Variability of the salinity in the western Wadden Sea on tidal to centennial time scales

Abstract

Daily observations of the salinity of the Marsdiep tidal inlet, which connects the Dutch western Wadden Sea with the North Sea, already started over 140 years ago, in 1860. Since the year 2000 the sampling frequency has increased because of the use of electronic sensors. Analysis of these salinity data have revealed variations on time scales from tidal (~ 12 hour), seasonal, inter-annual, and multi-decadal, to centennial. The contributions of the salinity variations in the Marsdiep for these different spectral bands or time scales are all of the order of a standard deviation of 0.5 to 1. The centennial variation, which can be expressed as a 140 year long salinity trend, is related to engineering works on the rivers Rhine and IJssel, which already started in the early 18-th century, and more than doubled the magnitude of the freshwater content of the western Wadden Sea since then. In contrast with this anthropogenic salinity trend, the climatic variability of the precipitation over western Europe, and the connected changes in the Rhine discharge, are mainly responsible for the inter-annual variations in the salinity and/or freshwater content of the western Wadden Sea. Since variations in salinity and freshwater content also reflect variations in the terrigeneous and river influence on the Wadden ecosystem, e.g. via the nutrient content, it can be expected that the ecology of the Wadden Sea also experienced changes on centennial time scales.