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Hydrodynamics and Sediment Transport in a Macro-tidal Estuary: Darwin Harbour, Australia

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Estuaries of Australia in 2050 and beyond

Part of the book series: Estuaries of the World ((EOTW))

Abstract

Sediment dynamics studies were undertaken for Darwin Harbour (DH), which is a tidal dominated mangrove system in the Northern Territory of Australia. DH is located in a region with extensive mangrove and tidal flat areas, which function as trapping zones of fine cohesive sediment. Transport of sediment was estimated for the dry season, and thus river discharge was negligible. Numerical simulations were also made with two scenarios: (S1) where the numerical mesh included mangrove and tidal flats, and (S2) in which the mesh neglected these areas. For the first scenario, the formation of two Estuarine Turbidity Maxima zones (ETM) were verified, and located at the inner and outer harbour. In addition to the formation of ETM zones, for the second scenario increased tidal asymmetry was predicted, which resulted in landward sediment transport. The suspended sediment concentration within these ETM zones was modulated by spring and neap tidal conditions. From our simulations we demonstrated that the sediment transport of small particles, e.g. 2 μm particle size, in DH is driven by flood dominance, which is affected by wet/dry areas such as mangroves and tidal flats. Therefore, mangrove areas of DH may trap fine sediment for long periods, and if the trapped sediment carries pollutants one would expect conditions similar to many European estuaries, where pollutant sediment has been found to be buried for over tens to hundreds of years.

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Acknowledgments

F. P. Andutta, X. H. Wang, Li Li and D. Williams were supported by a 2011 Australian Research Council/Linkage Project – LP110100652. This work was also supported by the National Computational Infrastructure National Facility at the Australian National University. This is a publication of the Sino-Australian Research Centre for Coastal Management, manuscript number 13.

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  1. School of Physical, Environmental and Mathematical Sciences, University of New South Wales at Australian Defence Force Academy UNSW-ADFA, ACT 2600, Canberra, Australia

    F. P. Andutta, X. H. Wang & Li Li

  2. Australian Institute of Marine Sciences (AIMS), 23 Ellengowan Drive, Brinkin, NT 0811, Australia

    David Williams

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  1. F. P. Andutta
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  2. X. H. Wang
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Correspondence to F. P. Andutta .

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  1. TropWATER and School of Marine and Tropical Biology, James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland, Australia

    Eric Wolanski

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Andutta, F.P., Wang, X.H., Li, L., Williams, D. (2014). Hydrodynamics and Sediment Transport in a Macro-tidal Estuary: Darwin Harbour, Australia. In: Wolanski, E. (eds) Estuaries of Australia in 2050 and beyond. Estuaries of the World. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7019-5_7

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