Flushing time variability in a short, low-inflow estuary

Taherkhani, Mohsen; Vitousek, Sean; Walter, Ryan; O’Leary, Jennifer; Khodadoust, Amid P.

doi:10.1016/j.ecss.2023.108277

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Traditionally, estuaries are frequently described as regions where freshwater inputs converge and mix with saline oceanic waters. However, many estuaries have minimal and/or intermittent inflow and are marine-process (i.e., waves, tides, infragravity) dominated [1]. Estuaries can support extensive marsh, tidal flat, and subtidal habitats; provide carbon sequestration and resilience to flooding from storms and sea level rise; and are valuable recreational spaces [2,3].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Infragravity Wave Oscillation Forecasting in a Shallow Estuary

Gomez,

Giddings,

Gallien

2024

JMSE

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Infragravity (IG) waves are low-frequency water waves, which can propagate into harbors and estuaries, affecting currents and sediment transport processes. Understanding and predicting IG oscillations inside harbors and estuaries is critical to coastal management and estimating future resilience to climate change impacts. High-resolution water level and flow velocity observations collected within Seal Beach Wildlife Refuge in Southern California are analyzed for IG energy related to atmospheric parameters, water levels, and offshore wave conditions. A proof of concept approach for predicting infragravity oscillations within an estuary using machine learning (ML) is presented.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Infragravity Wave Oscillation Forecasting in a Shallow Estuary

Gomez,

Giddings,

Gallien

2024

JMSE

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Recognizing Low-Inflow Estuaries as a Common Estuary Paradigm

Largier

2023

Estuaries and Coasts

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It has become clear that estuaries with low rates of freshwater inflow are an important but overlooked sphere of estuarine science. Low-inflow estuaries (LIEs) represent a major class of estuary long downplayed because observations do not fit well in the dominant estuary paradigm, which was developed in perennially wet climates. Rather than being rare and unusual, it is now evident that LIEs are common globally and an alternate estuary paradigm within the idea of an estuary as the place where a river meets the sea. They are found mostly in areas with arid, semi-arid, or seasonally arid climates, but LIE phenomena are also found in estuaries along mountainous coasts with small watersheds and short-tailed hydrographs. Inflows can be defined as “low” relative to basin volume, tidal mixing, evaporative losses, or wave forcing at the mouth. The focus here is on common physical phenomena that emerge in low-inflow estuaries—how low river flow is expressed in estuaries. The most common is hypersalinity (and the associated potential for inverse conditions), which develops where there is a net negative water balance. However, in small microtidal estuaries, low inflow results in mouth closure even as a positive water balance may persist, accounting for extreme stratification. Attention is also given to the longitudinal density gradient and the occurrence of thermal estuaries and inverse estuaries. Finally, ocean-driven estuaries are highlighted where marine subsidies (nutrients, particulates) dominate watershed subsidies. While climate change is altering freshwater inflow to estuaries, locally driven changes are generally more important and this presents an opportunity to restore estuaries through restoring estuarine hydrology.

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