Seasonal dynamics of hydrobiology and thermal dispersion of coastal waters around kalpakkam southeast coast of India

Abstract

The aquatic system is a major subdivision of the biosphere and newlinecovers almost 71 of the earths surface area Particularly the changing newlinelanduse significantly affect the interface area between land and sea ie the newlinecoastal zone Kalpakkam 12 33 N and 80 11 E situated in southeast coast newlineof India hosts Madras Atomic Power Station MAPS Indias first fully newlineindigenously constructed nuclear power station The power station uses newlineseawater as tertiary coolant at a maximum design flow rate of 35m The newlineseawater is drawn from an offshore well located at about 400m away from the newlineshore Till 2009 the thermal discharge runs through a canal of length about newline2km to mix with the sea At present the warm water from MAPS is newlinedischarged through an engineering canal of length 098km with fixed mouth newlineA new 500MWe power plant Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor PFBR 680m newlinesouth of the existing MAPS is proposed with the cooling water requirement of newline29m s The intake well of the PFBR is located at about 420m from the shore newlineline The heated water from PFBR is proposed to be discharged along with the newlineMAPS engineering canal parallel to coastline formed by constructing a guided newlinebund from PFBR outfall to Mixing point newlineThe present study focuses on understanding the coastal water newlinequality of Kalpakkam The study was carried out for a period of two years ie newline2010 and 2011 wherein surface and bottom water samples were collected newlinemonthly from 12 stations in transect pattern at distances of 200m 500m and newline1km from the shore Horizontal and vertical temperature variations around the newlinemixing point of the canal in to sea were monitored using Thermal Infrared newlineTIR Camera and in situ measurements Plankton identification and newlineenumeration were carried out from three stations to assess the thermal impacts newlineon plankton OCEANSAT 2 satellite data was used for the estimation of newlinechlorophyll in coastal waters The objectives of the studies were addressed newlineusing a combination of field measurements thermal imaging studies on newlineplankton satellite data analysis and numerical simulations using MIKE 21 newline