Phytoplankton estimation using plant primary production rates in streams

A new approach is proposed to simulate the daily variation of chlorophyll a in one-dimensional streams. This approach uses the plant primary production rate to quantify the phytoplankton growth rate. The delta method, which is a piecewise analytical solution technique, is applied to determine the diurnal variation in plant primary production rate. The approach is tested by applying it to the Gumsuck stream in the Kyonggi-Do province in Korea. The optimization technique with constraints is used to obtain the best running results. Application of this approach shows that the values calculated using the method presented here are in good agreement with the measured values. Therefore, we conclude that this technique realistically simulates the daily variation of chlorophyll a.