Understanding the transport in the Dutch Wadden Sea

– Matias Duran-Matute, Fluids & Flows group, Department of Applied Physics, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands –

Résumé :

The Dutch Wadden Sea is a multiple inlet coastal system part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site due to its ecological importance. Over the past decade, there has been a lot of interest on the relationship between its ecological functioning and the hydrodynamics due to the pressure exerted by climate change and sea level rise. One key aspect is the transport to, through and from it of substances and material (salt, sediment, nutrients, larvae, etc.). We have used massive numerical simulations to understand and quantify the variability of the transport. In this presentation, I will discuss the transport variability at short time scales (diurnal) and at long time scales (interannual). I will focus on the transport of water itself from both Eulerian and Lagrangian perspectives, but I will also touch upon the transport of sediment and fresh water. Our results clearly show that the wind is the most important driver of variability for this system, and that it is possible to link large-scale atmospheric phenomena to the variability in the system. Finally, I will discuss the possible implications of climate change.