cooling, when handled by instantaneous stabilisation of unstable density profiles or by
large values of mixing given directly by the turbulence energy schemes, is still not always
enough to explain observed deepening of the surface mixed layer. Wind waves also introduce
effects that are not explicitly included in the turbulence energy equations, whether through wave
breaking and wave-induced shear in the upper layers (Craig and Banner, 1994) or additional
wave-induced bed stress in shallow water (Grant and Madsen, 1979). Internal waves induce
additional mixing both by increasing shear across the thermocline (as do inertial currents, but
they may be resolved by the model) and by breaking (Woods, 1968; Thorpe, 1994).

Models have problems in satisfactorily reproducing mixing due to these processes, which
are unresolved on the model grid and are difficult to parameterise. Mellor (1989) suggested an
extra term in the turbulent energy equation to account for the extra shear due to long internal
waves, but this does not account for the breaking of short internal waves. Burchard et al. (1998)
show that both the k- and the q2q2l models require modification through the inclusion of an
internal wave parameterization to predict correctly the observed levels of turbulent dissipation:
this was done through setting a minimum value of k and also applying a limiting condition to
(or l). Kantha and Clayson (1994) use results from LES simulations to try to improve terms in
the MellorYamada closure scheme, applied to the surface mixed layer, while Large and Gent
(1999) use LES and observations to validate vertical mixing in an equatorial ocean model.
 Mixing in the vertical is not entirely detached from mixing in the horizontal; in fact there
are at least two ways in which lateral dispersion is determined by vertical mixing. One is
boundary mixing in the deep ocean, the other is shear dispersion, which is particularly effective
in shelf seas with strong currents, including tidal currents. Boundary mixing in the ocean,
reviewed by Garrett et al. (1993), refers to mixing near the sloping sea bed, at continental slopes
or on shelves, which produces water that can spread preferentially along isopycnals into deeper
water. This has been suggested (Munk, 1966) as a source of the mixing required to explain the
overall heat balance in ocean basins.

Dispersion from the shelf or slope into the deep ocean may take place along isopycnal
surfaces once mixing on the shelf or in the boundary layer on the slope has occurred, so it is
determined by this mixing. Then the numerical scheme may introduce false diapycnal mixing
because of its tendency to mix in the horizontal or along coordinate surfaces rather than along
isopycnals. However, on the shelf the advantages of isopycnal coordinates are no longer evident
because of the prevalence of tide- and wind-mixed layers and the large areas of vertically well
mixed water

Dispersion occurs when the diffusion vertical shear and vertical displacement on the
horizontal currents occur together. Therefore, vertically sheared, wind-driven and tidal currents
was happen. Shear dispersion will occur in a three-dimensional model without a horizontal
diffusivity, but it will not happen on a two-dimensional model because there is no vertical shear
effects. Dispersion on horizontal current stretch or change the initial patch material by
advection and vertical mixing by diffusion. The previous study from some researcher state that
the kinetic energy is transferred in the cascade from large to small scales, eventually will be lost
on the smallest scale in the range lumpy.
the reduced gravity, causing the flow of energy, as opposed to the Road down which has the
greater scale would stop statistics balance exceeded Rd (Rd = NH/f frequency, N = boyansi, H =
depth, F = frequency) between the energy on a scale larger than Rd, the flow becomes smaller
than the lower flow Rd. into a smaller scale and stops. The scale of the instability of the artificial
geostrafik Dynamics baroklinik as depicted Rhines (1979), so that it becomes "barotropisation".
quasi 2 dimensional turbulence will likely be pressured by friction in the tidal area. Such eddies
can be significant on average from the spread in a layer near the front. Not only the appearance
of eddies cause a shift, increased the effectiveness of the expansion of the shift. Whirlpool
argillaceous subsoil explains, consists of mutually opposite eddi, generally found in two-
dimensional turbulence enhancement, and in sediment transport: movement of visualized with
colors done in a laboratory experiment.

Horizontal dispersion by quasi 2 dimensional Vortex generally have not entered explicitly.
However, as a parallel system is becoming more available and thus increasing the power of the
computer, full resolution ner baroclinic model became viable and coverage of the entire
continental shelf North-West Europe on 1 km grid now allows, with a higher resolution in some
areas that are "nested". Reduced gravity or two layer model can also provide insight into the
process and can be run at a very high horizontal resolution, but less realistic. Most numerical
turbulence model (for example, McWilliams, 1984) have used spectral method based on equation
of velocity. From this discussion it was clear that the completion of the eddy shelf sea model will
include many of the processes that lead to the dispersion.

4.1.4. Lagrangian chaos

lagrarian can be shown (Zimmerman, 1986; Pasmenter, 1988) turbulence dispersion is not
required for: deterministic approaches can lead to Eulerian velocity "Lagrangian chaos"
Lagrangian, chaos may occur if the ratio of the tides to scale bathymetric and leftovers amplitude
of tidal currents is currently quite large. For large tidal currents in coastal areas with "scale ne"
complex bathymetry, this indicates the possibility of a draw that the individual particles in the
principle of the unexpected, even if from a current Eulerian is known accurately.

Ridderinkhof and Zimmerman (1992) suggests the stirring chaos in two-dimensional models in
the Wadden Sea. Some paths in the chaos of Lagrangian coherent area can show (Islands) of the
particles that cannot be separated: it can describe in the distribution "patchiness". Stirring turmoil
could not be represented by a coefcient of diffusion. As shown by Zimmerman (1986), each
process can dominate in different regions. For example, shifting tidal dispersion may apply in the
open sea, while also stirring chaos on the beach with a coastline and bathymetry are complicated.
A model with good enough resolution should capture processes that occur at sea.

4.1.5. Numerical diffusion

James (1996) has considered several advection schemes applied to a threedimensional shelf-sea
model. First-order upwind differencing is highly diffusive, with a diffusion coefficient equal to
(u_x__tu2) / 2, where u is the advection velocity and _x and _t the space and time steps. Centred
differencing (forward time, centred space) is unstable, while the LaxWendroff scheme produces
ripples near a front. A TVD (total variation diminishing) scheme, which is a combination of Lax
Wendroff and upwind schemes that applies more of the upwind scheme near sharp gradients, and
a PPM (piecewise parabolic method) scheme (Colella and Woodward, 1984), which fits a
parabola to the variable within a grid box and then calculates fluxes using an upwind method,
both have positivity (ripple-free behaviour) and low numerical diffusion. The PPM scheme has
less diffusion, but involves more calculation. These schemes were demonstrated by James (1996)
in an eddy instability problem. The TVD scheme has been used by Xing and Davies (1996) and
Davies and Xing (1999) in internal tide and plume models and the PPM scheme is used in the
POL3DB model (mentioned above in Section 3). Other TVD schemes have been applied in
ocean models by Pietrzak (1998). Other advection schemes used in ocean models include the
QUICK and SHARP schemes of Leonard (1979, 1988) and the antidiffusive velocity scheme of
Smolarkiewicz (1983, 1984).Advection schemes based on particle tracking cannot have the
problem of oscillations and negative concentrations nor do they suffer from numerical
diffusivity. Dippner (1990) used a particle-tracking method to model frontal circulation in coastal
water, calculating the transportequation for density using dynamically active tracers. A
disadvantage of this method may be the number of particles needed to ensure grid boxes do not
become empty; alternatively, grid boxes may be reseeded with particles during the calculation.
This use of particle tracking to simulate the advection of a continuous quantity throughout the
model domain is different from the more usual application of particle tracking to advection of
material introduced at a single point source.
4.2. Further requirements for the physical model
The dependence of the physical model on boundary forcing means there is a requirement for
boundary data from meteorological models and wider-area ocean models, and there is a need for
understanding of airsea interaction processes. Open boundary data can determine the flow
pattern within a limited-area model, as shown by Xing and Davies (2001) for the Irish Sea, so a
good numerical scheme for the open boundary condition, another continuing area of research,
and the availability of open boundary data from larger area models are critical requirements. The
area of interest may be small relative to the whole system which determines flows there, and may
need to be treated at high resolution. Therefore a nested system is often required, from a
relatively coarse ocean model to a fine-grid coastal model, or a system with variable grid size
within the same model, such as the finite element model of Lynch et al. (1996). A nested system
may be one-way or two-way: in the latter case there is feedback from the fine-grid nested model
to the coarse grid model. Fox and Maskell (1996), in a nested model of the IcelandFaeroe front,
found improved results with a two-way model. A curvilinear coordinate system can also be used
to place high resolution in an area of interest: Spaulding et al. (1996) show an application of such
a model, with boundary-fitted
coordinates, in a system for use in monitoring and modelling oil spills, where the highest
resolution is placed in the coastal area where the oil spill has occurred. The open boundary may
be placed some distance away from the area of interest, particularly in the finite element models,
which can have a large contrast between the size of the largest and smallest elements. Other
boundary data include that from river inputs, which are often available only as flow data
averaged over various periods. River flow input is important for the physical model to maintain
the salinity balance and for density-driven cir-

A further requirement is good meteorological data for the surface boundary condition, which
drives the currents through wind stress and changes the temperature through heat uxes and the
salinity through precipitation and evaporation. The surface boundary condition is also critical for
calculating the exchange of water quality variables, which may be in gas or particle form,
between air and sea. Wind stress is usually derived from a formula dependent on wind speed
only, although this neglects direct dependencies on wave.

The frequency of meteorological data required is of the order of hourly, to reproduce the effects
of short-term events such as storms

Where wave effects are important, in the surface layerand in shallow water, a wave prediction
model may alsobe a requirement at least to derive increased mixing due to breaking waves,
improved representation of surface fluxes and wave-induced enhancement of bed stress.Wave-
driven residual flows such as Stokes drift and longshore currents on beaches may be important in
some areas. Longshore currents are an effect of radiation stress, the excess momentum transport
in waves (Longuet-Higgins, 1970). Where these flows are significant there would be an
increased need for wave models, although some oil-spill models (Section 2.4) include Stokes
drift with the directly wind-driven surface flow.

Most airsea interaction in coastal models has been assumed to be one-way; that is, with the
atmospheric model affecting the coastal sea model with no feedback. In that case, sea surface
temperature effects in the atmospheric model may be obtained from a much coarser model, or
even from climatology. However, there isgrowing evidence of some significant two-way
coupling; for example, sea surface temperature fronts can generate low-level atmospheric fronts,
which can in turn drive coastal waters (Xie et al., 1999). Local weather conditions such as sea
mist are clearly related to local coastal sea conditions. A coupled oceanatmosphere model
would be required to include these feedbacks.

5. A model system for coastal water quality applications

Fig. 1 shows a concept diagram for a model system that could form the basis of an operational
water quality model, summarising the inputs and outputs and the linking between the various
parts. The core of such a model system is a hydrodynamic model linked to models for
contaminants, sediment and the ecosystem. All possible links and feedbacks between these
component models are shown here, although any feedback to the atmospheric
model from the coastal model is neglected. We have seen that the input data sets driving the
model at the surface, from river inflows and at the open boundary are of key importance. For an
operational model, it is necessary to have real-time access to all these data streams. The amount
of real-time data for contaminants and ecological variables, however, is likely to be limited. As
the models we have described step forward in time from an initial state, the availability of initial
conditions

For some variables the initial conditions may remain an inuence for long periods; others
may be soon forgotten by the system. The skill of a forecast will depend both on the model and
on the quality of the initial conditions. Assimilation in an operational model may be thought of as
a way of combining models and observations in an optimal way, with regular updates, to give the
best possible initial conditions, or representation of the eld of state variables, for the beginning
of each forecast period . A desirable attribute of a coastal ocean modelling system is that it
should be easily relocatable to different areas, since the high resolution needed for coastal
applications means that each area of interest will either be nested within a larger model or be an
area of increased resolution within a variable-grid (for example, nite element) model. To
relocate a coastal model to a new area requires not only detailed bathymetry of the new area, but
also all the necessary initial and boundary conditions to run it . Another desirable feature of a
model system is a user interface that makes this relocation easy to accomplish without extensive
reprogramming.

Several organisations have developed, or are developing, coastal water quality model
systems with some of the attributes described here. This implies a need for running predictions
based on hypothetical scenarios and on the consequences of proposed construction work or
discharges as well as for real-time predictions, which would be required in the case of
emergencies such as an accidental spill.
In the case of operational real-time modelling the need for boundary conditions for a
coastal model means that it must ideally be linked to a wide-area, possibly global operational
system such as that proposed by GOOS (Global Ocean Observing System; see
http://ioc.unesco.org/goos). One of the reasons for the success of tide and storm surge models is
the existence of long-term and real-time monitoring of sea level from a network of coastal tide
gauges, and such a data set is not available for the other physical, chemical and biological
variables we have been considering in this review.

1. 1 Can be deduced that there is a long period of development before models become
operational, and that the rate of increase in computer power supporting the use of more
complex models with higher resolution shows no sign of slowing.
2. Stolwijk et al.s (1998) comparison of five water quality models of the North Sea showed
significant variation and they concluded there was a lack of field data for calibration and
validation. In the EU-funded programme NOMADS, which compared the transport and
dispersion
Fig. 2. An outline of progress since 1960 for hydrodynamic and ecological
models, and computer power.
Tracers in several models of the same area in the North Sea, considerable variation was
found (Proctor, 1997). Some of the variation could have been due to differences in boundary and
meteorological data.

3. Quite a lot of work done on oil spill modeling , driven by the need to predict the consequences
of accidental spills . Other pollutants do not all have the same concerns , in part because of the
complex chemistry . The toxicity of a complex cocktail of pollutants are not well understood , It
is obvious that the sediment modeling is an important part of the modeling of pollutants ,
because the partition between dissolved and parfraksi ticulate , flushing pollutant particles , and
resuspension of sediment carries pollutants from the seabed.

4. The controversy about the effectiveness of ecological models of deterministic time step ,
compared to the more traditional empirical approach . even ecological models of deterministic
types also vary in their complexity . While a simple model involving one functional group of the
nutrients for phytoplankton and perhaps succeeded in reproducing the spring bloom , in fact most
of the phytoplankton popu- lations comprised of several functional groups. If all significant
process in marine ecosystems should be included , even to simulate only carbon and nutrient
cycles , such models with more variables ERSEM ables from typical physical models required .
The level of complexity not only increase the computational load , than it makes the difficulty in
interpreting the results

5. Computing the high resolution and ecological model becomes easier to satisfy , thanks to the
advent of massively parallel machines at reasonable cost. The model described here is based on a
spatial grid in the horizontal , which is ideal to split more processors using domain
decomposition