A two-dimensional coupled flow-mass transport model based on an improved unstructured finite volume algorithm

A two-dimensional coupled water quality model is developed for modeling the flow-mass transport in shallow water. To simulate shallow flows on complex topography with wetting and drying, an unstructured grid, well-balanced, finite volume algorithm is proposed for numerical resolution of a modified formulation of two-dimensional shallow water equations. The slope-limited linear reconstruction method is used to achieve second-order accuracy in space. The algorithm adopts a HLLC-based integrated solver to compute the flow and mass transport fluxes simultaneously, and uses Hancock's predictor-corrector scheme for efficient time stepping as well as second-order temporal accuracy. The continuity and momentum equations are updated in both wet and dry cells. A new hybrid method, which can preserve the well-balanced property of the algorithm for simulations involving flooding and recession, is proposed for bed slope terms approximation. The effectiveness and robustness of the proposed algorithm are validated by the reasonable good agreement between numerical and reference results of several benchmark test cases. Results show that the proposed coupled flow-mass transport model can simulate complex flows and mass transport in shallow water.