TY - JOUR
T1 - Impact of Lake Michigan water level rise on complex bidirectional flow in the Chicago Area Waterway System (CAWS)
AU - Wang, Dongchen
AU - Li, Zhi
AU - Rojas-Aguirre, Andrés F.
AU - García, Marcelo H.
N1 - The support of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRDGC) is gratefully acknowledged. The authors would like to thank the helpful suggestions from Dr. Charles S. Melching and two anonymous reviewers. This work used computing resources on Stampede2 at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) through allocation TG-CTS190067 of the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE); XSEDE is supported by the grant ACI-1548562 of the National Science Foundation (NSF). The conclusions and opinions presented herein are solely those of the authors of the manuscript and do not represent the opinion and views of the MWRDGC or any of the state and federal agencies mentioned in the manuscript.
The support of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRDGC) is gratefully acknowledged. The authors would like to thank the helpful suggestions from Dr. Charles S. Melching and two anonymous reviewers. This work used computing resources on Stampede2 at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) through allocation TG-CTS190067 of the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE); XSEDE is supported by the grant ACI-1548562 of the National Science Foundation (NSF). The conclusions and opinions presented herein are solely those of the authors of the manuscript and do not represent the opinion and views of the MWRDGC or any of the state and federal agencies mentioned in the manuscript.
PY - 2021/12
Y1 - 2021/12
N2 - In the past decade, continuously rising water levels in Lake Michigan have been threatening lakefront areas, especially in metropolitan regions like the Greater Chicago area. This provides the motivation to analyze the impact that high lake levels have on the Chicago Area Waterway System (CAWS). As the only primary free connection between the CAWS and Lake Michigan, the Calumet Area waterway subsystem plays a key and unique role. In this work, a numerical model covering the Calumet subsystem and having Lake Michigan as a boundary condition, is set up, calibrated, and validated using limited field observations. It is found that the Calumet subsystem has become bidirectional, where both discharge and flow directions are controlled by lake levels. When lake levels are below −0.15 m (-0.5 ft, Chicago City Datum, CCD), the discharge in the Grand Calumet River is around zero, with water flowing along its east branch towards Indiana. When lake levels are above +0.46 m (+1.5 ft, CCD), the flow reverses direction and drains west into Illinois. In 2020, the mean lake-level was at +1.07 m (+3.5 ft, CCD), and the base discharge in the Grand Calumet River was approximately 8.5 m3/s (300 ft3/s). The higher Lake Michigan's level is, the larger the discharge would be into Illinois. Potential impact of this extra discharge on Lake Michigan Diversion Accounting (LMDA) of the State of Illinois and flood management in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal (CSSC), is analyzed; while the nature of the bidirectional flows is characterized with the intent of shedding light on this complex phenomenon.
AB - In the past decade, continuously rising water levels in Lake Michigan have been threatening lakefront areas, especially in metropolitan regions like the Greater Chicago area. This provides the motivation to analyze the impact that high lake levels have on the Chicago Area Waterway System (CAWS). As the only primary free connection between the CAWS and Lake Michigan, the Calumet Area waterway subsystem plays a key and unique role. In this work, a numerical model covering the Calumet subsystem and having Lake Michigan as a boundary condition, is set up, calibrated, and validated using limited field observations. It is found that the Calumet subsystem has become bidirectional, where both discharge and flow directions are controlled by lake levels. When lake levels are below −0.15 m (-0.5 ft, Chicago City Datum, CCD), the discharge in the Grand Calumet River is around zero, with water flowing along its east branch towards Indiana. When lake levels are above +0.46 m (+1.5 ft, CCD), the flow reverses direction and drains west into Illinois. In 2020, the mean lake-level was at +1.07 m (+3.5 ft, CCD), and the base discharge in the Grand Calumet River was approximately 8.5 m3/s (300 ft3/s). The higher Lake Michigan's level is, the larger the discharge would be into Illinois. Potential impact of this extra discharge on Lake Michigan Diversion Accounting (LMDA) of the State of Illinois and flood management in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal (CSSC), is analyzed; while the nature of the bidirectional flows is characterized with the intent of shedding light on this complex phenomenon.
KW - Chicago Area Waterway System
KW - HEC-RAS
KW - Lake Michigan diversion accounting
KW - Numerical modeling
KW - TELEMAC
KW - Urban hydraulics
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85118805768
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85118805768#tab=citedBy
U2 - 10.1016/j.jglr.2021.10.008
DO - 10.1016/j.jglr.2021.10.008
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85118805768
SN - 0380-1330
VL - 47
SP - 1626
EP - 1643
JO - Journal of Great Lakes Research
JF - Journal of Great Lakes Research
IS - 6
ER -