Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2017ND324B

Assessing Devils Lake Water Quality with Remote Sensing and Coupled SWAT and CE-QUAL-W2 Model

Institute: North Dakota
Year Established: 2017 Start Date: 2017-03-01 End Date: 2018-02-28
Total Federal Funds: $2,625 Total Non-Federal Funds: $5,250

Principal Investigators: Xiaodong Zhang

Project Summary: The proposed research will develop a combined modeling and remote sensing capability to monitor and assess water quality in Devils Lake. A model relies on field data for calibration; and a well-calibrated model can simulate dynamics of water quality changes in a fine temporal and spatial scales, serving as a valuable tool in lake monitoring and management. Satellite remote sensing observation offers real time data repetitively. Since remote sensing algorithms rely on water surface reflectance to retrieve water quality constituents and therefore might not accurately present the entire water body condition. The combination of these two offers an opportunity to assess lake water quality from the surface to the bottom. The goal of this study is evaluate water quality in Devils Lake using water quality model and remote sensing technique. The study will use the coupled SWAT and CE-QUAL-W2 model to simulate water quality in upper watershed and lake. The result of the coupled model will be applied to calculate the uncertainty of remote sensing technique to retrieve water quality parameters in Devils Lake.