COMPOSITION AND DRIVING MECHANISMS OF LONGITUDINAL TIDAL AVERAGE SALINITY DISPERSION IN ESTUARIES

There is, as yet, no universal relation to compute the one-dimensional tidal average dispersion for salt intrusion in alluvial estuaries. In this paper, a simple relation is presented in which the different mixing mechanisms are lumped. The expression has been used to describe a wide range of estuaries of different sizes and has proven to be very efficient. In addition, it is shown that the shape of the salt intrusion curves obtained mainly depends on geometrical factors.