Preliminary study on the dissolved oxygen distributions and the influential factors in the Daliao River estuary and its adjacent areas

Dissolved oxygen (DO) concentrations were surveyed in the Daliao River Estuary in autumn to investigate the temporal and spatial trends of DO distributions. The results indicate that DO is weakly stratified in the Yingkou section of the Daliao River Estuary, and remains constant vertically in the areas near and out of the entrance. Horizontally, both instantaneous and continuous observations show that the Yingkou section of the Daliao River Estuary is affected by hypoxic conditions; while no conditions of low DO have been observed in the areas near and out of the entrance. DO-salinity correlations exhibit different controlling factors of DO distributions in different sections of the Daliao River Estuary. At the upstream part of the Yingkou section of the Daliao River (A1-A4), oxygen demanding materials and the associated biochemical processes are the main factor controlling the DO distribution, but in the lower part of the Yingkou section and the area near and out of the entrance (A5-A15), tidal advections are more influential for DO distributions.