A WATER BUDGET STUDY OF PUGET SOUND AND ITS SUBREGIONS

(Mark A. Friebertshauser and Alyn C. Duxbury)

INTRODUCTION

Estuaries, the partially isolated arms of the sea along the coast where
freshwater dilutes seawater, have a net circulation that is driven by the Underlying
addition of freshwater and modified by tidal and wind mixing. This net processes
circulation controls the flushing of estuaries and determines many of the
properties of the water within them.

The net circulation, or inflow and out- flow of water, at the mouth of an Underlying
estuary can be determined by direct measurements of flow with depth across
processes; existing
the mouth. Direct measurements must be made over a considerable period to
permit determination of both a temporally and a spatially integrated net flow.
state of knowledge;
The expense and effort required to obtain a measured net flow distribution methodology.
with depth on a seasonal basis lead most investigators to arrive at estimates Constrains and
of the net circulation in an estuary by an indirect approach using a budget difficulties
analysis.

The budget approach in its simplest form assumes that the volume of water
and total salt content in an estuary, as averaged over a given period, are The uncertainty or
constant. Therefore, water from all sources flowing into an estuary must be question to be
compensated by an outflow of equal magnitude, and the salt carried in by one studied
flow must equal the salt carried out by another. These assumptions are crude
and tend not to hold in real estuaries, especially if periods over which
budgets are calculated are less than a year.

Rivers adding freshwater to estuaries suffer periodic changes in their

discharge rates, and thus the amount of freshwater contained in an estuary Constrains and
must vary as well as the total salt content. Changes of density within an difficulties
estuary, and seasonal fluctuations in atmospheric pressure, cause a variation
that is measurable as a sea level change. The change in freshwater content
and in the volume of the estuary affects the exchange of water with the sea at
the estuary mouth to complicate further the assessment of the actual budget.
Processes external to the estuary also play a role in the budgets; coastal
upwelling or downwelling alters the density of the water delivered to the
estuary and may significantly change the inflow rate if this water can bodily
displace the deeper water lying behind the entrance sill of the estuary.

Puget Sound has many more factors controlling the influx and efflux of water
than are assumed in the simplest budget approach; the equations that define Geographic location;
the water and salt budgets cannot be the simple expressions of “water in key features;
equals water out” and “salt in equals salt out,” More variables must be Constrains and
considered. This paper presents an effort to determine physically meaningful
difficulties; authors
fluxes and budgets of Puget Sound as a total system, using a more applicable
set of budget equations. Since Puget Sound may also be divided into ´s approach to the
subregions that lend themselves to the same analysis, calculations have been problem
made accordingly. This allows comparison of the net circulation of one
subsection with another and with the total Puget Sound region and leads to
further understanding of the factors causing circulation to vary within the
sound.

Date: 24th May, 2016; taken from:

http://courses.washington.edu/ocean220/misc/Examples-of-Introductions.pdf