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Interaction between suspended sediment and tidal amplification in the Guadalquivir Estuary

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Abstract

Water level records at two stations in the Guadalquivir Estuary (Spain), one near the estuary mouth (Bonanza) and one about 77 km upstream (Sevilla), have been analysed to study the amplification of the tide in the estuary. The tidal amplification factor shows interesting temporal variation, including a spring-neap variation, some extreme low values, and especially the anomalous behaviour that the amplification factor is larger during a number of periods. These variations are explained by data analysis combined with numerical and analytical modelling. The spring-neap variation is due to the quadratic relation between the bottom friction and the tidal flow velocity. The river flood events are the direct causes of the extreme low values of the amplification factor, and they trigger the non-linear interaction between the tidal flow and suspended sediment transport. The fluvial sediment input during a river flood causes high sediment concentration in the estuary, up to more than 10 g/l. This causes a reduction of the effective hydraulic drag, resulting in stronger tidal amplification in the estuary for a period after a river flood. After such an event the tidal amplification in the estuary does not always fall back to the same level as before the event, indicating that river flood events have significant influence on the long-term development of this estuary.

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Acknowledgements

We want to thank Mario Fernández Bermejo from Navier Ingenieria, Spain for helping in collecting the filed data. We also would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers, whose comments helped us a lot to improve the manuscript. The study is partly supported by NWO via the project “Fate or future of intertidal flats in estuaries and tidal lagoons” within the framework of the Joint Scientific Thematic Research Programme (JSTP) between China and The Netherlands.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Deltares, P.O. Box 177, 2600 MH, Delft, The Netherlands

    Zheng Bing Wang & Johan C. Winterwerp

  2. Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    Zheng Bing Wang & Johan C. Winterwerp

  3. SKLEC, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China

    Zheng Bing Wang & Qing He

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  1. Zheng Bing Wang
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  2. Johan C. Winterwerp
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  3. Qing He
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Correspondence to Zheng Bing Wang.

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Responsible Editor: Bob Chant

This article is part of the Topical Collection on Physics of Estuaries and Coastal Seas 2012

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Wang, Z.B., Winterwerp, J.C. & He, Q. Interaction between suspended sediment and tidal amplification in the Guadalquivir Estuary. Ocean Dynamics 64, 1487–1498 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10236-014-0758-x

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