title: Wind Wave Behavior in Fetch and Depth Limited Estuaries.
abstract: Wetland dominated estuaries serve as one of the most productive natural ecosystems through their ecological, economic and cultural services, such as nursery grounds for fisheries, nutrient sequestration, and ecotourism. The ongoing deterioration of wetland ecosystems in many shallow estuaries raises concerns about the contributing erosive processes and their roles in restraining coastal restoration efforts. Given the combination of wetlands and shallow bays as landscape components that determine the function of estuaries, successful restoration strategies require knowledge of wind wave behavior in fetch and depth limited water as a critical design feature. We experimentally evaluate physics of wind wave growth in fetch and depth limited estuaries. We demonstrate that wave growth rate in shallow estuaries is a function of wind fetch to water depth ratio, which helps to develop a new set of parametric wave growth equations. We find that the final stage of wave growth in shallow estuaries can be presented by a product of water depth and wave number, whereby their product approaches 1.363 as either depth or wave energy increases. Suggested wave growth equations and their asymptotic constraints establish the magnitude of wave forces acting on wetland erosion that must be included in ecosystem restoration design.
authors.affiliation: Louisiana Sea Grant, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA.
authors.forename: Arash
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Karimpour
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA.|Center for Computation and Technology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA.|Coastal Studies Institute, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA.
authors.forename: Qin
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Coastal Studies Institute, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA.|Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences, Louisiana Sea Grant, and Coastal Studies Institute Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA.
authors.forename: Robert R
authors.initials: RR
authors.lastname: Twilley