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Influence of bathymetry evolution on position of tidal shear front and hydrodynamic characteristics around the Yellow River estuary

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Abstract

A three dimensional numerical model based on the hydrodynamic module of finite-volume coastal ocean (FVCOM) was established for the Yellow River estuary. The model has been calibrated by observed data and proved to be suitable to reflect the hydrodynamic force in the research area. We employed the model to simulate the tidal shear front off the Yellow River estuary and analyzed the formation, spread and duration of two different types of shear front. To examine the effect of bathymetry evolution on the position of tidal shear front, subaqueous bathymetry of the Yellow River estuary was changed according to the changing patterns obtained from the past few years. Tidal shear front was modeled on both the original and the changed bathymetry. The results show that the position of shear front moved from a shallow to a deep area due to the deposition of bathymetry. The influence of bathymetry evolution on hydrodynamic characteristics including the distribution of salinity and the movement of particles was studied. We found the dispersion areas of low salinity became larger after changing bathymetry and the particles on the surface, middle and bottom layer are able to move further both north and west of Laizhou Bay on the changed bathymetry.

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Correspondence to Yongming Shen.

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Yucen Lu, Master at the Key State Laboratory of Coastal & Offshore Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China. He was born in 1986, graduated and obtained his B.S. from Sichuan University of China in 2008. He has worked as Master program graduate student at Dalian University of Technology since from 2008. His research interests include Environmental Hydraulics and numerical simulation of Hydraulics.

Dr. Yongming Shen, Professor at the Dalian University of Technology, he obtained his Ph.D., M.S. and B.S. from Chengdu University of Science and Technology in 1991, 1988 and 1983, respectively. After received his Ph.D., he worked at the Key State Laboratory of Coastal & Offshore Engineering, Dalian University of Technology as a postdoctoral fellow for two years, and then joined the Dalian University of Technology as an Associate Professor. Currently, he is a Professor at Dalian University of Technology. His primary research interests are focused on the areas of Environmental Hydraulics and Computational Hydraulics, with special emphasis on modeling of hydrody -namics, water quality and oil spills for rivers and coastal waters. Dr. Shen has published over 180 journal papers.

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Lu, Y., Shen, Y. Influence of bathymetry evolution on position of tidal shear front and hydrodynamic characteristics around the Yellow River estuary. Front. Earth Sci. 6, 405–419 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11707-012-0334-y

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