PARENT SESSION
Oral Session 9: Marine Ecology I: Management.
Presiding: D Policansky
Monday, August 2, 8:00 AM to 11:30 AM, Meeting Room C 120.
An approach for classifying tidal regimes based on tidal constituents.
Power, James*,1, 1 U.S. EPA, Newport, Oregon, USA
ABSTRACT- Tidal fluctuations can be one of the dominant physical processes in estuaries. This paper presents a numerical classification of tidal regimes that can be used to summarize local conditions and facilitate comparisons among locations. Tide predictions are customarily calculated using 37 constituents that are expressed as the constituent's amplitude and phase (epoch). Consequently, each constituent for a given location can be viewed as a complex number, and a set of constituents from multiple locations can be examined for patterns using complex principal component analysis. This was done using tidal constituents for 92 primary U.S. tide stations, and clear evidence of tidal regime patterns was obtained, with the first three components dominating. The ecological utility of this classification scheme will be presented, especially as it interacts with a geographic locations day/night cycle.
Key words: estuarine, tide, ecology