Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2019WV275B

WRI 263 Modeling water quality changes in the Monongahela River basin

Institute: West Virginia
Year Established: 2019 Start Date: 2019-06-01 End Date: 2020-05-31
Total Federal Funds: $19,888 Total Non-Federal Funds: $41,098

Principal Investigators: J. Todd Petty

Project Summary: The development of a West Virginia (WV) State Water Budget is long overdue. While independent water quality/quantity models and datasets exist throughout WV, additional work is needed to successfully connect these resources. A modeling program developed through the WVU Davis College and Three Rivers QUEST (3RQ) water quality dataset are two such examples. This request proposes to utilize the 3RQ dataset to calibrate the established modeling program in the Monongahela River basin. The over-riding objective of this proposal is to develop a model that can be used to predict changes in water quality and ecological conditions as a function of changes in land use, rainfall, and water withdrawals over time. The principal question is: How does water quality vary over time with variation in flow, and can we model that variation spatially across all stream segments?