| Water quality in natural systems and, specially, inland water systems influences on the health of water ecosystems and on the different possible uses. An appropriate management of water resources is one of the main factors for the efficient use of the water, and as consequence, for the sustainable development that allows the equilibrium between human life and the environment.; Historically, both concepts, water quality and the management of water resources, have been considered scientifically and legally separately. Few developments have been done over simulation and optimization of the water resources systems taking into account the quality aspect. Only when the quality of the water is a limitation for the use it is considered in the management of the resource, and usually as a reduction of the available resource.; In the last years, a growth of environmental aspects on the social conscience and the legislation has been developed, as it reflects the European Water Framework Directive (UE, 2000). Consequently the planning and management of the water resources will be done, in the immediately future, under efficiency and environmental protection goals. For this, both fields must be understand as one and inseparable.; In this thesis a module for modeling the quality of water resources systems has been developed. This tool works coordinately with the Decision Support System (DSS) AQUATOOL, developed previously by the DIHMA of the Polytechnic University of Valencia, for the planning and management of the water resources systems.; The program GESCAL allows to model the grand majority of the conventional constituents such as: temperature, dissolved oxygen, nitrogen cycle, different forms of phosphorous, phytoplankton, and several arbitrary contaminants defined by the user. The user can deal with much of the current water quality problems. The program allows to model water quality in rivers and reservoirs but considers, also, the influence of the other elements of the system, which water quality is not modeled. GESCAL is a module for modeling conjunctively the management and the quality of water resources systems.; The utility of the module has been demonstrated with the application to the Jucar river basin. The simulation of different alternatives of the developed model has allowed, among others, to evaluate the evolution of the water quality in all the system facing different scenarios of the use of the resource in the basin, to analyze the effect on the water quality of the future water treatment facilities, and to estimate additional flows for improving the quality of the water at critical points of the basin. |
