Herein we study the general interaction of two vortex patches in a single-layer quasi-geostrophic shallowwater flow. Steadily-rotating equilibrium states are found over a wide parameter space spanning the Rossby deformation length, vortex area ratio, potential vorticity ratio, and gap between their innermost edges. A linear stability analysis is then used to identify the critical gap separating stable and unstable solutions, over the entire range of area and potential vorticity ratios, and for selected values of the Rossby deformation length. A representative set of marginally unstable equilibrium states are then slightly perturbed and evolved by an accurate contour dynamics numerical algorithm to understand the long-term fate of the instabilities. Not all instabilities lead to vortex merger; many in fact are characterised by weak filamentation and a small adjustment of the vortex shapes, without merger. Stronger instabilities lead to material being torn from one vortex and either wrapped around the other or reduced to ever thinning filamentary debris. A portion of the vortex may survive, or it may be completely strained out by the other.

We examine the equilibrium forms, linear stability and nonlinear evolution of two patches having oppositesigned, uniform potential vorticity anomalies in a single-layer shallow-water flow, under the quasi-geostrophic approximation. We widely vary the vortex area ratio, the potential vorticity anomaly ratio, as well as the Rossby deformation length to unravel the full complexity of possible interactions in this system. Oppositesigned vortex interactions turn out to be far richer than their like-signed counterparts, comprehensively examined in a previous study (Jalali and Dritschel 2018, Geophys. Astrophys. Fluid Dyn. 2018, 112, 375). Unstable equilibria may evolve into a myriad of forms, many unsteady and aperiodic, and the original two vortex patches may break up into many patches which survive for long times, perhaps indefinitely.

A model is presented of particle advection near groynes in an open channel. Open channel hydrodynamics is modelled using the shallow water equations, obtained as the depth-averaged form of Reynolds-averaged continuity and Navier-Stokes momentum equations. A Lagrangian particle-tracking model is used to predict trajectories of tracer particles advected by the flow field, with bilinear interpolation representing the continuous flow field. The particle-tracking model is verified for chaotic advection in an alternating flow field of a pair of blinking vortices. The combined shallow flow and Lagrangian particle-tracking model is applied to the simulation of tracer advection in flow past a pair of side-wall cavities separated by a groyne, and in an open rectangular channel containing a pair of parallel groynes oriented normal to the channel wall. The study is potentially useful in understanding mixing processes in shallow flow fields near hydraulic structures in wide rivers,

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