Advective Acceleration and Mass Transport in Estuaries

The advective acceleration term is examined using a simplified hydrodynamic analysis for partially mixed estuaries. Although neglecting advective acceleration yields a different surface slope, it provides the same velocity profile as the calculation does with the advective acceleration term. In many water quality modeling studies, the slope of the free surface is usually not used in determining the distribution of water quality constituents on a tidally averaged basis. As long as the calculations yields the same results in velocity profiles, neglecting the advective acceleration term in the calculation would be allowed as an approximation when the tidal current data to generate the advective acceleration term are not available.