Buoyant river plumes are important features of the coastal sea because they represent an important source of sediment, nutrients, and pollutants and, thus, significantly influence many physical, biological, and geochemical processes on the continental shelf . Structure, dynamics, and variability of river plumes are key factors to understand the land-ocean exchanges. On the basis of observed data, video-monitoring products and numerical simulations that refer to the Misa Riverplume (Senigallia, Italy), we propose a more general analysis of the generation and transport mechanisms of plumes evolving within microtidal environments. We used both images from land video systems (the Sena Gallica Speculator and the one managed by the Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research) and from Sentinel-2. We performed an analysis by correlating the occurrence of the plumes detected from the images, with the forcing acting at the river mouth. This allowed us to classify the plume events based on their generation mechanism and to identify the factors affecting sediment transport. Then, we simulated some real-life cases to compare results with observations and highlighted the diversities between different plume events. More details of the
River plumes in microtidal settings: a preliminary study
P Penna;
2022
Abstract
Buoyant river plumes are important features of the coastal sea because they represent an important source of sediment, nutrients, and pollutants and, thus, significantly influence many physical, biological, and geochemical processes on the continental shelf . Structure, dynamics, and variability of river plumes are key factors to understand the land-ocean exchanges. On the basis of observed data, video-monitoring products and numerical simulations that refer to the Misa Riverplume (Senigallia, Italy), we propose a more general analysis of the generation and transport mechanisms of plumes evolving within microtidal environments. We used both images from land video systems (the Sena Gallica Speculator and the one managed by the Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research) and from Sentinel-2. We performed an analysis by correlating the occurrence of the plumes detected from the images, with the forcing acting at the river mouth. This allowed us to classify the plume events based on their generation mechanism and to identify the factors affecting sediment transport. Then, we simulated some real-life cases to compare results with observations and highlighted the diversities between different plume events. More details of theI documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.