Simulating hydrodynamics in a spring-fed estuary using a three-dimensional unstructured Cartesian grid model

This paper presents an application of a three-dimensional unstructured Cartesian grid model (Chen, 2011) to a real-world case, namely the Crystal River/Kings Bay system located on the Gulf coast of the Florida peninsula of the United States. Crystal River/Kings Bay is a spring-fed estuarine system which is believed to be the largest natural refuge in the United States for manatees during the coldest days in winter because of the existence of a large amount of discharge out of numerous spring vents at the bottom of Kings Bay. The unstructured Cartesian grid model was used to simulate hydrodynamics, including salinity transport processes and thermodynamics, in the estuary during a 34-month period from April 2007 to February 2010. Although there are some unidentified uncertainties in quantifying flow rates from the spring vents and salinity variations in spring flows, simulated water elevations, salinities, temperatures, and cross-sectional flux all match well or very well with measured real-time field data. This suggests that the unstructured Cartesian grid model can adequately simulate hydrodynamics in a complex shallow water system such as Crystal River/Kings Bay and the numerical theory for the unstructured Cartesian grid model works properly. The successful simulation of hydrodynamics in the estuarine system also suggests that an empirical formula that relates the spring discharge with the water level in Kings Bay and the groundwater level measured in a nearby well is reasonable.