Decision support for the design of constructed wetlands

One important component of computational mathematical modelling for industry is the actual construction of products that support the decision making of some specific industrial activity, such as the design of constructed wetlands to meet environmental or pollution control guidelines. In this paper attention is focused on the construction of user-friendly decision-support systems (products) and the inter-related matters of computational mathematical modelling. The specific industrial activity examined is the design of wetlands, lakes, and ponds to meet environmental and pollution guidelines. In particular we consider some of the computational mathematical modelling that underlies the development of the decision support far CSIRO's NESSIE. In fact, in the development of such a system, the driving force is, as explained in Anderssen, et al.,(1) the need to give the designer maximum flexibility to explore the various scenarios and options appropriate to the environmental and pollution guidelines under consideration. There are various ways in which this can be achieved For the development of NESSIE, the goals were to give the designer access to a user-friendly computer system, which allows one to quickly and interactively determine and compare the horizontal dynamics of various lake configurations in terms of velocity, streamline, and residence time patterns; and freedom of choice in matching hydrodynamical indicators, such as velocity streamlines, and residence times with corresponding environmental and pollution models. The key to the implementation of the above proposal is the decoupling of the hydrodynamical modelling from the environmental and pollution modelling. Its clear advantage from a decision-support point of view is its recognition of the role and responsibility of the designer in the overall decision making associated with the planning and construction of wetlands. In this paper we examine the computational mathematical modelling rationale behind the proposal.