Spatial distribution of flow currents and habitats in artificial buffer zones for ecosystem-based coastal engineering

Abstract

As the process of urbanization progresses, coastal engineering are posing serious threat to the local ecosystems. The poorly designed coastal engineering will have irreversible effects on local ecosystems, such as the biodiversity declination, the connectivity destruction and the ecosystems deterioration. Therefore, it is very necessary to improve the concept of ecosystem-based coastal engineering design. In strict accordance with the notion of eco-seawall, in this research, the hydrodynamic change in 20 engineering scenarios was discussed and determined the spatial distribution of suitable habitats for aquatic species, which defined as the niche of aquatic organisms in the dimension of hydrodynamic. This research was conducted by carrying out pilot-scale experiment with an aim to enhance the traditional coastal engineering in terms of (a) measuring the intensity of hydrodynamic variations by adding artificial beach or buffer zone (b) determining the overtopping risks in varying working conditions (c) visualizing the distribution of optimal habitat areas with hydrodynamic parameters as eco-niche dimension. As revealed by the results, four working conditions pose low overtopping risk and exhibit uniform distribution of flow (No.1, No.2, No.8 and No.14). Additionally, the suitable habitats distribution have been visualized for 4 types of working condition with safety structure. A conclusion can be drawn that there are significantly fewer unsuitable habitat areas in the No.14 scenario as compared to other schemes. In general, this research is conducive to improving the development of ecosystem-based coastal engineering.