A ONE DIMENSIONAL MODEL AS A TOOL TO PREDICT THE

HYDROLOGICAL REGIME OF THREE COASTAL LAGOONS IN

LA PLETERA SALT MARSHES
Xavier Casamitjana1, Anna Menció2, Xavier Quintana3, David Soler2, Jordi Compte3, Mònica Martinoy3, Josep
Pascual3

1Department of Physics, University of Girona, 17003 Girona, Spain, e-mail: xavier.casamitjana@udg.edu

2 Grup de Geologia Ambiental i Aplicada (GAiA), Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Girona, 17003 Girona, Spain, e-

mail: anna.mencio@udg.edu and david.soler@udg.edu.

3GRECO, Institute of Aquatic Ecology, University of Girona, 17003 Girona, Spain, e-mail: xavier.quintana@
La Pletera salt marshes are composed of several coastal lagoons and wetlands that were
affected by the incomplete construction of an urban development in 1987

We use the one dimension model GLM (General Lake Model) to assess the water balance and
salinity dynamics of:
- two natural lagoons (Life A and Life B)
- and a new lagoon (Life-C) built in the Life Restoration Project in 2002
 GENERAL LAKE MODEL
GLM computes vertical profiles of
temperature, salinity and density by
accounting for the effect of inflows and
outflows on the water balance, mixing and
surface heating and cooling

Since the model is one-dimensional it assumes no horizontal

variability.

The model was initially built as a project within the Global Lake
Ecological Observatory Network (GLEON) to provide a
computationally efficient lake modelling platform
 GENERAL LAKE MODEL

The vertical profile of the lake is represented as a set of up to 100

Lagrangian layers that are free to move vertically, contract and expand
in response to river inflows and outflows and to surface mass fluxes

The Lagrangian approach was originally introduced in the model DYRESM developed by the Centre for Water
(Imberger and coworkers)

Althoug based in DYRESM, the GLM (General Lake Model), developed by Hipsey et al. (2014), is a new model
code written in C, which features numerous customizations and extensions in order to make it a fast and
easy to use model.
 GENERAL LAKE MODEL
1-SURFACE LAYER MIXING
Surface layer dynamics is based on an integral turbulent kinetic energy model
(Sherman et al. 1978). The turbulent kinetic energy budget is partitioned in
four discrete processes: wind stirring, convective overturn, interfacial shear
production, and Kelvin-Helmoltz billowing WIND MIXING
CONVECTION

2- INFLOWS AND OUTFLOWS 3-WATER WITHDRAWAL

Surface inflow Plunging point

Submerged Inflow

Once submerged, the stream will flow down the drowned river valley, Most of the water withdrawn typically comes from a
entraining ambient water, until reaching the level at which is density narrow layer approximately centered at the offtake
equals that of the reservoir. level.
 GENERAL LAKE MODEL

The model uses measured, daily-average meteorological data :

1-ShortWave
2-LongWave or Cloud
3-AirTemp
4- Humidity
5-WindSpeed
6- Rain

www.meteoestartit.cat (Pascual, 2017)

Data for solar radiation was obtained from the meteorological station of Sant Pere Pescador
(Xarxa d’Estacions Meteorològiques Automàtiques de la Generalitat de Catalunya)

From meteorological data GLM computes the surface fluxes of momentum, sensible heat, and latent heat are computed
ACCUMULATED VOLUME AS A FUNCTION OF LAGOON LEVEL
Example: LIFE -B

Accumulated
Volume (m3) Volume (m3)
Level (m) Surface (m2)
1.5 17290.00 8505.75 22956.125
1 16733.00 3901.375 14450.375
0.75 14478.00 3510.375 10549
0.5 13605.00 3219.875 7038.625
0.25 12154.00 1835.5 3818.75
0 2530.00 1011.5 1983.25
-0.5 1516.00 643 971.75
-1 1056.00 328.75 328.75
-1.5 259.00 0 0

25000
Ac. Volume = -170.88x5 - 577.28x4 + 1659.9x3 + 6279.7x2 + 6811.5x + 3270.4
20000
R² = 0.9992
15000

10000

5000

0
-2 -1.5 -1 -0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5
 ADJUSTING WATER VOLUMES (Example: LIFE B)

Using the known daily water level, the water volume of the lagoons were determined.

With this information, GLM has been used to evaluate the different water fluxes: inflows, outflows, rain and
evaporation by adjusting them to the daily known water volume

3.E+04
Real Volume
3.E+04
Volume ( m3)

2.E+04
Model Vol.

2.E+04

1.E+04

5.E+03

0.E+00
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000

Days from 2014- Nov to 2017- Sept

 LIFE -B

Considering the results obtained by Menció et al. (2017), a solution composed of both freshwater and
seawater was considered as inflow.
DRY SEASONS:
Inflow salinities are set to 25-30 ppt, indicating that most of the inflow water is from sea origin.
However sometimes salinities are set to 40 ppt higher than sea water

REST OF THE SEASONS:

salinity changes to ~15 ppt, indicating a 50% mixture of marine water and water.
EXPERIMENTAL SALINITY VERSUS MODEL SALINITY: LIFE -B
EXPERIMENTAL SALINITY VERSUS MODEL SALINITY: LIFE -C

60

40

20
sal exp.
salt surface
0
0 200 400 600 800 1000
MODEL SALINITY: LIFE -B VERSUS LIFE-C
 SALINITY OF LIFE B AND LIFE C VERSUS INFLOW SALINITY
80

60
Salinity (ppt)

40 Sal Life B
SalLife C
20 Sal Life B
Sal Life C
0
1 31 61 91 121 151 181 211 241 271 301 331 361 391

45 0.005
40

Flow (m3/s)
Saility Inflow (ppt)

35 0.004
30
25 0.003
20 0.002
15
10 0.001 Sal Life C
5
0 0 Sal Life B
1 31 61 91 121 151 181 211 241 271 301 331 361 391 Flow Life B
Flow Life C
Days from 2014-12-20 to 2015-11-19
 SALINITY: LIFE -A

120
salt surf
70
salt surf exp
20
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350
Differences in salinity among lagoons could be explained:

1- higher water circulation in Life C lagoon.

DRY PERIOD : Evolution of the Volume (normalized)

1.5

1 Vol Life C
Vol Life B
0.5
Vol Life A
0
2015-06-01 2015-07-01 2015-07-31 2015-08-30 2015-09-29
 2-Higher ratio S/V in Life A and Life B

DRY SEASON END OF SUMMER

/AUTUMN
Cyclonic Storms
Evaporation

Outflow Inflow
APLICACIÓN DEL MODELO GLM LAS LAGUNAS DE LA Pletera.

Objetivo de la práctica: Aplicar el modelo GLM en las lagunas

de la Pletera, en concreto en la laguna de Fraramon.
El GLM (General lake model) es un modelo unidimensional que
predice la evolución de la temperatura y de la salinidad en
lagos y embalses. En ésta práctica modificaremos algunos
parámetros del modelo para ver su efecto en la laguna. En
concreto:
a- Wind factor
b- sw_factor
c- at_factor
d- rain_factor
e- inflow_factor (agua que entra)
f- outflow_factor (agua que sale)
g- coeficiente de atenuación Kw = 3 (podemos probar 1 y 4)