Hydroinformatic environment for coastal waters hydrodynamics and water quality modelling

A hydroinformatic environment was created with the general objective of solving environmental problems in coastal waters. This environment consists of three components: a component for data organization and treatment; a component for modelling and simulating water quality and hydrodynamics; and a component for analysing, visualizing and editing the results. This paper describes the hydroinformatic components and the major developments introduced: different methodologies for analysing the performance of finite elements meshes, a conditioned mesh refinement procedure, a three-dimensional (3D) hydrodynamic model based on the Princeton Ocean Model with an alternative finite elements technique for the external mode computation, 2D and 3D water quality models for coastal waters and a methodology for GIS model results integration. The modular approach adopted in the development of this hydroinformatic environment appears to be a very suitable and versatile methodology for decision support systems to be applied in coastal zones environment management.