Abstract

SILVA, P. Laginha; MARTINS, F.; BOSKI, T.  and  SAMPATH, R.. Modeling Basin Infilling Processes in Estuaries using two different approaches: An Aggregate Diffusive Type Model and a Processed Based Model. RGCI [online]. 2012, vol.12, n.2, pp.117-129. ISSN 1646-8872.

Long term basin infilling simulations are traditionally carried out using synthetic models. The usual reasons for the preference of these types of models over the more elaborated process based models are the heavy computational needs and the poor knowledge of the processes in presence. The main objective of this article is to show that computational power and numerical methods are now reaching a state that these long term simulations can be affordably obtained using state-of-the-art process-based models. To accomplish this, the morphodynamic model, that solves explicitly the mass conservation equation for the bathymetry evolution and then actualizes the bathymetry, are used to perform long term simulations for the estuarine bathymetry evolution. The results are compared with a traditional synthetic aggregate parameters basin infilling model of the diffusive type. It is shown that the process based models, while conceptually different, produce physically meaningful and comparable results with the diffusive type models. Moreover, they enable the simulation of conditions not allowed by the formulation of diffusive type models with acceptable computational times, as for example the addition of tide and river input.

Keywords : Morphodynamic modeling; Basin infilling; sediment dynamics; aggregate diffusive type model; Process Based Model.

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