Abstract
An experimental flume is described which can be used as a tool to assess whether a vegetated marsh surface is a source or sink for nutrients via tidal inundation. An initial calibration study (two tidal cycles) was conducted to determine the optimum sampling design and aid in model development for flux calculations. A statistical analysis of the data showed a negligible concentration difference as a function of water depth for most of the constituents analyzed. This coupled with the low tidal velocities over the marsh surface (<1.5cm/s) suggested that a volumetric model was adequate for calculations of instantaneous discharge and nutrient flux through any station perpendicular to tidal flow. The resultant instantaneous mass flux calculations showed that water discharge was one of the dominant factors controlling the movement of material. A sine-cosine statistical model utilizing the main tidal periodicities was designed to: (1) model the instantaneous fluxes, (2) calculate the average net flux of suspended and dissolved materials, and (3) test the hypothesis that the average net flux equals zero versus a two-sided alternative using a standard regression t-test.
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