Quantifying the impacts of human interventions on relative mean sea level change in the Pearl River Delta, China

Cai, Huayang; Yang, Hao; Liu, Junyong; Niu, Lixia; Ren, Lei; Liu, Feng; Ou, Suying; Yang, Qingshu

doi:10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2019.02.007

Cited by 28 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…As a non‐parametric method, the MK test does not require data to be normally distributed and has low sensitivity to outliers and abrupt breaks in the data. As such, this test has been widely used in trend analyses of hydrological time‐series (e.g., Liu et al, 2014b; Tan et al, 2016; Cai et al, 2019).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tidal regime shift in Lingdingyang Bay, the Pearl River Delta: An identification and assessment of driving factors

Wang

Ping

Zhou

et al. 2020

Hydrological Processes

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Both natural changes (e.g., tidal forcing from the ocean and global sea level rise) and human‐induced changes (e.g., dredging for navigation, sand excavation, and land reclamation) exert considerable influences on the long‐term evolution of tidal regimes in estuaries. Evaluating the impacts of these factors on tidal‐regime shifts is particularly important for the protection and management of estuarine environments. In this study, an analytical approach is developed to investigate the impacts of estuarine morphological alterations (mean water depth and width convergence length) on tidal hydrodynamics in Lingdingyang Bay, Southeast China. Based on the observed tidal levels from two tidal gauging stations along the channel, tidal wave celerity and tidal damping/amplification rate of different tidal constituents are computed using tidal amplitude and phase of tidal constituents extracted from a standard harmonic analysis. We show that the minimum mean water depth for the whole estuary occurred in 2006, whereas a shift in tidal wave celerity for the M2 tide component occurred in 2009. As such, the study period (1990–2016) could be separated into pre‐human (1990–2009) and post‐human (2010–2016) phases. Our results show that the damping/amplification rate and celerity of the M2 tide have increased by 31% (from 7 to 9.2 m−1) and 28% (from 7 to 9 m·s−1) respectively, as a consequence of the substantial impacts of human interventions. The proposed analytical method is subsequently applied to analyse the historical development of tidal hydrodynamics and regime shifts induced by human interventions, thus linking the evolution of estuarine morphology to the dominant tidal hydrodynamics along the channel. The observed tidal regime shift is primarily caused by channel deepening, which substantially enlarged the estuary and reduced effective bottom friction resulting in faster celerity and stronger wave amplification. Our proposed method for quantifying the impacts of human interventions on tidal regime shifts can inform evidence‐based guidelines for evaluating hydraulic responses to future engineering activities.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tidal regime shift in Lingdingyang Bay, the Pearl River Delta: An identification and assessment of driving factors

Wang

Ping

Zhou

et al. 2020

Hydrological Processes

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“…Zhang et al, 2012), channel dredging (e.g., Cai et al, 2012;Cai et al, 2019;He et al, 2019;Luo et al, 2007;W. Zhang, Cui, et al, 2010;Wu et al, 2018), and land reclamation of intertidal wetlands (e.g., Cai et al, 2019;He et al, 2019;W. Zhang et al, 2010, 2015, Z. Wu et al, 2018.…”

Section: Case Study: Modaomen Branch Of the Pearl River Deltamentioning

confidence: 99%

Multiscale Temporal Response of Salt Intrusion to Transient River and Ocean Forcing

et al. 2022

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Salt intrusion in surface waters endangers freshwater availability, influences water quality, and affects estuarine ecosystem services with high economic and social values. Salt transport and the resulting salinity distributions result from the non‐linear interactions between salt and water dynamics. Estuaries are often considered under (quasi)‐steady assumption or by focusing on specific timescales. Our understanding of their temporal multiscale response to transient forcing is limited, which hinders the implementation of effective mitigation strategies. We apply wavelet analyses to quantify the variability of salt intrusion from hourly to seasonal timescales and unravel the temporal variability of its response across scales. We focus on an estuary that undergoes significant transient forcing, the Modaomen estuary in the Pearl River Delta, and apply the wavelet analyses to year‐long data generated by a coastal ocean numerical model. Our results show that this estuary responds to changes in tidal and riverine forcing throughout the year over interwoven timescales. Our results highlight the temporal variability of the salt intrusion response time both within a given regime and for the transition between regimes. They also suggest that tides control the response time more strongly than river discharge, even though river discharge determines the magnitude of the salt intrusion, and thus modulates the evolution of the salt intrusion response time. We propose a broadly applicable framework to calculate response times with simple data. These results can provide a first‐order guidance for design and implementation of estuarine management strategies and mitigation measures that ensure water access and facilitate sustainable development.

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“…To improve the sediment budget, as argued by Hoitink et al (2020), it is key to improve our confidence in the fluxes, sources and sinks and our understanding of how these change over an annual cycle. This is particularly key in areas where episodic events such as seasonal monsoons (Clift, 2020), typhoons (Yang et al, 2019), hurricanes (Tweel & Turner, 2014) or other large scale seasonal events (Aalto et al, 2003) can contribute significantly to sediment budgets.…”

Section: Accepted Articlementioning

confidence: 99%

Anthropogenic Effects on the Contemporary Sediment Budget of the Lower Rhine‐Meuse Delta Channel Network

et al. 2021

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Human impacts on delta channels can be quantified using empirical relations between tidal prism and cross-section area in delta channels• Establishing sediment budgets for delta channel networks requires data concerning both sand and mud, which are jointly subject to dredging• Reduced sediment input to deltas may partially be compensated for by influx of marine sediment, which is a large source of uncertainty

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Quantifying the impacts of human interventions on relative mean sea level change in the Pearl River Delta, China

Cited by 28 publications

References 49 publications

Tidal regime shift in Lingdingyang Bay, the Pearl River Delta: An identification and assessment of driving factors

Tidal regime shift in Lingdingyang Bay, the Pearl River Delta: An identification and assessment of driving factors

Multiscale Temporal Response of Salt Intrusion to Transient River and Ocean Forcing

Anthropogenic Effects on the Contemporary Sediment Budget of the Lower Rhine‐Meuse Delta Channel Network

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