8,177 research outputs found
River discharge and tidal height data in the Changjiang Estuary in January 2017 and August 2016
No full textThis dataset contains tidal height in the Changjiang River estuary in August of 2016 and January 2017, which represent the wet (high river flow) and dry (low river discharge) seasons respectively. The data are collected from the hydrology bureau of the water resource department of the state governments in China (http://yc.wswj.net/ahsxx/LOL/public/public.html; http://221.226.28.67:88/jsswxxSSI/Web/Default.html?m=2). The tidal height data are measured using the traditional method of poles. All data are referenced to the Wusong height datum, which is ~2 m below the local mean sea level. The position of the gauge sites are referred to the data information file. The data are used in the paper published in Geophysical Research Letters (Guo et al., 2020, Strong inland propagation of low-frequency long waves in river estuaries)
A morphological investigation of marine transgression in estuaries
No full textThe landscape setting for an estuary varies widely and is an important aspect of determining how they evolve. This paper focusses on alluvial estuaries in river valleys and how they respond to sea level rise. We examine the implications of marine transgression, as a response to sea level rise, where the estuary moves upwards and landwards to maintain its position in the tidal frame (so-called “stratigraphic rollover”). Here we encapsulate such kinematic movement of the estuary morphology using a ‘morphokinematic’ model, to assess the potential response to sea level rise and sediment supply. The model of the estuary form includes a single convergent channel, intertidal and surrounding flood plains (the valley) and allows the relative importance of the space available for deposition of sediments, the accommodation space, to be investigated as a function of rates of sea level rise and sediment supply. The transgression of the system is determined using a sediment mass balance, taking account of any supply from the river and marine environment. Model results confirm that the transgression distance, measured as the distance the entity moves landward, varies in proportion to the change in accommodation space, which mainly depends on the flood plain area. As the size of the flood plain reduces, the transgression distance is less and the system becomes much more sensitive to changes in the rate of sea level rise, or changes in sediment supply. The greater demand for sediment when a flood plain is present results in greater cannibalisation of the estuary form (i.e. greater landward movement) to meet the sediment demand. When the flood plain is disconnected from the estuary, the synergistic relationship is lost and the accommodation space increases. The capacity for restoration will depend on the availability of sediment and the prevailing rate of sea level rise
River flow induced nonlinear modulation of M4 overtide in large estuaries
No full textRiver discharge is known to enhance tidal damping and tidal wave deformation in estuaries. While the damping effect on astronomical tides has been well documented, river impact on tidal wave deformation and associated overtide generation (shallow water harmonics of one or more astronomical constituents, such as M
4) remains insufficiently understood. Overtides affect tidal asymmetry, extreme water levels, and subsequent sediment transport and flooding management, thus meriting in-depth examination. Being inspired by unusual overtide changes in the landward and seaward parts of the Changjiang Estuary under low and high river discharges, in this work, we use a schematized tidal estuary model to systematically explore overtide variations under different river discharges. Model results show enhanced overtide generation in the case with river discharge compared with that without river impact. The M
4 amplitude decreases in the landward parts of the estuary, but increases in the seaward parts under increasing river discharges. The potential energy of M
4 integrated throughout the estuary shows nonlinear variations and reaches a transitional maximum when the river discharge to tidal mean discharge (R2T) ratio at the mouth is close to unity. Similar nonlinear behaviors are observed for compound tides like MS
4 when more astronomical constituents are prescribed and triad tidal interactions are enabled. The space-dependent overtide variability is more profound in large estuaries with high river discharges like the Amazon and Changjiang estuaries. It is ascribed to the inherently nonlinear river-tide interactions, specifically the twofold effects of river discharge in enhancing bottom stress, which simultaneously enhances dissipation of astronomical constituents and reinforces the energy transfer to overtides. These findings highlight the profound nonlinear impact of river discharge on overtides, and inform the study of tidal asymmetry and compound flood risk in large estuaries and deltas.
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Morphodynamic adaptation of a tidal basin to centennial sea-level rise: The importance of lateral expansion
No full textGlobal climate changes have accelerated sea-level rise (SLR), which exacerbates the risks of coastal flooding and erosion. It is of practical interest to understand the long-term hydro-morphodynamic adaptation of coastal systems to SLR at a century time scale. In this work we use a numerical model to explore morphodynamic evolution of a schematized tidal basin in response to SLR of 0.25–2.0 m over 100 years with special emphasis on the impact of lateral basin expansion. Starting from a sloped initial bed, morphodynamic development of the system leads to the formation of alternating bars and meandering channels inside the tidal basin and an ebb-tidal delta extending seaward from the basin. Imposing rising sea level causes progressive inundation of the low-lying floodplains, found along the basin margins, inducing an increase in basin plain area and tidal prism, as well as intertidal area and storage volume. Although the overall channel-shoal structure persists under SLR, lateral shoreline expansion alters the basin hypsometry, leading to enhanced sediment export. The newly-submerged floodplains partly erode, supplying sediment to the system for spatial redistribution, hence buffering the impact of SLR. The vertical accretion rate of the tidal flats inside the tidal basin lags behind the rate of SLR. However, lateral shoreline migration under SLR creates new intertidal flats, compensating intertidal flat loss in the original basin. In contrast, a constrained tidal basin without low-lying floodplains is subject to profound drowning and tidal flat losses under SLR. Overall, the model results suggest that an unconstrained tidal system allowing lateral shoreline migration has buffering capacity for alleviating the drowning impact of SLR by evolving new intertidal areas, sediment redistribution and morphodynamic adjustment. These findings suggest that preserving tidal flats located along the margins of tidal basins (instead of reclaiming them) sustains the system's resilience to SLR.</p
From the headwater to the delta: A synthesis of the basin-scale sediment load regime in the Changjiang River
No full textMany large rivers in the world delivers decreasing sediment loads to coastal oceans owing to reductions in sediment yield and disrupted sediment deliver. Understanding the sediment load regime is a prerequisite of sediment management and fluvial and deltaic ecosystem restoration. This work examines sediment load changes across the Changjiang River basin based on a long time series (1950–2017) of sediment load data stretching from the headwater to the delta. We find that the sediment loads have decreased progressively throughout the basin at multiple time scales. The sediment loads have decreased by ~96% and ~74% at the outlets of the upper basin and entire basin, respectively, in 2006–2017 compared to 1950–1985. The hydropower dams in the mainstem have become a dominant cause of the reduction, although downstream channel erosion causes moderate sediment load recovery. The basin-scale sediment connectivity has declined as the upper river is progressively dammed, the middle-lower river is leveed and river-lake interplay weakens. The middle-lower river has changed from a slight depositional to a severe erosional environment, from a sediment transport conduit to a new sediment source zone, and from a transport-limited to a supply-limited condition. These low-level sediment loads will likely persist in the future considering the cumulative dam trapping and depleted channel erosion. As a result, substantial hydro-morphological changes have occurred that affect the water supply, flood mitigation, and the aquatic ecosystem. The findings and lessons in this work can shed light on other large river systems subject to intensified human interference.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Coastal Engineerin
A universal form of power law relationships for river and stream channels
No full textThe description of the geomorphic characteristics in power law forms has been the subject of research, over the past 70 years, and has become the cornerstone of regime theory. However, just why power functions should represent such geomorphic relationships remains poorly understood. Hence, differences in the values of the regime exponents observed for different river systems remain largely unexplained. To address this issue, we derived generic forms of the power law relationships without postulating any power functions of the discharge. The theoretical approach accurately captures the systematic variations of the regime exponents shown by a number of large data sets from previous research. We also explain how frictional resistance is responsible for the systematic variability of regime exponents. Overall, our study provides a robust mechanism to describe the variations ofthe exponents, along with a deductive explanation of the power laws at the core of fluvial hydraulic geometry
Reclamation of tidal flats within tidal basins alters centennial morphodynamic adaptation to sea‐level rise
No full textReclamation of low-lying tidal flats and floodplains adjacent to present shorelines has been implemented worldwide for both coastal defense and development. While it is technically feasible to monitor the short-term impact of tidal flat embankments, it is challenging to identify long-term and cumulative morphodynamic impact, particularly considering centennial sea-level rise (SLR). In this study, we construct a process-based hydro-morphodynamic model for a schematized tidal basin and examine its morphodynamic evolution under the combined influence of SLR and tidal flat embankments. We see that rising sea levels lead to inundation of low-lying floodplains just above high water, creating new intertidal flats that mitigate the drowning impact of SLR. This mitigation effect is lost if the low-lying floodplains and tidal flats are reclaimed, preventing any shoreline migration under SLR. Removing a large portion of intertidal flats within the tidal basin induces significant changes in basin hypsometry and potentially, a reversal of flood/ebb dominance. The resulting hydro-morphodynamic impact of large-scale tidal flat embankment is more significant than SLR at a centennial time scale. This suggests a need for much greater management awareness regarding the cumulative impact of human activities. These findings imply that allowing lateral shoreline migration under SLR sustains tidal basin's inherent morphodynamic buffering capacity, whereas reclaiming tidal flats significantly alters hydro-morphodynamic adaptation at the decadal to centennial time scales. It highlights the importance of conserving low-lying floodplains and tidal flats in tide-dominated systems to counteract the drowning impact of SLR.</p
Strong inland propagation of low‐frequency long waves in river estuaries
No full textTidal waves traveling into estuaries are modified by channel geometry and river flow. The damping effect of river flow on incident astronomical tides is well documented, whereas its impact on low‐frequency tides like MSf and Mm is poorly understood. In this contribution, we employ a numerical model to explore low‐frequency tidal behavior under varying river flow. MSf and Mm are locally generated by frictional mechanisms inside an estuary, and they are larger in amplitude far upstream in tidal rivers and persist landward of the point of tidal extinction. Increasing river flow nonlinearly modulates the longitudinal variations of MSf and Mm amplitudes. This is dynamically explained by flow‐enhanced asymmetry in subtidal friction over the spring‐neap (MSf) and perigee‐apogee (Mm) cycles, respectively. Estuaries act as frequency filters, where low‐frequency waves decay at a smaller rate and propagate more inland than high‐frequency waves. Strong inland penetration of low‐frequency tides informs compound flood management
Applicability of Phase-Function Normalization Techniques for Radiation Transfer Computation
No full textThe applicability of recently-developed four phase-function (PF) normalization techniques for modeling radiation transfer in strongly anisotropic scattering media is intensively examined using the discrete-ordinate method. The three simple techniques via normalization of only the forward- and/or backward-scattering directions were shown to reduce normalization complexity whilst retaining diffuse radiation computation accuracy for Henyey-Greenstein (HG) PFs. For Legendre PFs, however, such simple techniques are found to result in unphysical negative PF value at one or few correction direction in some cases. Additionally, negative PF values can occur for these simple techniques for ballistic radiation transfer for both HG and Legendre PF types. If negative-intensity correction is applied, however, radiative heat transfer calculation can still converge regardless of the appearance of negative PF values. The relatively complex Hunter and Guo 2012 technique, in which normalization is realized through a correction matrix covering all discrete directions, is shown to be applicable for diffuse and ballistic radiation for both PF types.Peer reviewed
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