Oblique sand ridges in confined tidal channels due to Coriolis and frictional torques

The role of the Coriolis effect in the initial formation of bottom patterns in a tidal channel is studied by means of a linear stability analysis. The key finding is that the mechanism generating oblique tidal sand ridges on the continental shelf is also present in confined tidal channels. As a result, the Coriolis effect causes the fastest...

Modeling the Transition to High Sediment Concentrations as a Response to Channel Deepening in the Ems River Estuary

Many estuaries are strongly modified by human interventions, including substantive channel deepening. In the Ems River Estuary (Germany and Netherlands), channel deepening between the 1960s and early 2000s coincided with an increase in the maximum near-bed suspended sediment concentration from moderate (∼1 kg/m ³ ) to high (>10...

A Regime Shift From Low to High Sediment Concentrations in a Tide-Dominated Estuary

Many estuaries are strongly deepened to improve navigation, with sometimes large and poorly understood consequences to suspended sediment dynamics. To improve understanding of such large changes, we study the Ems River Estuary, where a regime shift from low to high sediment concentrations was observed after deepening. The aim of this study is...

Can the Scheldt River Estuary become hyperturbid?: A model analysis of suspended sediment concentrations and transport in response to channel deepening

We investigate the hypothesis by Winterwerp and Wang (Ocean Dyn 63:1279–1292, 2013) that channel deepening in the Scheldt River Estuary could lead to a large increase in suspended sediment concentrations, with subsequent severe consequences to primary production and navigation. To this end, we use an idealised model to investigate the long...

Effect of bottom stress formulation on modelled flow and turbidity maxima in cross-sections of tide-dominated estuaries

A three-dimensional numerical model with a prognostic salinity field is used to investigate the effect of a partial slip bottom boundary condition on lateral flow and sediment distribution in a transect of a tidally dominated channel. The transect has a symmetrical Gaussian cross-channel bottom profile. For a deep, well-mixed, tidally dominated...