DEVELOPMENT OF A THREE DIMENSIONAL DISSOLVED OXYGEN MODEL FOR THE LOWER SAVANNAH RIVER ESTUARY

Applied Technology and Management, Inc. (ATM) was retained by the Georgia Ports Authority (GPA) to evaluate the environmental impacts of the proposed Savannah Harbor Expansion Project (SHEP). ATM, Applied Sciences and Associates (ASA) and ASATM Brazil have formed a modeling team to develop a three-dimensional and water quality models of the Lower Savannah River Estuary needed to support the SHEP EIS decision making process. The model is being used to evaluate a variety of navigation channel deepening scenarios to support decision making by the Georgia Ports Authority (GPA), US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), numerous regulatory agencies and stakeholders. The following sections describe the history of the project to date, discuss model selection, present the calibration procedure and discuss DO modeling results.