SIMULATION OF MORPHOLOGY IN THE TIDAL ENVIRONMENTS

Abstract

This study aims to develop a physically-based morphodynamic model in order to reproduce incision of tidal creek networks as well as evolution of geomorphology in the tidal environments. The process of incision and long-term geomorphologic evolution on tidal flats and marsh is of practical significance from the environmental view point. Generally, it is postulated that tidal creeks are developed as a result of ecomorphologic processes of tidal system driven by tidal energy. Some previous investigations have provided significant insight to this problem. However, there is still lack of a physically-based modeling approach that can replicate the initiation and evolution process of this phenomenon. In this study, physically-based model was applied to a narrow area referred to as tidal flats in order to provide quantitative and qualitative evaluation of its reproducibility. Calculation was conducted for different time scale up to 350 days. Calculation results revealed that the incision of tidal network and its initial development process can satisfactorily be reproduced by a physically-based computational model.