Aeration at Ohio River Basin navigation dams

Aeration was measured and modeled at 28 navigation dams in the upper Ohio River basin. Dissolved oxygen (DO) deficits upstream and downstream of the dams, water temperatures, and flow rates were measured under a variety of low‐flow, high‐temperature conditions. The DO deficit downstream of each dam was modeled as a linear function of the other variables. The DO deficit upstream was found to be a consistently significant predictor of DO deficits downstream of a dam. Inclusion of temperature and flow rate generally did not significantly improve the statistical aeration models. The field data show that supersaturation can occur at some dams; this means that the reaeration ratio r, used by many aeration models, including Gameson's equation, cannot be assumed to model dam aeration accurately. The paper compares the predictive abilities of the linear models and Gameson's equation. The linear models reproduced historic aeration measurements as accurately as Gameson's equation did when a least‐squares parameter e...