[01] Lixia Niu, Department of Hydraulic Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, the Netherlands. [02] P. H. A. J. M. Van Gelder, Department of Safety and Security Science, Delft University of Technology, Delft, the Netherlands. [03] Yiqing Guan, Department of Hydrology and Water Resources, Hohai University, Nanjing, China. [04] J. K. Vrijling, Department of Hydraulic Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, the Netherlands.

As the most important indicator of the coastal ecosystem, phytoplankton plays an important role in the whole impact-effect chain. The present study aims to investigate the characteristics of phytoplankton dynamics using an ecological model of BLOOM II (one module of the Delft3D suite), and to give insight in the predictions with an integration of uncertainty analysis. The comparisons of the model output and the observations demonstrate that the BLOOM II model is able to reproduce the reliable levels of the phytoplankton biomass (in terms of chlorophyll a) and the associated environmental variables (nutrients and suspended matter). Compared with nitrogen, phosphorus is less sensitive to the phytoplankton biomass. The Gamma distribution can fit with the values of the phytoplankton biomass regardless of the observations, the model output in the surface layer, and the depth-averaged values. Pay particular attention to the depth-averaged chlorophyll a, the model output varies from 4.80 mg m^-3 to 17.33 mg m^-3. With respect to uncertainty arising from the model itself, the prediction with uncertainty analysis ranges from 8.00 mg m^-3 to 15.27 mg m^-3 within the 95% confidence interval, with a Monte Carlo error of 0.03 mg m^-3.

BLOOM II, Phytoplankton Biomass, Chlorophyll a, Uncertainty Analysis, Frisian Inlet

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