Journal article
Sediment transport in the presence of large reef bottom roughness
AWM Pomeroy, RJ Lowe, M Ghisalberti, C Storlazzi, G Symonds, D Roelvink
Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans | AMER GEOPHYSICAL UNION | Published : 2017
DOI: 10.1002/2016JC011755
Abstract
The presence of large bottom roughness, such as that formed by benthic organisms on coral reef flats, has important implications for the size, concentration, and transport of suspended sediment in coastal environments. A 3 week field study was conducted in approximately 1.5 m water depth on the reef flat at Ningaloo Reef, Western Australia, to quantify the cross-reef hydrodynamics and suspended sediment dynamics over the large bottom roughness (∼20–40 cm) at the site. A logarithmic mean current profile consistently developed above the height of the roughness; however, the flow was substantially reduced below the height of the roughness (canopy region). Shear velocities inferred from the loga..
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Awarded by Australian Research Council
Funding Acknowledgements
AWP is grateful for the support of a Robert and Maude Gledden Postgraduate Research Award and by The Gowrie Trust Fund (2013, 2014). This project was funded by the Western Australia Marine Science Institute (WAMSI) Dredging Science Node (Theme 2/3), an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (FT110100201), and ARC Discovery Project grant (DP140102026) to RJL, as well as the U.S. Geological Survey's Coastal and Marine Geology Program. The authors thank Michael Cuttler, Sana Dandan, Jim Falter, Jeff Hansen, Malcolm McCulloch, Leonardo Ruiz Montoya, and Gundula Winter for their assistance during the experiment, and Johan Reyns for his assistance in the implementation of the advection-diffusion model. We thank Shawn Harrison at the USGS who conducted an internal review of this manuscript, as well as the two anonymous reviewers who provided constructive feedback that helped us to improve the manuscript. Data sets analyzed in this manuscript are available from http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.126670.