AQUATOX was developed by Richard A. Park of Eco Modeling and Jonathan S. Clough of Warren Pinnacle Consulting with EPA funding. It is a PC-based ecosystem model that simulates the transfer of biomass and chemicals from one compartment of the ecosystem to another. It does this by simultaneously computing important chemical and biological processes over time. AQUATOX can predict not only the fate of chemicals in aquatic ecosystems, but also their direct and indirect effects on the resident organisms. Therefore it has the potential to help establish the cause and effect relationships between chemical water quality, the physical environment, and aquatic life.

The model has been released for distribution by the U.S. EPA Office of Science and Technology (see below). AQUATOX has been used to model bioaccumulation of PCBs in the Housatonic River , for the U.S. E.P.A. and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Modeling Framework Design and Quality Assurance Project Plan for that project are available for downloading. Furthermore, it has been used in a PCB bioaccumulation project in The Netherlands and a couple total maximum daily load (TMDL) projects in Minnesota and on the Cahaba River in Alabama.  It is currently being used by the EPA Office of Pesticide Programs to set ecological levels of concern for atrazine in surface waters.

A PowerPoint presentation on AQUATOX given at seminars at USGS and the EPA Office of Pesticide Programs is available for download; it is very large so don't download unless you have a high-speed connection.

AQUATOX simulates the behavior of numerous inter-related components in lakes, reservoirs, ponds, rivers, and streams:

System Requirements:

 

Availability:

The model and documentation can be downloaded from

Office of Science and Technology , U.S. E.P.A., Washington D.C.

Last Updated on March 15, 2004 by Dick Park