Validation of a hydrodynamic and water quality model for the Magdalena River, at the adjacent stretch of Barranquilla, Colombia

Water quality models are tools of control, that contribute to the planning, prevention and decision making focused on water resource management. Therefore, different countries, among which is Colombia, have established the relevance of its implementation to determine the discharges assimilation of water bodies. This research aims to simulate the transport of pollutants from effluents of the industrial corridor of Barranquilla, to study the dispersion and contaminants fate to represent the pollution level in this ecosystem. To develop this work, a two-dimensional numerical model was adapted and implemented, which consists of two modules and is solved in two stages. Initially, the hydrodynamic module is applied to solve the Saint Venant equations derived from Navier-Stokes-Reynolds, using an Eulerian-Lagrangian method. After that, the contaminant transport module that solves the two-dimensional advection-diffusion-reaction equation is applied. With the simulation of river’s discharges, the evolution and behavior of pollutants discharged into it was described, which demonstrate the model capability to represent the water quality in receiving bodies with complex hydraulic and hydrodynamic conditions