Matthew John Wood

HR Wallingford · Coasts & Oceans

Density currents generated by marine brine discharges, e.g., from desalination plants, can have a negative impact on marine ecosystems. It is therefore important to accurately predict their behavior. Predictions are often made using computational hydrodynamic models, which should be validated using field or laboratory measurements. This paper focus...

Many municipal and industrial outfalls release effluent into water bodies. Temperatures and/or salinities of the effluent and receiving water may be different, and other dissolved/suspended constituents may be present. Away from the outfall, mixing processes usually reduce constituent concentrations to acceptable levels for local water quality. How...

Oil spills can be disastrous in terms of their ecological, social and economic effects. Recent global marine pollution events have demonstrated the potential scale of such incidents. Oil has the potential for accidental release into the marine environment across a range of operations, including coastal developments (ports, terminals, etc.), as well...

Accurate and appropriate assessment of the dispersion and dilution of effluent is important when planning desalination and other marine discharges. Environmental impact and engineering constraints must be considered in the design and planning processes and this usually involves computational models. Two-stage approaches are often used: 1) a near-fi...

Accurate and appropriate assessment of the dispersion and dilution of effluent is important when planning marine discharges. Environmental impact and engineering constraints must be considered. Studies carried out to support the design and planning processes usually involve computational models. Such computational models are relatively well validat...

A model, SandTrack, has been established to simulate movements of sand-sized particles in coastal waters within a Lagrangian framework. The model can be applied to assess the dispersal of contaminated particulate material, such as may be associated with industrial discharges or the dispersal of dredged spoil. For such applications, the Lagrangian a...

Marine discharges are either positively-, negatively- or neutrally-buoyant, depending on factors such as discharge temperature and salinity in relation to those of the ambient receiving waters. When planning marine discharges, appropriate assessment of the dispersion and dilution of the effluent is important for both environmental and engineering r...

Marine discharges are either positively-, negatively- or neutrally-buoyant, depending on factors such as discharge temperature and salinity in relation to those of the ambient receiving waters. When planning marine discharges, appropriate assessment of the dispersion and dilution of the effluent is important for both environmental and engineering r...

HR Wallingford has long experience of assessments of the dilution and dispersion of positively-buoyant marine discharges from, for example, power stations and refineries. However, amidst increasing concerns over water resources, it is becoming more important to understand the behaviour of negatively-buoyant discharges from proposed desalination pla...