Numerical Study of Flow and Sediment Variation Affected by Sea-Level Rise in the North Passage of the Yangtze Estuary

ABSTRACT Shen, Q.; Gu, F.; Qi, D., and Huang, W., 2014. Numerical study on the flow and sediment variation affected by the sea-level rise in the north passage of the Yangtze estuary. A three-dimensional, sigma coordinate coastal ocean model, based on unstructured C-grid and semi-implicit finite volume method, is built to study the flow and sediment variation affected by the sea-level rise (SLR) at the north passage of the Yangtze estuary. Firstly, the details of the numerical method used in this model are introduced, including the layout of model variables, the discretization of the governing equations and the semi-implicit method, etc. Then, two test cases are employed to verify the proposal model, including an idealized test case as well as a simulation of the tidal flow and mass transport at the north passage of the Yangtze Estuary. Finally, based on the verified model, a numerical study on the flow and sediment variation affected by the SLR at the north passage of the Yangtze estuary is carried out. T...