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Vertical Distributions of Suspended Sediment Concentrations in the Turbidity Maximum Zone of the Periodically and Partially Stratified Changjiang Estuary

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A Correction to this article was published on 29 July 2019

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Abstract

The vertical distribution of suspended sediment concentration (SSC) plays a key role in the residual suspended sediment transport in the estuarine environments. A field measurement was carried out in the turbidity maximum zone (TMZ) of the Changjiang Estuary in 2012 to study the characteristics and formation mechanisms of SSC profile in the partially stratified estuary. Based on the observed data, we found that the vertical distribution of SSCs is mainly determined by the density stratification caused by the interactions between the river runoff and the saltwater intrusion. The vertical profiles of SSC were categorized into three types: (I) two-layer structure profile, (II) exponential profile, and (III) linear profile. Type I mainly occurred in condition of strong stratification, whereas types II and III mainly occurred in weak stratification and well-mixed conditions, respectively. We developed two new empirical equations to simulate the vertical profiles, which can accurately describe the observed exponential and linear profiles and reasonably/accurately describe the observed two-layer structure profiles. The two new equations can be easily used in other well-mixed or partially stratified estuaries given the surface and bottom SSC data, which can be obtained from many ways, for instance, the buoy and bottom tripod survey system, the remote-sensed images, and numerical models.

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  • 29 July 2019

    The following are errors in the original article: Ya Ping Wang’s first name was incorrect. It is correct as shown here. There is an error in Eq. 2. Following is the corrected equation.

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Acknowledgements

Prof. Xiaohua Wang from the University of New South Wales (Canberra, Australia) and two anonymous reviewers are particularly appreciated for their conductive and helpful suggestions and comments which are fairly helpful in writing.

Funding

This study is supported by the Chinese National Key Programs for Fundamental Research and Development (2016YFA0600904) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51761135023 and 41176069).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Estuarine and Coastal Research, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200241, China

    Zhanhai Li, Jianjun Jia, Haibo Zong, Guoan Zhang, Yax Ping Wang, Yang Yang, Liang Zhou & Shu Gao

  2. Ocean Ecosystem Sciences Division, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, B2Y 4A2, Canada

    Yongsheng Wu

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  1. Zhanhai Li
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  2. Jianjun Jia
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  7. Yang Yang
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  9. Shu Gao
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Correspondence to Zhanhai Li.

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Communicated by Paul A. Montagna,

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Li, Z., Jia, J., Wu, Y. et al. Vertical Distributions of Suspended Sediment Concentrations in the Turbidity Maximum Zone of the Periodically and Partially Stratified Changjiang Estuary. Estuaries and Coasts 42, 1475–1490 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12237-019-00605-2

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