Part I. Hydraulics of tidal inlets: simple analytic models for the engineer

Abstract

Inlets are common coastal features around the world. Essentially aninlet connects a lagoon, a bay or an estuary to the ocean (or sea), and theflow through the inlet channel is primarily induced by the tidal rise andfall of water level in the ocean. When speaking of the hydraulics of an inlet,one is interested mainly in determining the flow through the inlet andthe tidal variation in the bay, given the following:(1) Inlet geometry(2) Bay geometry(3) Bottom sediment characteristics in the inlet(4) Fresh water inflow into the bay (and out throughthe inlet)(5) Ocean tide characteristicsA combination of all these factors can produce a rather complex situation. (PDF contains 34 pages.)