Baroclinic and wind-induced circulation in Tarragona harbour (northeastern Spain)

Authors

  • Marc Mestres IIAMA, Technical University of Valencia,
  • Joan Pau Sierra LIM-UPC, Technical University of Catalonia, Barcelona
  • Agustín Sánchez-Arcilla LIM-UPC, Technical University of Catalonia, Barcelona

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3989/scimar.2007.71n2223

Keywords:

harbours, baroclinic circulation, wind stress, residence time, modelling, Mediterranean Sea, Spain

Abstract


The sustainability of harbour management from an environmental standpoint is a current concern for port authorities. It includes dealing with problems that may affect the quality of in-harbour waters. In semi-enclosed basins, the characteristics of the circulation pattern are one of the main factors influencing the water quality, since they determine the residence time of pollutants inside the basin and govern the interaction between inside waters and the cleaner outside waters. Although harbour hydrodynamics are affected by the constant traffic of vessels and the physical constraints imposed by harbour structures, the water dynamics in ports are generally governed by three mechanisms: tidal forcing, wind surface stress, and baroclinic effects. This study presents the characterisation of winter circulation features in Tarragona harbour (northeast Spain), based on both field data and numerical simulations. Due to the microtidal nature of the Mediterranean Sea, three-dimensional water density distribution and local wind are expected to be the most relevant driving mechanisms. The results obtained suggest that, although wind effects may be important in determining the water flow in and out of the harbour for small time-scales, in the long term the most important water exchange mechanism is related to the waterbody’s baroclinic structure, with wind forcing playing only a second-order role.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Álvarez, E., B. Pérez and I. Rodriguez. – 2001. Nivmar: a storm surge forecasting system for Spanish waters. Sci. Mar., 65 (Suppl. 1): 145-154.

Backhaus, J.O. – 1983. A semi-implicit scheme for shallow water equations for applications to shelf sea modelling. Cont. Shelf Res., 2: 243-254. doi:10.1016/0278-4343(82)90020-6

Balas, L. and E. Özhan. – 2002. Three-Dimensional Modelling of Stratified Coastal Waters. Est. Coast. Shelf Sci., 54: 75-87. doi:10.1006/ecss.2001.0832

Chua, T.E. – 1999. Marine pollution prevention and management in the East Asian seas. Mar. Poll. Bull., 39: 80-88. doi:10.1016/S0025-326X(99)00085-5

Dabra, R.M., A. Ronza, J. Casal, T.A. Stojanovic and C. Wooldridge. – 2004. The Self Diagnosis Method: a new methodology to assess environmental management in sea ports. Mar. Poll. Bull., 48: 420-428. doi:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2003.10.023

PMid:14980457

ESPO. – 2004. ESPO Environmental Survey 2004 – Review of European Performance in Port Environmental Management. ESPO, Brussels.

EU. – 1993. Council Regulation no. 1836/93 of 29 June 1993 allowing voluntary participation by companies in the industrial sector in a community eco-management and audit scheme. Official Journal of the European Communities L 168: 1-18.

EU. – 2001. Regulation (EC) no. 761/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 March 2001 allowing voluntary participation by organisations in a community eco-management and audit scheme (EMAS). Official Journal of the European Communities L 114: 1-29.

Font, J., J. Salat and A. Julià. – 1990. Marine circulation along the Ebro continental margin. Mar. Geol., 95: 165-177. doi:10.1016/0025-3227(90)90114-Y

García, M., A. Sánchez-Arcilla, J.P. Sierra, J. Sospedra and J. Gómez. – 1993. Wind waves off the Ebro Delta, NW Mediterranean. J. Mar. Sys., 4: 235-262. doi:10.1016/0924-7963(93)90012-B

Grifoll, M., M. Espino, J.P. Sierra, A. Sánchez-Arcilla, A. Rubio, J. Puigdefàbregas and J. Cateura. – 2006. Seasonal Hydrodynamic Variations in a Two-Mouth Harbour in the Mediterranean Sea: The Barcelona Case Study. J. Mar. Sys. (submitted).

Harms, I.H. – 1997. Watermass transformation in the Barents Sea. - Application of The HAMburg Shelf Ocean Model (HAMSOM). J. Mar. Sci., 54: 351–365.

ISO. – 1996. EN ISO 14001. Environmental Management Systems – Specification with Guidance for Use. CEN, Brussels.

Llobet, M. – 2001. Estudio del transporte de sedimentos del río Francolí en el interior del Puerto de Tarragona mediante la aplicación de un modelo hidrodinámico y de un modelo de transporte de sedimentos. Master Thesis, Technical University of Catalonia.

Luyten, P.J. (ed). – 1999. COHERENS – Dissemination and exploitation of a coupled hydrodynamical-ecological model for regional and shelf seas. MAS3-CT97-0088. Final report, MUMM Internal Report, Management Unit of the Mathematical Models, 76 pp.

Mellor, G.L. and T. Yamada. – 1982. Development of a turbulent closure model for geophysical fluid problems. Rev. Geophys. Space Phys., 20: 851-875. doi:10.1029/RG020i004p00851

Peris-Mora, E., J.M. Diez Orejas, A. Subirats, S. Ibáñez and P. Alvarez. – 2005. Development of a system of indicators for sustainable port management. Mar. Poll. Bull., 50: 1649-1660. doi:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2005.06.048 PMid:16095626

Phillips, N.A. – 1957. A coordinate system having some special advantages for numerical forecasting. J. Met., 14: 184-185.

Puertos del Estado – 2005. ROM 5.1 – Calidad de las aguas litorales en areas portuarias. Ed. Puertos del Estado, Madrid, Spain. Red, L.P. and C.K Cooper. – 1987. A study of various open boundary conditions for wind-forced barotropic numerical ocean models. In: J.C. Nihoul and B.M. Jamart (eds.), Threedimensional models of marine and estuarine dynamics, pp. 305-335. Elsevier, Amsterdam.

Ruddick, K.G. – 1995. Modelling of coastal processes influenced by the freshwater discharge of the Rhine. PhD thesis, Univ. Liège.

Sánchez-Arcilla, A., M. Mestres, J.P. Sierra and R. Juanola. – 2003. Simulación del transporte de sedimentos en el Puerto de Tarragona. Proc. VII Jornadas Españolas de Ingeniería de Costas y Puertos, Almería, Spain.

Sánchez-Arcilla, A., M. Espino, J.P. Sierra, J. Cateura, J. Gómez, M. Grifoll, J. Puigdefàbregas and A. Rubio. – 2005. Informe de las campañas del Puerto de Tarragona. Research Report LIM/AOC-05-2, UPC, Barcelona, 76 p.

Schwartz, R.A. and J. Imberger, – 1988. Flushing behaviour of a coastal marina. Proc. 28th ICCE, ASCE, USA, pp. 2626-2640.

Smagorinsky, J. – 1963. General circulation experiments with the primitive equations – I. The basic experiment. Mon Weather Rev., 91: 99-165. doi:10.1175/1520-0493(1963)091<0099:GCEWTP>2.3.CO;2

Downloads

Published

2007-06-30

How to Cite

1.
Mestres M, Pau Sierra J, Sánchez-Arcilla A. Baroclinic and wind-induced circulation in Tarragona harbour (northeastern Spain). Sci. mar. [Internet]. 2007Jun.30 [cited 2024Mar.19];71(2):223-38. Available from: https://scientiamarina.revistas.csic.es/index.php/scientiamarina/article/view/2

Issue

Section

Articles

Most read articles by the same author(s)