Graduate Student Research Projects:

Anurag Mishra-PhD Student

Comparison of Approaches for Modeling Bacteria Fate and Transport to Develop the Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs)

Water Quality Modeling is an essential component of Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL), and other watershed management planning exercises. However, modeling natural systems involves uncertainty, which may be due to incomplete knowledge of the system and stochastic variability. Currently, several mechanistic (process based), or combined mechanistic and empirical models are used for water quality modeling, without detailed uncertainty analysis.

Incorporating a systematic uncertainty analysis in the TMDL development process would provide decision makers and stakeholders additional information about the confidence in achieving water quality standards. This additional information will help them in making well informed decisions about the most appropriate pollutant load allocation scenarios.