Response Characteristics of the Perdido and Wolf Bay System to Inflows and Sea Level Rise

Abstract

Authors collaborated together for the completion of this work. Author JD designed the study, developed and calibrated the Perdido EFDC model, ran the model for all cases, performed data analyses of model results and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. Author XF provided valuable instructions on study design, supervised the data analyses, and reviewed and revised the manuscript. Author VZF contributed by revising and improving the manuscript and interpreting model results due to the sea level rise. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Quantification of Water and Salt Exchanges in a Tidal Estuary

“…The major freshwater inflows into Perdido Bay are Perdido River, Styx River, Elevenmile Creek, and Bayou Marcus [24]. The Perdido River combined with the Styx River provides more than 70% of the freshwater input into the estuary, and mean river discharge recorded at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) station at Barrineau Park, Florida is 21 m 3 ·s −1 [19,21]. Perdido Pass is the primary pathway of salt water to Perdido Bay and controls salinity distributions in Perdido Bay [24].…”

“…Perdido Pass is the primary pathway of salt water to Perdido Bay and controls salinity distributions in Perdido Bay [24]. The width of Perdido Pass ranges from 200 to 500 m, and depth is around 5 m. The diurnal tidal range at Perdido Pass is about 0.2 m [19,20]. Using a 48-hour Lanczos low-pass filter [25], the filtered water surface elevations at three open boundaries (GIWW, the Gulf of Mexico, and Big Lagoon, , which is very small in comparison to stream inflows to Perdido Bay (Table 1).…”

“…The calibrated EFDC model used for this study was developed by Devkota et al [19] for the PBWB system, called the Perdido EFDC model with site-specific model inputs. EFDC is a three-dimensional hydrodynamic model framework that solves continuity, momentum, salt and heat transport equations.…”

“…This study used a previously calibrated Environmental Fluid Dynamic Code (EFDC) model [19] to investigate the flow and salt exchange across various cross sections to understand the underlying transport phenomena and mechanisms in the Perdido Bay and Wolf Bay (PBWB) system ( Figure 1) including additional calibration on filtered water surface elevation ( Figure 2). Xia et al [20] used the EFDC model to understand distributions and dynamics of salinity and dissolved oxygen at Perdido Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.…”

“…Devkota et al [19] developed and calibrated an EFDC model for the PBWB system to understand the age of water in the system under different inflows from the rivers flowing into Wolf Bay and Perdido Bay In this study, we tried to answer the following three flow and salt exchange related questions: (1) How much salt is imported into Perdido Bay via Perdido Pass connection and how much fresh water is discharged from Perdido Bay to the Gulf of Mexico? (2) What factors are responsible for flow exchanges at different locations?…”