Age of Water Particles as a Diagnosis of Steady-State Flows in Shallow Rectangular Reservoirs
Benjamin Dewals,
Pierre Archambeau,
Martin Bruwier,
Sebastien Erpicum,
Michel Pirotton,
Tom Adam,
Eric Delhez,
Eric Deleersnijder
Affiliations
Benjamin Dewals
Research Unit Urban & Environmental Engineering (UEE), Hydraulics in Environmental and Civil Engineering (HECE), University of Liège, 4000 Liège, Belgium
Pierre Archambeau
Research Unit Urban & Environmental Engineering (UEE), Hydraulics in Environmental and Civil Engineering (HECE), University of Liège, 4000 Liège, Belgium
Martin Bruwier
Research Unit Urban & Environmental Engineering (UEE), Hydraulics in Environmental and Civil Engineering (HECE), University of Liège, 4000 Liège, Belgium
Sebastien Erpicum
Research Unit Urban & Environmental Engineering (UEE), Hydraulics in Environmental and Civil Engineering (HECE), University of Liège, 4000 Liège, Belgium
Michel Pirotton
Research Unit Urban & Environmental Engineering (UEE), Hydraulics in Environmental and Civil Engineering (HECE), University of Liège, 4000 Liège, Belgium
Tom Adam
SGI Ingénieurs, 5032 Isnes, Belgium
Eric Delhez
Research Unit Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering (A&M), Mathematical Modelling & Methods, University of Liège, 4000 Liège, Belgium
Eric Deleersnijder
Institute of Mechanics, Materials and Civil Engineering (IMMC) & Earth and Life Institute (ELI), Université Catholique de Louvain, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
The age of a water particle in a shallow man-made reservoir is defined as the time elapsed since it entered it. Analyzing this diagnostic timescale provides valuable information for optimally sizing and operating such structures. Here, the constituent-oriented age and residence time theory (CART) is used to obtain not only the mean age, but also the water age distribution function at each location. The method is applied to 10 different shallow reservoirs of simple geometry (rectangular), in a steady-state framework. The results show that complex, multimodal water age distributions are found, implying that focusing solely on simple statistics (e.g., mean or median age) fails to reflect the complexity of the actual distribution of water age. The latter relates to the fast or slow pathways that water particles may take for traveling from the inlet to the outlet of the reservoirs.
