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Evidence of salt accumulation in beach intertidal zone due to evaporation

In coastal environments, evaporation is an important driver of subsurface salinity gradients in marsh systems. However, it has not been addressed in the intertidal zone of sandy beaches. Here, we used field data on an estuarine beach foreshore with numerical simulations to show that evaporation caus...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Geng, Xiaolong, Boufadel, Michel C., Jackson, Nancy L.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4980607/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27511713
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep31486
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author Geng, Xiaolong
Boufadel, Michel C.
Jackson, Nancy L.
author_facet Geng, Xiaolong
Boufadel, Michel C.
Jackson, Nancy L.
author_sort Geng, Xiaolong
collection PubMed
description In coastal environments, evaporation is an important driver of subsurface salinity gradients in marsh systems. However, it has not been addressed in the intertidal zone of sandy beaches. Here, we used field data on an estuarine beach foreshore with numerical simulations to show that evaporation causes upper intertidal zone pore-water salinity to be double that of seawater. We found the increase in pore-water salinity mainly depends on air temperature and relative humidity, and tide and wave actions dilute a fraction of the high salinity plume, resulting in a complex process. This is in contrast to previous studies that consider seawater as the most saline source to a coastal aquifer system, thereby concluding that seawater infiltration always increases pore-water salinity by seawater-groundwater mixing dynamics. Our results demonstrate the combined effects of evaporation and tide and waves on subsurface salinity distribution on a beach face. We anticipate our quantitative investigation will shed light on the studies of salt-affected biological activities in the intertidal zone. It also impacts our understanding of the impact of global warming; in particular, the increase in temperature does not only shift the saltwater landward, but creates a different salinity distribution that would have implications on intertidal biological zonation.
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spelling pubmed-49806072016-08-19 Evidence of salt accumulation in beach intertidal zone due to evaporation Geng, Xiaolong Boufadel, Michel C. Jackson, Nancy L. Sci Rep Article In coastal environments, evaporation is an important driver of subsurface salinity gradients in marsh systems. However, it has not been addressed in the intertidal zone of sandy beaches. Here, we used field data on an estuarine beach foreshore with numerical simulations to show that evaporation causes upper intertidal zone pore-water salinity to be double that of seawater. We found the increase in pore-water salinity mainly depends on air temperature and relative humidity, and tide and wave actions dilute a fraction of the high salinity plume, resulting in a complex process. This is in contrast to previous studies that consider seawater as the most saline source to a coastal aquifer system, thereby concluding that seawater infiltration always increases pore-water salinity by seawater-groundwater mixing dynamics. Our results demonstrate the combined effects of evaporation and tide and waves on subsurface salinity distribution on a beach face. We anticipate our quantitative investigation will shed light on the studies of salt-affected biological activities in the intertidal zone. It also impacts our understanding of the impact of global warming; in particular, the increase in temperature does not only shift the saltwater landward, but creates a different salinity distribution that would have implications on intertidal biological zonation. Nature Publishing Group 2016-08-11 /pmc/articles/PMC4980607/ /pubmed/27511713 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep31486 Text en Copyright © 2016, The Author(s) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
spellingShingle Article
Geng, Xiaolong
Boufadel, Michel C.
Jackson, Nancy L.
Evidence of salt accumulation in beach intertidal zone due to evaporation
title Evidence of salt accumulation in beach intertidal zone due to evaporation
title_full Evidence of salt accumulation in beach intertidal zone due to evaporation
title_fullStr Evidence of salt accumulation in beach intertidal zone due to evaporation
title_full_unstemmed Evidence of salt accumulation in beach intertidal zone due to evaporation
title_short Evidence of salt accumulation in beach intertidal zone due to evaporation
title_sort evidence of salt accumulation in beach intertidal zone due to evaporation
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4980607/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27511713
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep31486
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