Numerical simulation of suspended sediment transport merging with satellite derived data in coastal waters

Abstract

The distribution and transport of suspended sediment in the coastal areas has attracted more and more attention. Monitoring and modeling of the distribution and transport of suspended sediment is significant. The mutual promotion of remote sensing and numerical simulation plays an important role on the coastal water quality study. In this study, a method of coupling derived suspended sediment concentration (SSC) images with numerical model, based on GOCI and COHERENS (COupled Hydrodynamical-Ecological model for REgioNal and Shelf seas) model, is proposed to monitor the suspended sediment dynamics in the East China Sea. The retrieved SSC were extracted from GOCI images, to set as initial condition and employed to calibrate the parameters and validation for the hydrodynamic modeling and sediment transport modeling, respectively. The model is forced by considering tidal surface elevation at open sea boundary, river discharges, surface stress as a function of wind speed, air temperature, relative humidity and cloud coverage, bottom roughness and heat flux through sea surface. The model results are in accord with the in situ measurements. The results show that: (1) Numerical model which initialized with satellite-derived SSC data can quickly response to the changes of sediment concentration in real sense. (2) Remote sensing is helpful to calibrate and validate the model for simulating the suspended sediment concentration distribution. (3)The proposed approach can obtain reasonable simulated results in the East China Sea. (4) It is of great significance to combine remote sensing and numerical simulation together to study the water quality in the coastal areas.