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Environmental Pollution 177 (2013) 13e21

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Environmental Pollution
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/envpol

A three-dimensional water quality modeling approach for exploring the

eutrophication responses to load reduction scenarios in Lake Yilong (China)
Lei Zhao a, d, Yuzhao Li b, Rui Zou c, *, Bin He d, Xiang Zhu d, Yong Liu b, *, Junsong Wang d, Yongguan Zhu a
a
Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China
b
College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Key Laboratory of Water and Sediment Sciences (MOE), Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
c
Tetra Tech, Inc., 10306 Eaton Place, Ste 340, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA
d
Yunnan Key Laboratory of Pollution Process and Management of Plateau Lake-Watershed, Kunming 650034, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Lake Yilong in Southwestern China has been under serious eutrophication threat during the past de-
Received 22 May 2012 cades; however, the lake water remained clear until sudden sharp increase in Chlorophyll a (Chl a) and
Received in revised form turbidity in 2009 without apparent change in external loading levels. To investigate the causes as well as
16 January 2013
examining the underlying mechanism, a three-dimensional hydrodynamic and water quality model was
Accepted 22 January 2013
developed, simulating the flow circulation, pollutant fate and transport, and the interactions between
nutrients, phytoplankton and macrophytes. The calibrated and validated model was used to conduct
Keywords:
three sets of scenarios for understanding the water quality responses to various load reduction in-
Hydrodynamic and water quality model
Lake Yilong
tensities and ecological restoration measures. The results showed that (a) even if the nutrient loads is
Water quality reduced by as much as 77%, the Chl a concentration decreased only by 50%; and (b) aquatic vegetation
Scenario analysis has strong interaction with phytoplankton, therefore requiring combined watershed and in-lake man-
Eutrophication agement for lake restoration.
Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Eutrophication has been the primary problem facing most sur-
face waters worldwide (Smith, 1983, 2009; Martins et al., 2008; Wu
and Xu, 2011). Although the intricate mechanism for eutrophica-
tion has not been determined because of the nonlinear response of
water quality to nutrient loading, it is certain that nutrient loads
reduction is essential for water quality improvement and ecological
restoration (Rosenberga and Lars-Ove, 1988; Vieira and Lijklema,
1989; Charpa, 1997; Liu et al., 2008b). Mechanistic models can
reflect quantitative response relationships between load reduction
and water quality as well as be able to conduct scenario analyses for
decision making. Water quality modeling (WQM) has therefore
been well developed in the past decades and successfully served as
scientific tools supporting decision makings for controlling the
exogenous or ingenuous pollutions (Ahmad et al., 2001; Zou et al.,
2006, 2009; Liu et al., 2008a; Purandara et al., 2012). The WQM
with scenario analysis is considered to effectively support strategic
decision making (Schoemaker, 1982; Wack, 1985). Compared with
other assessment frameworks, WQM-based scenario analysis not
* Corresponding authors.
E-mail addresses: rz5q@yahoo.com (R. Zou), yongliu@pku.edu.cn (Y. Liu).
only reflects whether water quality could reach the targeted state
under certain assumptions, but also represents several ‘futures’ or
different points of view simultaneously (Höjer et al., 2008).
Employing scenario analysis could also evaluate all aspects of the
local decision making processes and it was thus widely used as an
effective decision making support tool on water quality restoration
(Arnold et al., 1994; Miller et al., 2002). The integration of scenario
analysis with the WQM has been used in a variety of studies
covering different areas of focus. Some scenarios were analyzed to
investigate whether future agricultural land use would cause
deterioration of water quality (Rounsevell et al., 2005; Alcamo,
2001; Ewert et al., 2005). For example, Kepner et al. (2004)
defined future land-use scenarios to demonstrate how modeling
tools could be used to evaluate the spatial impacts of urban growth
patterns on surface water hydrology. Similarly, scenario analysis
was also employed to investigate other factors impacting water
quality. In the water quality management for Lake Plastira, a
mathematical eutrophication-dissolved oxygen model was used to
examine three water management scenarios based on alternative
minimal operating water levels (Andreadakis et al., 2003; Kepner,
2004). The WQM-based scenario analysis was also used for
exploring the effects of climate change. A simple linear regression
between air and water temperature is used to generate the sce-
narios for river water temperature, and the results suggest that all

0269-7491/$ e see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2013.01.047
 Author's personal copy
14 L. Zhao et al. / Environmental Pollution 177 (2013) 13e21
the hypothetical climate change scenarios would cause water
quality impairment. It has shown that there is a significant decrease
in DO levels due to the impact climate change has on temperature
and flow rates (Rehana and Mujumdar, 2009; Park and Lee, 2002).
Lake Yilong is one of the nine largest plateau lakes in Yunnan
Province, Southwestern China. The lake water quality deteriorated
sharply in 2009 and a regime shift occurred from the macrophyte-
dominated state to the phytoplankton-dominated state (Zhang
et al., 2010). Algal blooms occurred frequently since 2009 and
caused great economic losses. To better understand the cause of the
shift as well as facilitating effective decision making on eutrophi-
cation control and ecological restoration in Lake Yilong, it is
necessary to establish a quantitative cause-and-effect relationship
between anthropogenic interference and lake response through
mechanistic mathematical modeling. Considering the necessity of
resolving spatially variable hydrodynamics and complex water
quality and phytoplankton/macrophyte interactions, the Environ-
mental Fluids Dynamics Code (EFDC) was selected as the compu-
tational platform for developing the model. EFDC is a widely
applied 3-dimensional (3D) hydrodynamic and water quality
simulation framework capable of simulating water circulation,
temperature dynamics, and advanced eutrophication processes
involving nutrients, phytoplankton, macrophyte, and predation/
grazing processes. It has been applied for simulation and decision
support analysis of surface water such as lakes, reservoirs, bays,
wetlands and estuaries (Li et al., 2011; Peng et al., 2011; Seo et al.,
2010; Shi et al., 2011; Wu and Xu, 2011). In the present study, the
Fig. 1. Lake Yilong watershed.
EFDC was customized to represent the main water quality and
ecological processes in Lake Yilong, enabling the predictive analysis
of multiple scenarios so as to provide possible explanations for the
water deterioration as well as to establish a quantitative linkage
between external nutrient loading and in-lake water quality.
To produce more scientific support for water quality improve-
ment management, three EFDC-based scenarios were designed and
analyzed in this study, including (a) response of algal blooms to
aquatic vegetation existence in the lake, (b) the variation of load
reduction requirement corresponding to different water quality
standards, and (c) the eutrophication status of the lake corre-
sponding to different water quality standard compliances.
2. Modeling framework
2.1. Study area
Lake Yilong is one of the largest plateau lakes in Yunnan Province
(Fig. 1), with an average water surface elevation of 1414 m, an
average lake depth of 3.9 m, and a maximum depth of 5.7 m. The lake
area is 28.4 km2 and the volume can reach 114.9 million m3. There
are seven main tributaries flowing into the lake. The watershed
areas of the seven tributaries account for more than 70% of the entire
basin of Lake Yilong. Historical water quality data from 1998 to 2009
and previous studies (i.e. the Lake Yilong Total Maximum Daily Load,
YLTMDL) showed that the aquatic system in Lake Yilong experi-
enced significant inter-annual fluctuations, while a clear signal of
 Author's personal copy
L. Zhao et al. / Environmental Pollution 177 (2013) 13e21
regime shift is identifiable for 2009. In 2009, the previously flour-
ishing macrophyte communities in the lake had nearly been elimi-
nated and a sharp increase in nutrient and phytoplankton
concentration occurred. According to the newly issued 12th Five-
Year Plan for Water Pollution Control of Lake Yilong Watershed, over
1 billion Chinese Yuan (approximately US$160 millions) are ex-
pected to be invested in the control of lake eutrophication from 2011
to 2015. To provide scientific basis for the decision making on
implementing the lake eutrophication control, it is necessary to
acquire a quantitative understanding between the watershed nu-
trients load reduction and the lake water quality goals. Thus an
EFDC-based eutrophication modeling system was developed in this
study for Lake Yilong. The Shiping County Environmental Moni-
toring Center is responsible for monthly water quality monitoring.
Data were collected from three observation stations. Water samples
were collected twice per month (Supporting Materials).
2.2. EFDC model
The EFDC is a widely recognized simulation platform and a
multi-task, highly integrated modular computational environ-
mental fluid dynamics package. The water quality model has 21
state variables, and simulates the spatial and temporal distribution
of water quality parameters including dissolved oxygen (DO),
phytoplankton, various components of carbon, nitrogen, phos-
phorus and silica cycles, and fecal coliform bacteria (Hamrick and
Wu, 1997). EFDC also has a sediment diagenesis module which
simulates the diagenesis processes of organic matters in the bed
and the resulting fluxes of inorganic substances and sediment ox-
ygen demand back to the water column (Park et al., 2005). The
hydrodynamic module of the model solves three-dimensional,
vertically hydrostatic, free surface and turbulent averaged equa-
tions of motion for a variable-density fluid. Dynamically coupled
transport equations for turbulent kinetic energy, turbulent length
scale, salinity, and temperature are also solved (Hamrick and Wu,
1997). The general governing equations for EFDC are (Park et al.,
2005):


v mx my HC v
v v

þ my HuC þ ðmx HvCÞ þ mx my wC
vt vx vy vz
     
v my HAx vC v mx HAy vC v Az vC
¼ þ þ mx my
vx mx vx vy my vy vz H vz
þ mx my HSc
where C is the concentration of a water quality state variable; u, v, w
are velocity components in the curvilinear, sigma x-, y-, and z-di-
rections, respectively; Ax, Ay, Az are the turbulent diffusivities in the
x-, y-, and z-directions, respectively; Sc is the internal and external
sources and sinks per unit volume; H is the water column depth;
mx, my are the horizontal curvilinear coordinate scale factors. Water
temperatures are needed for computation of the water quality state
variables, and they are provided by the internally coupled hydro-
dynamic model (Park et al., 2005).
2.3. Configuration for Lake Yilong EFDC model
The first necessary step in establishing long-term water quality
restoration efforts in Lake Yilong would be to develop a quantita-
tive assessment via a sophisticated water quality model to aid in
determining the cause of the sharp increase in algal bloom intensity
in 2009, as well as to determine the effective management levels
that would result in compliance of water quality standards. To
simulate the dynamic factors causing the drastic change in the
aquatic ecosystems of Lake Yilong, it is essential to adopt a model
15
that could reflect complex interactions between nutrients and
phytoplankton, aquatic plants, DO and sediment, etc. It thereby
requires a construct with maximum complexity in EFDC. Specif-
ically, the EFDC model for Lake Yilong should include all relevant
water quality drivers, such as carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, algae
and DO to fully characterize the process of eutrophication.
Furthermore, the interactions between the vascular aquatic plants
and phytoplankton nutrients were also analyzed.
The sediment diagenesis model can be used to predict changes
in sediment nutrient flux historically or under certain scenarios,
such as watershed management and restoration. It can also char-
acterize the response of sediment oxygen (SOD) to watershed
nutrient load changes. A model with the ability to predict
sedimentewater interactions can overcome the key limitations of
non-predictive water quality models in analyzing the long term
response in water quality to watershed and in-lake management,
hence supporting more reliable watershed management decision-
makings.
The following text describes the processes of developing the
Lake Yilong model, including grid generation, configuration of
initial and boundary conditions, model calibration and scenario
analysis.
(1) Grid generation
A curvilinear grid was developed to discretize Lake Yilong. The
lake was represented by using a total of 241 horizontal grids where
the smallest grid was approximately 0.05 km2 and the largest was
approximately 0.18 km2. The average depth at the shallowest grid
was about 1.5 m while the average depth of the deepest grid was
about 5.3 m at the water surface elevation of 1414 m above sea
level. Although Lake Yilong is shallow, with no significant thermal
stratification, phytoplankton and aquatic vegetation are still influ-
enced by vertical distribution in light; therefore, it is desirable to
resolve variability in vertical light intensity and nutrient using a
three-dimensional spatial resolution. In this model, the grid is
vertically discretized into 5 layers, and a total of 1205 computa-
tional cells were generated from top to bottom to represent Lake
Yilong in its entirety (Fig. 2).
(2) Initial conditions
(1)
Initial conditions represent the starting point for the model
simulation. In this study, the period simulated was from the sum-
mer of 2008 to the summer of 2009. The initial temperature was set
as 20.0  C based on a value observed in early July. The three velocity
vectors were initialized at 0.0 m/s following standard convention in
hydrodynamic modeling. The hydrodynamic model was then run
Fig. 2. Computational grids of hydrodynamic water quality simulation in Lake Yilong.
 Author's personal copy
16 L. Zhao et al. / Environmental Pollution 177 (2013) 13e21
with a spinning-up period of 1 month to represent the initial
condition for the coupled hydrodynamics-water quality model.
Initial water quality conditions were relatively complex
compared to hydrodynamic model because the former requires a
relatively long period of time to eliminate the impact of initial
conditions during the run process of model. To get a more accurate
water quality model initialization, the observational data from
August 22, 2008 was spatially interpolated to each grid cell to form
a best-available estimate of the initial condition (Supporting
Materials).
(3) Boundary conditions
The horizontal and surface boundary conditions in the model
represent external driving forces to the lake dynamics. The lateral
boundary conditions consisted of tributary inflow rates and asso-
ciated temperature and water quality constituent concentrations.
The surface boundary conditions were described by temporally
variable meteorological conditions. In the Lake Yilong model,
tributary boundary conditions were configured based on the
monitoring data collected during the 2008e2009 study period. For
those tributaries with available inflow rate and water quality con-
centrations, boundary conditions were set directly based on
observed data, while for those ungaged inflows, the flow rates were
derived based on a flow balance analysis using the hydrodynamic
model. In addition to tributaries, atmospheric deposition was
another major source of nutrient loading. The concentrations of
total phosphorous (TP) and total nitrogen (TN) in the study area
from dry deposition were 0.00019 g/m2/day and 0.0069 g/m2/day,
respectively, whereas concentrations of TP and TN from wet
deposition were 0.039 mg/L and 0.95 mg/L, respectively. These
loadings were configured in the Lake Yilong model using the cor-
responding input data slots in EFDC model.
Atmospheric boundary conditions include hourly data of at-
mospheric pressure, air temperature, relative humidity, precipita-
tion, evaporation, solar radiation, cloud cover, wind speed and wind
direction. In the modeling process, hourly data were obtained from
the Shiping County Weather Station (SPWS) and were converted
into the compatible format of EFDC to represent the atmospheric
boundary conditions.
(4) Simulation and calibration
Model calibration is an essential process in water quality model
development (Lung, 2001). Calibration of hydrodynamic and water
quality model in Lake Yilong was implemented in a phased manner:
the hydrodynamic model was developed and calibrated first before
running the water quality model for fast computing. After the hy-
drodynamic model was calibrated, the water column nutrient-
phytoplankton-macrophyte simulation modules as well as the
sediment diagenesis module were activated to begin the water
quality calibration process.
3. Results and discussions
3.1. Hydrodynamic simulation and calibration
The model simulation was implemented with a time step of
270 s, which was determined to be small enough to guarantee both
stability and accuracy through multiple sensitivity analysis. The
hydrodynamic model for Lake Yilong was calibrated through
comparing the simulated water surface elevation and water tem-
perature against observed data (Fig. 3). As shown, the simulation
results were in good agreement with the observed daily water
Fig. 3. Comparison of simulated and observed elevations of Lake Yilong.
level, indicating an overall balance in water mass related processes
such as inflows, outflows, direct precipitation, and evaporations.
After the flow balance was verified, the hydrodynamic model
was further evaluated using observed water temperature data.
Model simulated temperature was output for every 6 h and
compared against observed data at three stations across the lake
(Fig. 4). The comparison shows that the model accurately repro-
duced the observed spatial and temporal variability in water tem-
perature in the lake, suggesting that the model has reached
reasonable representation of the hydrodynamic and thermal dy-
namics processes in the lake, hence forming a foundation for
further calibrating the water quality processes in the lake.
3.2. Water quality simulation and calibration
The water quality model calibration was conducted through
fine-tuning the model parameters to reproduce observed water
quality at the three monitoring stations. The constituents used for
calibration include Chl a, DO, NHþ 4 , TN and TP (Fig. 5). The water
quality model calibration involved an iterative process where key
parameter values were adjusted and simulated water quality con-
centrations evaluated against observed data. This process was
repeated many times until the simulated values could reproduce
the observed temporal and spatial patterns. In the eutrophication
model, the key parameters related to phytoplankton, nitrogen,
phosphorus, and carbon would need to be calibrated. In addition to
the dynamic process included in the eutrophication model
described in modeling framework, a key process in the Lake Yilong
model was to simulate the impact of fish predation on aquatic
vegetation. In the early spring of 2009, local authorities had been
stocking a large number of herbivorous fish (grass carp). Limited by
the observation data and the complexity of the process, it was not
feasible to simulate grass carp stocking, growth, predation and
excretion kinetics unless the process was simplified in the EFDC
model; therefore, an additional predation parameter was intro-
duced into the EFDC mathematical equation to parameterize the
impact of grass carp. The predation pressure on the macrophyte
from the grass carp was parameterized as a predation coefficient
linearly increasing from the beginning to the end of the stocking
period, which then maintains a constant value after the stocking
period is completed.
The model performance was evaluated based on data from all
the monitoring stations, while only the results for the West Lake
Station are plotted in Fig. 5. As shown, the model reproduced both
the observed trends and general magnitude of water quality in the
lake. For example, according to the model’s predictions, the Chl a
concentration in the lake would be much higher in 2009 than that
in 2008, which matches the observed data very well. In the
meantime, the model also predicted a significant increase in TN and
TP concentrations from 2008 to 2009, which is also consistent
with observational data. In addition to the trends in nutrient
 Author's personal copy

L. Zhao et al. / Environmental Pollution 177 (2013) 13e21 17

30.0
R2 =0.7308

COD1(mg/L)
20.0
Simulated value
10.0 Observed Value

0.0
08/8/22 08/11/30 09/3/10 09/6/18 09/9/26
Date
300
250 R2 =0.6547

Chl a (ug/L)
200
150 Observed value
100
Simulated value
50
0
08/8/22 08/11/30 09/3/10 09/6/18 09/9/26
Date
20.0
15.0 R2 =0.1313

DO(mg/L)
10.0
5.0
0.0
08/8/22 08/11/30 09/3/10 09/6/18 09/9/26
Date
1.0
0.8
NH4(mg/L)

0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
08/8/22 08/11/30 09/3/10 09/6/18 09/9/26
Date
8.0

6.0 R2 =0.7955
TN(mg/L)

4.0

2.0

0.0
08/8/22 08/11/30 09/3/10 09/6/18 09/9/26
Date
Fig. 4. Comparison of simulated and observed temperatures.
0.3

concentrations and algal blooms, the simulated DO values also 0.2 R2 =0.0619
TP(mg/L)

reproduced the observed data for seasonal and short-term changes

very well. 0.1

0.0
4. Discussion 08/8/22 08/11/30 09/3/10 09/6/18 09/9/26
Date
The observed data showed that the water quality in 2009 was
significantly worse than that in the past few years. The EFDC model Fig. 5. Comparison of water quality variables at West Lake Station.

reproduced the trends accurately. Before 2008, the Chl a concen-

tration never exceeded 150 mg/L; however, in the summer of 2009,
its concentration reached a maximum of 300 mg/L. Meanwhile, the
biomass of macrophyte in 2009 declined sharply and is much lower
than that in 2008.
The data showed that Chl a concentration sharply increase in
2009 from the much lower level in 2008, accompanied by significant
increase in TP and TN concentration. Based on watershed survey in
2009, there was no sudden increase in nutrient loading from the
external sources; therefore, the sharp increase in water column
nutrient concentration cannot be attributed to external loading
changes. It means that although the TN and Chl a data demonstrate a
statistically significant correlation between algal bloom outbreaks
and increases in nitrogen concentrations in 2009, the statistical
analysis could not explain the origin of the nitrogen that caused the
algal blooms. While our model results revealed that the sharp
 Author's personal copy

18 L. Zhao et al. / Environmental Pollution 177 (2013) 13e21

increase in TN and TP concentration in the lake was not from Table 1

external sources, but from internal sources of nutrients which were Water quality concentration goals in Lake Yilong.

stored in the macrophyte biomass. The previous study (i.e. YLTMD)
has also proved that (a) the macrophyte was consumed by herbiv-
orous fishes and nutrients were then released to the water column
to form high concentrations; and (b) the diminish of macrophyte as
well as the resultant high nutrient concentration form positive force
to stimulate blue-green algae blooms in the lake.
5. Scenario analysis on eutrophication responses to load
reduction
After the model was developed and calibrated, it was used to
analyze a series of water quality compliance scenarios to provide
quantitative information regarding the magnitude of watershed
load reduction. The above analysis showed that aquatic ecosystem
structure plays an important role in maintaining water quality.
Therefore, three basic scenarios were designed to quantify (a) the
importance of aquatic vegetation to algal bloom control; (b) the
load reduction requirement under different water quality targets;
and (c) the relationship between nutrients load reduction and
eutrophication condition as represented by algal blooms.
5.1. Scenario analysis I: impact of aquatic vegetation on algal bloom
control
To analyze the impact of aquatic vegetation on algal blooms, two
scenario simulations were conducted. The first simulation is named
the baseline loading without macrophyte (BLWM) scenario, which
represents the baseline condition after the 2009 regime shift where
macrophyte vegetation was destroyed. To represent the long term
impact, the model was driven with the same boundary conditions
as in the 2008e2009 simulation but continue for 20 years to reach
steady-state in water quality. The other simulation is named
baseline loading plus macrophyte (BLPM) scenario, which repre-
sents the condition where macrophyte vegetation is fully recovered
to the condition before the regime shift, while all the dynamic
processes, boundary conditions, and simulation period are the
same as in the BLWM simulation. With this design, any difference in
algal bloom intensity between the two simulations would be
attributed to existence of the macrophyte vegetation.
Fig. 6 shows the simulated Chl a concentration at the West Lake
Station for the 20th year of both the scenarios. The results clearly
show that even with the same watershed loadings and meteoro-
logical conditions, the algal bloom intensity in Lake Yilong can be
400
Chl a concentration ( ug/l)
TN TP CODMn NH4eN
Class III (mg/L) 1.0 0.05 6 1.0
Class IV (mg/L) 1.5 0.10 10 1.5
Class V (mg/L) 2.0 0.20 15 2.0
Allowed exceedance (%) 50% 50% 50% 50%
significantly lower when macrophyte vegetation is restored. In
other words, the management methods for controlling algal bloom
in Lake Yilong might include options of watershed management and
in-lake restoration. The results of this scenario indicate that the in-
lake ecological restoration alone can result in significant depression
of algal bloom without any watershed management measures. The
result also reveals the risk of un-informed decision making in a lake
watershed, and highlights the importance of scientifically sound
planning for any actions in lake watersheds.
5.2. Scenario II: load reduction requirement for water quality
standards compliance
The results of Scenario I indicate that under existing watershed
loading condition, the water quality of Lake Yilong would not be
able to attain the targeted water quality standards even if the
macrophyte vegetation were restored. Therefore, it is necessary to
determine the magnitude of watershed load reduction required to
achieve compliance of water quality standards for the lake. Table 1
lists three different levels of water quality targets for Lake Yilong.
The three targets are based on the Class III, IV, and V standards of
the China Surface Water Environmental Quality Standards (GB3838-
2002). In GB3838-2002, Class III is corresponding to beneficial use
of drinking water sources, Class IV for industrial water supply and
Class V for agricultural irrigation purpose. The reason of setting
three levels of targets instead of one was to determine the ach-
ievability and feasibility of each targets based on their respective
load reduction requirement.
To evaluate the compliances of water quality targets, two as-
pects were considered: (a) the water quality standards should to be
achieved on an annual average basis; and (b) the instantaneous
concentration is not allowed to exceed the water quality target
concentrations for more than 50% of the time. Therefore, the final
compliance was established based on the more stringent of the two
aspects.
The scenario analysis was conducted via an iterative process
where the baseline model in Scenario I, i.e., BLWM, was used as the
basis, but the watershed loadings being scaled down to a pre-
specified ratio. The model was then run for 20 years and the re-
sults of the 20th year were used to evaluate the compliance from
the aforementioned two aspects. After multiple trials, load reduc-

300 tion ratios required for Class III, IV, and V targets were determined
to be 77%, 55%, and 35%, respectively (Table 2 and Fig. 7). These

200
Table 2
Load reduction rates to meet certain water quality goals.

100 Monitoring sites TN (mg/L) TP (mg/L) COD (mg/L) Load reduction

ratio
Lake West 1.00 0.042 4.56 35%
0 1.50 0.067 7.08 55%
A S O N D J F M A M J J A 2.00 0.101 9.28 77%
Lake Mid 0.79 0.034 3.58 35%
Months 1.22 0.055 5.58 55%
1.62 0.082 7.49 77%
Fig. 6. Simulated Chl a concentration (mg/L) on scenario I at West Lake Station. The top
Lake East 0.73 0.034 3.23 35%
blue line represents the BLWM scenario and the bottom red one for BLPM scenario.
1.18 0.056 5.23 55%
(For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is
1.63 0.084 7.21 77%
referred to the web version of this article.)
 Author's personal copy

L. Zhao et al. / Environmental Pollution 177 (2013) 13e21 19

16
Ave TN Med TN TN Standard Ave TP Med TP
14
TP Standards Ave COD Med COD COD Standard
Concentration (µg/L) 12

10

0
Class III Scenario Class IV Scenario Class V Scenario
West Lake Station

(a) West lake station

16 Ave TN Med TN TN Standard

14 Ave TP Med TP TP Standard

Ave COD Med COD COD Standard

12
Concentration ( µg/L)

10

0
Class III Scenario Class IV Scenario Class V Scenario

(b) Middle lake station

16
Ave TN Med TN Standard N
14 Ave TP Med TP Standard P

12 Ave COD Med COD Standard COD

Concentration (µg/L)

10

0
Class III Scenario Class IV Scenario Class V Scenario

(c) East lake station

Fig. 7. Water quality conditions after load reduction at three monitoring stations.

results suggest that the current watershed loading far exceed the
allowable levels for attaining the pre-set targets, preventing Lake
Yilong from meeting the desired beneficial uses. This helps explain
a puzzling question the government often confronts: why the
previous watershed management efforts didn’t produce expected
compliance of water quality targets? As the modeling results show,
significant further load reduction in addition to what have previ-
ously accomplished is required to allow the compliance, therefore,
it is not reasonable to expect that the compliance of the water
quality targets can be reached in near future. On the contrary, a
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20 L. Zhao et al. / Environmental Pollution 177 (2013) 13e21

long-term watershed management as well as in-lake restoration 200

planning is needed to be developed based on the modeling analysis 180 Average Chla

for continuously improving the water quality and ecological con- 160 Median Chla

dition in the lake. 140 Maximum Chla

Concentration (ug/L)
120
5.3. Scenario III: eutrophication response 100

To further investigate the impact of watershed load reduction on
Chl a concentration in Lake Yilong, the simulated Chl a concen-
tration of the 20th year of the BLPM are compared against that of
the reduction scenario with 77% reduction of watershed loading on
the top of the in-lake restoration corresponding to the BLPM sce-
nario. Fig. 8 plots the results for the West Lake Station, showing that
with the 77% reduction in watershed loading, the phytoplankton in
the lake is significantly depressed due to lower nutrient concen-
tration in the water column resulted from watershed management.
However, it is also apparent that even when the lake water attain
Class III water quality target along with a full restoration of the
macrophyte vegetation, the 77% reduction of watershed loads only
led to approximately 50% of Chl a concentration reduction. Since
the extreme reduction of 77% in watershed loading would still
result in peak Chl a concentration of approximately 80 mg/L that is
highly liable to algal bloom, it is apparent that the eutrophication
problem is not controlled even with the compliance of the most
stringent water quality target (Class III) for Lake Yilong.
In scenario I, we presented the results representing the impact of
ecological restoration under existing loading level. To further
investigate the effects of ecological restoration under much reduced
loading condition, another analysis was conducted through
comparing the Chl a concentration under 77% reduction and
ecological restoration (77R-ER) and that of 77% reduction alone
(77R). The averages, median and maximum value of Chl a concen-
tration at the three monitoring stations were compared in Fig. 9. It is
shown that the Chl a concentrations for 77R are much higher than
those of 77R-ER, indicating that the benefit of in-lake ecological
restoration is significant not only under current high loading con-
dition, but also under the future condition where watershed load is
highly reduced. Therefore, it is recommended that for Lake Yilong,
both watershed management and in-lake restoration need to be
implemented to control the eutrophication impairment. Given the
data and funding limitation, this study did not assess economic ef-
ficiency, social development and specific ecological restoration
technologies. Future research is expected to be focus on these areas
to provide more effective decision support to the eutrophication
control of Lake Yilong.
200
77% reduction
80
60
40
20
0
BLWM 77R-ER 77R BLWM 77R-ER 77R BLWM 77R-ER 77R
West Lake Station MIddle Lake Station East Lake Station
Fig. 9. Comparison of average, median and maximum Chl a concentrations (mg/L) in
Lake Yilong under BLWM, 77R and 77R-ER scenarios.
6. Conclusions
(1)This study developed a 3-D hydrodynamic and water quality
model for Lake Yilong, China. The model accurately reproduced
the observed water surface elevation, water temperature, and
nutrient and algal conditions, indicating a reasonable numerical
representation of the actual hydrodynamics and eutrophication
dynamics in the lake.
(2)The model results showed that the existence of aquatic
vegetation had significant impacts on algal blooms in Lake
Yilong. Even though the watershed load remained under the
same conditions, algal bloom intensity in the lake can be
significantly depressed under the vegetation restoration con-
dition than under the condition where aquatic vegetation
diminished. Therefore, both watershed load reduction and in-
lake restoration are necessary for effective eutrophication con-
trol in Lake Yilong.
(3)The study analyzed the watershed load reduction require-
ment for achieving compliance of various water quality targets.
The results indicated that to achieve the water quality targets
corresponding to Class III, IV, and V of the national water quality
standard, the watershed load reduction ratios would need to be
77%, 55% and 35%, respectively.
(4)The study also suggested that the adaptation of national
water quality standards for nutrients as lake water quality tar-
gets might not be consistent with the eutrophication control
targets. The model results indicate that even if the most strin-
gent nutrient target was met with 77% reduction of watershed
loading, the peak Chl a concentration in the lake can still reach
80 mg/L, a concentration that is highly liable to algal bloom.

BLPM scenario Therefore, future studies are required to investigate more

reasonable water quality targets to support future eutrophica-
150
tion control efforts for Lake Yilong.
Chl a concentration (µg/L)

100
Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science

50
Foundation of China (Grant No. 41101180 and 41222002) and the
“Major Science and Technology Program for Water Pollution Con-
0
trol and Treatment” (2013ZX07102-006).
A/08 S/08 O/08 N/08 D/08 J/09 F/09 M/09 A/09 M/09 J/09 J/09 A/09
months
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Fig. 8. Simulated Chl a concentration (mg/L) on scenarios of baseline (BLPM) and ul-
timate (77%) reduction. The top blue line represents the BLPM scenario and the bottom
red one for 77% reduction scenario. (For interpretation of the references to colour in Supplementary data related to this article can be found at http://
this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.) dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2013.01.047.
 Author's personal copy

L. Zhao et al. / Environmental Pollution 177 (2013) 13e21 21

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