Tidal Level Response to Sea-Level Rise in the Yangtze Estuary

The rise of tidal level in tidal reaches induced by sea-level rise has a large impact on flood control and water supply for the regions around the estuary. This paper focuses on the variations of tidal level response along the tidal reaches in the Yangtze Estuary, as well as the impacts of upstream discharge on tidal level response, due to the sea-level rise of the East China Sea. Based on the Topex/Poseidon altimeter data obtained during the period 1993 similar to 2005, a stochastic dynamic analysis was performed and a forecast model was run to predict the sea-level rise of the East China Sea. Two-dimensional hydrodynamic numerical models downscaling from the East China Sea to estuarine areas were implemented to analyze the rise of tidal level along the tidal reaches. In response to the sea-level rise, the tidal wave characteristics change slightly in nearshore areas outside the estuaries, involving the tidal range and the duration of flood and ebb tide. The results show that the rise of tidal level in the tidal reaches due to the sea-level rise has upstream decreasing trends. The step between the stations of Zhangjiagang and Shiyiwei divides the tidal reaches into two parts, in which the tidal level response declines slightly. The rise of tidal level is 1 similar to 2.5 mm/a in the upper part, and 4 similar to 6 mm/a in the lower part. The stations of Jiangyin and Yanglin, as an example of the upper part and the lower part respectively, are extracted to analyze the impacts of upstream discharge on tidal level response to the sea-level rise. The relation between the rise of tidal level and the upstream discharge can be fitted well with a quadratic function in the upper part. However, the relation is too complicated to be fitted in the lower part because of the tide dominance. For comparison purposes, hourly tidal level observations at the stations of Xuliujing and Yanglin during the period 1993 similar to 2009 are adopted. In order to uniform the influence of upstream discharge on tidal level for a certain day each year, the hourly tidal level observations are corrected by the correlation between the increment of tidal level and the increment of daily mean upstream discharge. The rise of annual mean tidal level is evaluated. The resulting rise of tidal level at the stations of Xuliujing and Yanglin is 3.0 mm/a and 6.6 mm/a respectively, close to the rise of 5 mm/a according to the proposed relation between the rise of tidal level and the upstream discharge.