Proceedings of the 19th IAHR-APD Congress 2014, Hanoi, Vietnam

ISBN xxx-xxxx-xx-x

NUMERICAL APPROACH TO THE LONG-TERM VARIATION OF SALINITY CONDITION IN LAKE

OGAWARA , JAPAN

M. YASUKOCHI(1), T. KINOSHITA(2) , R. AKOH(3), T. ISHIKAWA(4)

(1)
Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama, Japan
e-mail yasukochi.m.aa@m.titech.ac.jp
(2)
Tokyo Metropolitan Government, Tokyo, Japan
e-mail Kinoshita@member.metro.tokyo.jp
(3)
Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama, Japan
e-mail akoh@depe.titech.ac.jp
(4)
Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama, Japan
e-mail Ishikawa.t.ai@m.titech.ac.jp

ABSTRACT
Lake Ogawara is a brackish water lake with a strong halocline has become eutrophicated very rapidly due to the
contaminant upwelling from anaerobic hypolimnion. In this study, a numerical model of salinity circulation was
constructed to explain the process of lake condition change. By referring the past field observations, three sub-processes
were considered to compose the total model; (a) seawater inflow through the river under the effect of tide, (b) dilution
of saltwater with lake freshwater in the process of gravity current on the lake bed slope, (c) vertical turbulent mixing
and upward salinity transport in the lake. The processes-(a) and (b) were formulated being based on field observation
data. The process-(c) was calculated by vertical 1-D k- model taking into account the buoyancy effect caused by salinity
and water temperature.Computation for ten years when the lake condition got worse explained the long-term trend of
salinity condition in the lake. Major points are as follows; the depth of halocline used to be almost constant around 20
meters before 2000, started to rise in 2002 and reached the depth of 14 meters in 2008. The area of halocline became three
times larger, showing the increase of bottom water transport to the surface layer. As a result, surface salinity increased
three times larger than the past stable condition. The simulation results also showed a good agreement with
observations on seasonal changes of vertical profiles of salinity and water temperature.

Keywords: Brackish water lake, Eutrophication, Salinity Circulation, Climate change

1. INTRODUCTION Ishikawa et al. (2013) proposed a numerical model of the

Lake Ogawara is a brackish water lake located on the
Pacific Coast of Northeast Japan. The lake has an area of
63.2 km 2 and a maximum depth of 26 m. In the lake
center, a strong halocline separates a surface mixed layer
of low salinity from an anaerobic bottom layer of high
salinity containing potential source for eutrophication.
The lake becomes eutrophicated rapidly in these fifteen
years because of the following reason: The sea level rise
due to global climate change increases the rate of
seawater intrusion to the lake, causing the acceleration of
salinity circulation, and as a result, the upwelling rate of
eutrophic matter from the anaerobic hypolimnion to the
surface layer increases.
Ikenaga et al. (1991) reported a rapid eutrophication of
Lake Abashiri where seawater intrusion induced by
capacity increase of drainage channel caused the growth
of saline hypolimnion followed by the water
deterioration. The eutrophication of Lake Ogawara is
similar to the case of Lake Abashiri but caused by the
global climate change, and it is required to analyze the
salinity circulation system in the lake in order to take
necessary measures.
saltwater motion in the lake and simulated the growth of
hypolimnion in winter when seawater intrusion becomes
active. In this paper, we improved the numerical model
by considering the effects of seasonal heat budget and
wind induced internal setup so that long term simulation
is possible. Computation was made for recent ten years
when the lake condition changed much, and the result
was compared with the data collected by the lake
administration office, the Ministry of Land,
Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.
2. STUDY SITE
Figure 1 shows the plane figure and bathymetry of Lake
Ogawara. Major inflows concentrate to the southwest
part of the lake, and only one drainage channel named
Takase River flows from the northeast end to the Pacific
Ocean. Seawater goes up in the river of about six km long
and sometimes intrudes into the lake when high tide
continues. Ishikawa et al. (1991) showed the dependency
of seawater flow intensity on the overall water surface
slope in the river.

1
Figure 2 shows the depth of halocline and Figure 3 shows
the COD in the surface layer. The halocline came up from
the depth of 20m to 15m, and the COD increased from
3mg/l to 5mg/l in the 10 years. According to Figure 1,
the area at the depth of 15m is about 3 times larger than
that at 20m. It means that the entrainment rate of
dissolved substance in hypolimnion to the surface mixed
layer became larger.
Figure 1. Bathymetry of Lake Ogawara
Figure 2. Movement of Halocline
Figure 3. COD increase
3. MODEL DESCRIPTION
3.1 Outline of salinity circulation
According to existing field observation results (Nagao et
al., 1997), the salinity circulation is composed by the
following three processes (see Figure 4): (a) Seawater
flows up the Takase River during high tide. (b) The
saltwater flows on the lake bed slope as a gravity
underflow after the plunging point (PLP) is diluted by
lake water entrainment. (c) The density current detaches
from the bed when it meets the layer of equal density,
and penetrates horizontally to change salinity
stratification. (d) Saltwater near halocline is entrained to
the surface mixed layer by wind induced turbulence and
discharged to the ocean during low tide. We formulated
the processes (a), (b) and (c) empirically being based on
the results of field observation, and modeled the process
(d) by using vertical 1-D k- model (Qian et al., 1998). In
this paper, the results of formulation for the processes
(a)-(c) are summarized briefly, and the process (d) is
described in detail.
Figure 4. Outline of salinity circulation in Lake Ogawara
3.2 Seawater intrusion and stratification in the lake
3.2.1 Process (a): Takase River ~ Plunging Point
Ishikawa et al. (2013) estimated a relation between the
integral of lake-ward flow (V) and the relative salinity at
PLP (Kp) being based on the data collected at Takase
Bridge Station near the lake mouth (see Figure 1).
t
V t1
Qd [1]
S S2
K [2]
S1 S 2
In the Eq. [1], Q is the lake-ward flow discharge, and t1 is
the time when the lake-ward flow started. S is the salinity
observed at Takase bridge station.S1 and S2 in Eq. [2] are
the salinity of seawater and lake water respectively. In
this study, the relation was improved by adding data
obtained from longer observation. Figure 5 shows the
result, in which the blue dots are from observation and
the red line is regression curve expressed by the equation.
Figure 5. Relative salinity vs. Volume integral of lake-ward flow
3.2.2 Process (b): Mixing of gravity underflow on the lake
slope
From the deformation of salinity profile at the lake
center, we estimated relative salinity after the gravity
underflow (Kc). Figure 6 shows the correlation between
Kc and Kp, and it is approximated by the following Eq. [3],
in which the coefficient weakly depends on the depth
of halocline as show in Figure 7.
2
 g
G [12]
z

where t is time; z is upward vertical distance; (u, v) are

velocity of eastward and northward respectively; A is
horizontal area at each depth; is turbulent diffusion
coefficient; =0.77 s=1.25 =1.25; (Bx, By) are
T

north-south and east-west length scale of the lake and

Figure 6. Relative salinity before and after the process of gravity
underflow
assumed 12.0 km and 3.5 km respectively; S is salinity;
is water temperature; k is turbulent kinetic energy; is
turbulent dissipation rate. Fluid density is estimated
from salinity and water temperature by an equation
proposed in literature (UNESCO, 1991). The right hand
side of Eq. [7] expresses temperature change due to
penetration of solar radiation, in which is heat flux
and Cw is specific heat of water. f is dimensionless friction
factor to damp wind induced seiche artificially because
the vertical 1-D formulation does not include seiche
attenuation.
The value of f was determined as 1 by trial calculation.
Figure 7. Dependency of a on the depth of halocline The parameters in k- model equations are set as
standard values: C1=1.44, C2=1.92, C3=1.0 and C =0.09.
The governing equations are discretized by the finite
K c K p4 [3]
volume method. Grid size z was 0.2 m, and time step t
was 0.5 sec. Boundary conditions were given as follows:
3.2.3 Process (c): Deformation of stratification [At the water surface]
The changes of salinity and volume of intruding water u v S T k
after the gravity underflow is calculated from the relative x , y, s 0, T [13]
0, 0,
z z z z z
salinity in Eq. [3]. Assuming the saltwater penetrates [At the bottom]
uniformly into the stratified water body, we calculated
u v S T k
the deformation of salinity profile. 0, 0, S 0, T 0, [14]
0,
z z z z z
3.3 Vertical mixing of stratified water
x, y) in Eq. [13] are wind shear stress estimated by the

3.3.1 Governing equations following formula:

Formulation of vertical turbulent mixing proposed by x C D aW x W x W y , y C D aW y W x [15]

2 2
Wy
2 2

Qian and Ishikawa (1998) for thermal stratification is

applied for Lake Ogawara after some modification. The
governing equations are as follows: where (Wx, Wy) are eastward and northward wind
velocity respectively, and the drag coefficient CD was
u 1 u uu assumed as flowing Kondo. J (1994).
A fx [4]
t A z z By
1.08U 10 0.15 U10 2.2[m / s]

v 1 v vv
A fy
0.771 0.0858U10
2.2 U10 5.0[ m / s ]
[5]
t A z z Bx
S 1 S C D 0.867 0.0667U10
A S 0 [6] ]
5.0 U 10 8.0[m / s[16]
t A z z
T 1 T / z 1.2 0.025U 10 8.0 U 10 25.0[ m / s ]
A T [7]
t A z z C w 0.073U 10 25.0[m / s] U10
k 1 k
A Pr G [8]
t A z z
where U10 is the wind velocity at 10m above the water
1 2 surface.
A C1 Pr 1 C 3 G [9]
C2
t A z z k k
2 3.3.1 Heat budget calculation
k
0 C [10] Heat flux at the water surface can be decomposed as
follows.
u3 v
3
v
2 2
u
Pk

f [11]
(1 r ) I L c ( e c ) [17]
z z By B x

3
where I is solar radiation, L is net long wave
radiation, e is latent heat and c is sensible heat. r is
reflection rate at water surface and assumed 0.03. c is an
empirical constant and assumed 0.6 following Umeda
M.(2005). For the case that daily averaged
meteorological data are used.
Each heat flux component was estimated from daily
meteorological data collected at Lake Ogawara station
(see Figure 1). L was estimated by the Swinbank
equation (Swinbank, W.C., 1963), and (e+c) was
obtained by the Rohwer equation (Rohwer, C., 1931). It
is assumed that the heat exchange of these components
is generated on the top layer of water body. On the
other hand, hourly data of solar radiation, L, was
constructed by distributing the daily data according to
the solar angle calculated for the Jurious day and the
latitude. It was divided to two components as follows:
I ( ) {(1 bs ) ( ) bs exp( )} I [18] daily meteorological data collected at the Lake Center
where bs is assumed 0.6 following Kojima et al(2008). is
water depth and is a delta function having the peak
at the water surface. is light attenuation constant, which
was assumed as the reciprocal of transparency, D. Figure
8 shows the observed D, which has decreased from 2002.
Figure 8. Monthly data of visible depth
4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
4.1 Time series of saltwater Intrusion
Figure 9. Volume of lake-ward flow at each event (bar graph) and
the total volume for each year (orange line)
4.2 Stratification in the lake
4.2.1 Computation result
Time series of lake-ward flow estimated from the
monitoring data at Takase Bridge Station as well as the
Station were input into the computation processes
described in chapter3.
Figures 10 and 11 compare calculation and observation
for salinity and water temperature respectively in the
form of time-depth mapping. The origin of vertical scale
is set at the deepest bed, and the water surface is at
Z=25m. Near bottom area masked by white means no
observation. The broken line in Figure 10 shows the
depth of halocline, which was defined as the mean value
of surface water salinity and bottom water salinity.
Vertical dotted lines in Figure 11 divide a fiscal year to
two periods (April-September, October-March) to show
seasonal variation clear. Bar graph in Figure 12 shows the
upward salinity flux at Z=15m, and the orange line graph
shows the total in each year. Orange line is the total in
each year, and purple bands show half years
corresponding to vertical dotted lines in Figure 11
Calculation result of turbulent kinetic energy is shown in
Figure 13 to discuss the seasonal mixing and turbulence
generation. Figure 14 shows the profiles of salinity, water
temperature and density.

Computation was made for the ten years from May 14,
1998 to March 16, 2009. From the data of river flow rate (a)
monitored at Takase Bridge Station, the volume of lake-
ward flow (V=Qdt : see Figure 5) was estimated. The bar
graph in Figure 9 shows the total volume for each event
of high tide, the scale for which is placed at the left hand
(b)
side of the figure. The horizontal red dotted line
corresponds to the value of Vp (143x10 4m3) in Figure 5
where relative salinity starts increasing. Therefore, the
volume above the line is considered to enter the lake. The
orange line shows the total in each year, the scale for
which is placed at the right hand side of the figure. The Figure 10. Time variation of salinity stratification:
saltwater intrusion became large since 2001 when the
halocline started to rise as was shown in Figure 2. Please (a)Calculation (b) Observation
note that year in the figures from hereupon is scaled for
Japanese fiscal year (April 1 March 31), and the
shadowed parts are from December to March. The
volume of seawater intrusion shows a clear seasonality; it
increases in winter because the lake water surface
becomes lower due to small river inflow in the season
(Nagao et al., 1997).

4
 (See Figure 8). In winter, temperature inversion appears
(a) because the surface water becomes cooler than the high
salinity bottom water. The zone of high turbulent kinetic
energy (Figure 13) is accord with the depth of
thermocline in summer, and it penetrates deeper to the
halocline in winter when the thermocline is absent. This
(b) fact suggests that the vertical mixing is almost controlled
by wind action at the water surface.
The salinity stratification also changes seasonally: The
salinity near the bottom has a seasonal periodicity;
Figure 11. Time variation of thermal stratification:
increase in winter and decrease in spring (Figure 11). The
increase is caused by the volume of seawater intrusion
(above the red dotted line in Figure 9) from autumn to
(a)Calculation (b) Observation mid-winter. The decrease is considered due to diffusion
by weak turbulence in deep layer which appears near
bottom in winter and spring (Figure 12). The turbulence
is generated by the motion of deep saline layer induced
by wind when the thermocline does not exist.
Figure 14 shows variation of the profiles of salinity
(blue), water temperature (red) and water density (black)
for every two months in one year; calculation with solid
line and observation with broken line. Density depends
on salinity more than water temperature. In summer
Figure 12. Upward salinity flux at Z=15m
(from July to September), however, thermal stratification
causes weak density interface around Z=15 m. In other
seasons, density interface is accord with halocline. The
seasonal switching of density interface is reflected in
turbulent energy distribution as was shown in Figure 13.

Figure 13. Time variation of turbulent kinetic energy.

4.2.2 Long term variation of stratification

Computation reproduced the long term trend of the
movement of halocline very well (Figure 10): It was
stable around Z=5m in the first three years, started rising
around 2002, and reached stable at Z=10m in 2007
corresponding to the increase of seawater intrusion
shown in Figure 9. With the rise of halocline, the surface
salinity increased from 1psu to 3psu. This fact means that
upward salinity flux across the halocline increased,
which is supported by the calculation shown in Figure
12, in which the salinity flux at Z=15m clearly increased
from 2002.
This computation result suggests that the eutrophication
potential substances dissolved in the anaerobic
hypolimnion is also transported to the surface layer more
than before. It should be noted that the line graph in
Figures 12 is similar to that in Figure 9. This fact suggests
that the control of lake-ward flow in Takase River is the
point to prevent eutrophication of the lake.

4.2.3 Seasonal variation

Clear seasonal periodicity is observed in the figures:
Figure 11 shows that the stable thermocline appears in
summer. The calculated depth of thermocline is a little bit
deeper than observed, probably because the estimation of
heat input had some errors. However, the trend that
thermocline was getting shallower with time is well
reproduced. It is because the sun light penetration
became smaller due to the surface water eutrophication
Figure 14. Seasonal variation of stratification
The upper line of Figure 15 shows compares vertical
profiles of salinity and water temperature (in the left
figure, and the upward salinity flux (in the right figure)
in summer (solid line; July, 1998) and in winter (broken

5
line; January, 1999) before the lake condition changed
when the halocline was still below Z=10m (1998-1999). In
July, the salinity flux is large only above Z=15 m because
the thermal stratification controls the turbulence in the
lower layer.
In winter, however, the flux takes the maximum near the
halocline because turbulence is generated by shearing
motion across the density interface. The lower line of
Figure 15 shows their profiles after the halocline moved
up to Z=13m; in July, 2008 (solid line) and in January,
2009(dotted line). The salinity flux in July has the same
tendency as before that it becomes large above the
thermocline. In January, it has peaks around halocline as
did in 1999. However, the level is a few times as large as
before. As mentioned earlier for Figure 1, the area for
entrainment of salinity increased as the halocline became
closer to the water surface.
Figure 15. Dependency of vertical salinity flux on density
stratification
5. CONCLUSIONS
Long term simulation (from 1998 to 2008) by using the
model of salinity circulation in Lake Ogawara proposed
in this paper showed good agreements with existing
observation data as follows:
1. Halocline stayed around the depth of 20 m before 2001,
but it went up to the depth around 15 m during the five
years to 2007 due to the increase of seawater intrusion
through Takase River.
2. Salinity near the bed shows seasonal periodicity;
increase from late autumn to mid-winter and decrease
from late winter to spring.
3. Thermocline develops in 3-4 months in summer
around the depth of 10 m, and maximum temperature
difference is in the order of 5 degrees.
From the computation results about dynamic factors
(turbulent intensity and vertical salinity flux), the listed
below are concluded.
4. The halocline is stable around the depth of 15 m at
present, because the increased salinity inflow through
Takase River is balanced with the vertical salinity
transport from the high salinity bottom layer to the
surface mixed layer due to the increase of horizontal area
of halocline across which salinity is entrained vertically.
5. The vertical salinity transport becomes active in winter
and in spring due to internal seiche of high salinity layer
induced by the direct wind action during the absence of
thermocline in upper layer.
6. The above mentioned characteristics of vertical salinity
flux suggest that the eutrophication potential substances
stored in the anaerobic hypolimnion is supplied to the
surface mixed layer in the same manner.
7. Eutrophication of Lake Ogawara is caused by the
activation of vertical transport due to the volume growth
of anaerobic high salinity layer by the increase of
seawater intrusion through Takase River. Therefore,
controlling the lake-ward flow in the river at high tide is
important and necessary to stop the eutrophication.
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