Field Data Collection at the Broadwater (Gold Coast)

Abstract

This paper describes a data collection program for the Broadwater study at the Gold Coast. The objective of this project is to provide a data set for the study of hydrodynamic behavior of the Broadwater and its associated waterways. This data set will be used for the calibration of a hydrodynamic model, which will be developed at the next stage of the study. The hydrodynamic model will then be used as a base for the development of water quality and sediment transport models of the study area. This paper explains the methodology for the implementation of the data collection program and describes the steps that should be taken and points of consideration throughout this exercise to minimize the risk of ending up with poor quality data. The hydrodynamic data collected in this study consists of: water level, conductivity, temperature and cross channel current measurements over a full tidal cycle. The geometry data collected as part of this study consists of the bathymetry data in regions, which lacked accurate bathymetry information. As part of this study harmonic analysis of the collected data were conducted to identify the major tidal constituents of the tidal signal in the region.