The modelling of the processes of advection and dispersion-diffusion is the most crucial factor in solute transport simulations. It is generally appreciated that the first order upwind difference scheme gives rise to excessive numerical diffusion, whereas the conventional second order central difference scheme exhibits severe oscillations for advection dominated transport, especially in regions of high solute gradients or discontinuities. Higher order schemes have therefore become increasingly used for improved accuracy and for reducing grid scale oscillations. Two such schemes are the QUICK (Quadratic Upwind Interpolation for Convective Kinematics) and TOASOD (Third Order Advection Second Order Diffusion) schemes, which are similar in formulation but different in accuracy, with the two schemes being second and third order accurate in space respectively for finite difference models. These two schemes can be written in various finite difference forms for transient solute transport models, with the different representations having different numerical properties and computational efficiencies. Although these two schemes are advectively (or convectively) stable, it has been shown that the originally proposed explicit QUICK and TOASOD schemes become numerically unstable for the case of pure advection. The stability constraints have been established for each scheme representation based upon the von Neumann stability analysis. All the derived schemes have been tested for various initial solute distributions and for a number of continuous discharge cases, with both constant and time varying velocity fields. The 1-D QUICKEST (QUICK with Estimated Streaming Term) scheme is third order accurate both in time and space. It has been shown analytically and numerically that a previously derived quasi 2-D explicit QUICKEST scheme, with a reduced accuracy in time, is unstable for the case of pure advection. The modified 2-D explicit QUICKEST, ADI-TOASOD and ADI-QUICK schemes have been developed herein and proved to be numerically stable, with the bility sta- region of each derived 2-D scheme having also been established. All these derived 2-D schemesh ave been tested in a 2-D domain for various initial solute distributions with both uniform and rotational flow fields. They were further tested for a number of 2-D continuous discharge cases, with the corresponding exact solutions having also been derived herein. All the numerical tests in both the 1-D and 2-D cases were compared with the corresponding exact solutions and the results obtained using various other difference schemes, with the higher order schemes generally producing more accurate predictions, except for the characteristic based schemes which failed to conserve mass for the 2-D rotational flow tests. The ADI-TOASOD scheme has also been applied to two water quality studies in the U. K., simulating nitrate and faecal coliform distributions respectively, with the results showing a marked improvement in comparison with the results obtained by the second order central difference scheme. Details are also given of a refined numerical representation of flooding and drying of tidal flood plains for hydrodynamic modelling, with the results showing considerable improvements in comparison with a number of existing models and in good agreement with the field measured data in a natural harbour study.

The modelling of the processes of advection and dispersion-diffusion is the most crucial factor in solute transport simulations. It is generally appreciated that the first order upwind difference scheme gives rise to excessive numerical diffusion, whereas the conventional second order central difference scheme exhibits severe oscillations for advection dominated transport, especially in regions of high solute gradients or discontinuities. Higher order schemes have therefore become increasingly used for improved accuracy and for reducing grid scale oscillations. Two such schemes are the QUICK (Quadratic Upwind Interpolation for Convective Kinematics) and TOASOD (Third Order Advection Second Order Diffusion) schemes, which are similar in formulation but different in accuracy, with the two schemes being second and third order accurate in space respectively for finite difference models. These two schemes can be written in various finite difference forms for transient solute transport models, with the different representations having different numerical properties and computational efficiencies. Although these two schemes are advectively (or convectively) stable, it has been shown that the originally proposed explicit QUICK and TOASOD schemes become numerically unstable for the case of pure advection. The stability constraints have been established for each scheme representation based upon the von Neumann stability analysis. All the derived schemes have been tested for various initial solute distributions and for a number of continuous discharge cases, with both constant and time varying velocity fields. The 1-D QUICKEST (QUICK with Estimated Streaming Term) scheme is third order accurate both in time and space. It has been shown analytically and numerically that a previously derived quasi 2-D explicit QUICKEST scheme, with a reduced accuracy in time, is unstable for the case of pure advection. The modified 2-D explicit QUICKEST, ADI-TOASOD and ADI-QUICK schemes have been developed herein and proved to be numerically stable, with the bility sta- region of each derived 2-D scheme having also been established. All these derived 2-D schemesh ave been tested in a 2-D domain for various initial solute distributions with both uniform and rotational flow fields. They were further tested for a number of 2-D continuous discharge cases, with the corresponding exact solutions having also been derived herein. All the numerical tests in both the 1-D and 2-D cases were compared with the corresponding exact solutions and the results obtained using various other difference schemes, with the higher order schemes generally producing more accurate predictions, except for the characteristic based schemes which failed to conserve mass for the 2-D rotational flow tests. The ADI-TOASOD scheme has also been applied to two water quality studies in the U. K., simulating nitrate and faecal coliform distributions respectively, with the results showing a marked improvement in comparison with the results obtained by the second order central difference scheme. Details are also given of a refined numerical representation of flooding and drying of tidal flood plains for hydrodynamic modelling, with the results showing considerable improvements in comparison with a number of existing models and in good agreement with the field measured data in a natural harbour study.