Tidal oscillations in shallow bays and sediment movement

Abstract

The present study seeks to understand the interaction of a directly forced, large amplitude, tidal mode with non-directly forced resonant or nearly resonant tidal modes in a coastal bay or basin despite frictional effects. It is shown that in shallow basins a non-directly forced resonant mode may be indirectly activated with a response that may be time dependent, with the amplitude of this mode increasing and then decreasing before increasing again in a cyclical manner associated with amplitude beats. A laboratory experiment and theoretical arguments are used to support these conclusions and to study the effect when the amplitude of the tidal disturbances is comparable to the depth of the basin. It is noted that the presence of such modes, whether directly or indirectly forced, and whether resonant or non-resonant, may be able to move sediment and thereby change the resonance behaviour of the basin by changing its geometry. The changes in the geometry may then change the resonant frequencies of the basin, possibly causing the decay of the mode that caused the sediment motion. The implications of the mechanism for the modelling of the tidal behaviour in other bays with more complicated geometry are considered.