Journal of Tropical Oceanography ›› 2017, Vol. 36 ›› Issue (5): 1-8.doi: 10.11978/2016131CSTR: 32234.14.2016131

• Orginal Article •     Next Articles

The development and application of river-tide harmonic model

Suying OU(), Qingshu YANG, Hao YANG, Shuai HU   

  1. Institute of Estuarine and Coastal Research, Sun Yat-sen University, State and Local Joint Engineering Laboratory of Estuarine Hydraulic Technology, Guangzhou 510275, China
  • Received:2016-12-14 Revised:2017-02-22 Online:2017-09-20 Published:2017-09-22
  • About author:

    Author:OU Suying.E-mail:ousuying@mail.sysu.edu.cn

  • Supported by:
    National Key Research and Development Program of China (2016YFC0402600); National Natural Science Foundation of China (41106015)

Abstract:

With the modulation of river flows, tides in delta and estuary are generally nonstationary and nonlinear, which is difficult for analysis and prediction. Combined the interaction of river and tide in an estuary with the concept of traditional Harmonic Analysis (HA), the River-Tidal Harmonic Analysis (RTHA) model was built, and the non-stationary tide in the Pearl River delta under daily Pearl River discharge was analyzed and predicted by the model. The results show that the RTHA model performed well when analyzing and predicting the hourly tidal water level and high-low tide on annual scale, which gave root-mean-square error of 0.12~0.17 m, and correlation coefficients of 91%~98%. Especially in the upper and middle channels of the delta where river dynamics are dominant, the results of the RTHA model are far better than those of the HA model. The results of the RTHA model show that the amplitudes of diurnal (K1), semidiurnal and third-diurnal constituents decrease rapidly in flood season with large river discharge and increase in dry season, but the amplitudes of quarter-diurnal constituents at Hengmen station increase in flood season and decrease in dry season. When the Pearl River discharge increases, the constituents’ phase increases and the wave celerity decreases in flood season, while the damping ratio of tidal amplitudes was about 10%~30% in the dry season and increased to 70%~80% in the flood season.

Key words: tide, river discharge, river-tide interaction, river-tidal harmonic analysis model, estuary, delta