Littoral zone | EPFL Graph Search

The littoral zone or nearshore is the part of a sea, lake, or river that is close to the shore. In coastal ecology, the littoral zone includes the intertidal zone extending from the high water mark (which is rarely inundated), to coastal areas that are permanently submerged — known as the foreshore — and the terms are often used interchangeably. However, the geographical meaning of littoral zone extends well beyond the intertidal zone to include all neritic waters within the bounds of continental shelves. Etymology The word littoral may be used both as a noun and as an adjective. It derives from the Latin noun litus, litoris, meaning "shore". (The doubled t is a late-medieval innovation, and the word is sometimes seen in the more classical-looking spelling litoral.) Description The term has no single definition. What is regarded as the full extent of the littoral zone, and the way the littoral zone is divided into subregions, varies in different contexts. For lake

Density currents driven by differential cooling in lakes: occurrence, dynamics and implications for littoral-pelagic exchange

Tomy Doda

Cross-shore flows exchange water laterally in lakes, with ecological implications for the ecosystem. One example is the convective circulation induced by differential cooling, also known as the thermal siphon. This lateral flow forms when the sloping sides of lakes experience surface cooling. Shallow areas cool faster, which generates lateral density gradients and drives a cold downslope gravity current and an onshore surface flow. The role of this two-layer-circulation in lateral exchange in lakes is poorly understood, due to the lack of long-term and high-resolution measurements of thermal siphons. This thesis aims at filling this gap by investigating the occurrence and dynamics of thermal siphons from extensive in situ observations in a wind-sheltered Swiss lake (Rotsee).We first quantified the seasonality of thermal siphons from one-year-long observations in Rotsee. Thermal siphons occurred on a daily basis from late summer to winter and flushed the littoral region in ~ 10 h. Their duration increased but their intensity decreased over the same period. We linked this seasonality to the change in forcing conditions by testing scaling relationships from theoretical and laboratory-based studies.We then focused on the short-term temporal variability of the transport by quantifying the dynamics of thermal siphons over a diurnal cycle and their interaction with convective plumes. Our results reveal that convective plumes penetrated into the gravity current at night and eroded its upper interface. This vertical mixing generated vertical interface fluctuations and reduced the lateral transport at night. The maximal transport was delayed to daylight conditions when radiative heating weakened penetrative convection.After having quantified the physical water transport, we assessed the role of thermal siphons in the lateral exchange of dissolved gases. We found that both branches of the circulation were capable of transporting gases laterally. The downslope current brought littoral gases to the base of the mixed layer in the stratified region whereas the surface flow transported gases towards the shore. We quantified this exchange for oxygen and methane.Finally, we generalized our observations to other lakes with different bathymetry and forcing conditions. The frequent occurrence of thermal siphons observed in six lakes confirmed that this lateral transport process is ubiquitous in lakes with shallow littoral regions. We showed that our results from Rotsee were applicable to other systems, where the same scaling relationships predicted the formation and intensity of thermal siphons. Based on these results, we proposed a procedure to predict the contribution of thermal siphons for lateral transport in any lake.This thesis provides a comprehensive understanding of the formation and dynamics of thermal siphons and paves the route for integrating this lateral transport process in lake ecosystem research.

EPFL2022

Flushing the Lake Littoral Region: The Interaction of Differential Cooling and Mild Winds

Damien Bouffard, Tomy Doda, Cintia Luz Ramon Casanas, Hugo Nicolás Ulloa Sánchez

The interaction of a uniform cooling rate at the lake surface with sloping bathymetry efficiently drives cross-shore water exchanges between the shallow littoral and deep interior regions. The faster cooling rate of the shallows results in the formation of density-driven currents, known as thermal siphons, that flow downslope until they intrude horizontally at the base of the surface mixed layer. Existing parameterizations of the resulting buoyancy-driven cross-shore transport assume calm wind conditions, which are rarely observed in lakes and thereby restrict their applicability. Here, we examine how moderate winds (less than or similar to 5 m s(-1)) affect this convective cross-shore transport. We derive simple analytical solutions that we further test against realistic three-dimensional numerical hydrodynamic simulations of an enclosed stratified basin subject to uniform and steady surface cooling rate and cross-shore winds. We show cross-shore winds modify the convective circulation, stopping or even reversing it in the upwind littoral region and enhancing the cross-shore exchange in the downwind region. The analytical parameterization satisfactorily predicted the magnitude of the simulated offshore unit-width discharges in the upwind and downwind littoral regions. Our scaling expands the previous formulation to a regime where both wind and buoyancy forces drive cross-shore discharges of similar magnitude. This range is defined by the non-dimensional Monin-Obukhov length scale, chi(MO): 0.1 less than or similar to chi(MO) less than or similar to 0.5. The information needed to evaluate the scaling formula can be readily obtained from a traditional set of in situ observations.

AMER GEOPHYSICAL UNION2022

Effects of temperature on tidally influenced coastal unconfined aquifers

David Andrew Barry, Li Pu, Chenming Zhang

Aquifer-ocean temperature contrasts are common worldwide. Their effects on flow and salinity distributions in unconfined coastal aquifers are, however, poorly understood. Based on laboratory experiments and numerical simulations, we examined the responses of flow processes in tidally influenced aquifers to aquifer-ocean temperature differences. The extent of seawater intrusion and seawater circulation were found to vary with the aquifer-ocean temperature contrast. Compared with the isothermal case, an increase of up to 40% of the tide-induced seawater circulation rate in the intertidal zone was observed when seawater is warmer than groundwater. In contrast, saltwater circulation in the lower saltwater wedge declines notably no matter whether the seawater is warmer or colder than groundwater. As the seawater temperature rises, the contribution of tide-induced circulation to the overall increase of submarine groundwater discharge becomes more important compared with that of density-driven seawater circulation. Both the upper saline plume and the freshwater discharge zone expand significantly with warmer seawater whereas the lower saltwater wedge contracts.

2020

Density currents driven by differential cooling in lakes: occurrence, dynamics and implications for littoral-pelagic exchange

Tomy Doda

EPFL2022