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Distinguishing the main components of submarine groundwater and estimating the corresponding fluxes based on radium tracing method—taking the Maowei Sea for example

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Abstract

Submarine groundwater discharge (SGD) is an important part in the land-sea interactions, which mainly contains three components: submarine fresh groundwater discharge (SFGD), tidal flat recirculated saline groundwater discharge (tidal flat RSGD) and subtidal recirculated saline groundwater discharge (subtidal RSGD). In order to make a more accurate assessment of the impact of SGD on coastal ecological environment, it is necessary to distinguish the main components of SGD. In this study, the Maowei Sea, located in the northern part of the Beibu Gulf, was selected as the study area. Based on the radium (Ra) tracing method, we present a new analytical method for distinguishing the three main components of SGD in this area combined with field data. The average daily flow along the coastline of the Maowei Sea of tidal flat RSGD was slightly higher than that of SFGD, and both two were on the magnitude of 1×105 m3/d. The average daily flow for the subtidal RSGD of the entire subtidal zone of the Maowei Sea reached to the magnitude of 1×106−1×107 m3/d. The long-term variation trend of terrestrial SGD is a valuable information for the study of the influence of terrigenous material on the coastal ecological environment. Based on the results of four sampling periods, it is found that the fluxes of SFGD and tidal flat RSGD in the Maowei Sea had good linear correlation with the net precipitation. As an example, January 2015 to August 2022 were selected as the study periods, and the variation trends of SFGD and tidal flat RSGD were calculated by linear function with net precipitation as the independent variable. The results showed that the flux of tidal flat RSGD was slightly higher than that of SFGD, and the difference between the two is larger in flood season while smaller in dry season. In general, in the coastal range of China, the total SGD flux in the Maowei Sea area is at a high level, and the SFGD flux is at a medium level.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Bin Yang of Beibu Gulf University for the help with sampling.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Estuarine and Coastal Research, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 201100, China

    Linwei Li & Jinzhou Du

  2. Guangxi Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Change and Disaster in the Beibu Gulf, Beibu Gulf University, Qinzhou, 535011, China

    Xilong Wang & Yanling Lao

  3. School of Geographic and Environmental Sciences, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, 300387, China

    Xilong Wang

  4. College of Resources and Environment, Beibu Gulf University, Qinzhou, 535011, China

    Yanling Lao

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  1. Linwei Li
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Correspondence to Jinzhou Du.

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Foundation item: The National Natural Science Foundation of China under contract Nos 41576083 and 41906150; the National Key R&D Program of China under contract No. 2022YFE0209300.

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Li, L., Du, J., Wang, X. et al. Distinguishing the main components of submarine groundwater and estimating the corresponding fluxes based on radium tracing method—taking the Maowei Sea for example. Acta Oceanol. Sin. 42, 1–23 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13131-023-2211-9

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