Enhancement of a Tidal Model for the Loxahatchee River Estuary (Southeastern Florida)

A two-dimensional, depth-integrated tidal model for the Loxahatchee River estuary (Southeastern Florida) is enhanced by examining its sensitivity to: 1) domain extent; 2) advection. The region of interest is modeled with three variations of an unstructured, finite element mesh, including a localized mesh with and without tidal flats, and an extended mesh describing the AIW. Phase and amplitude errors between model output and historical data are quantified at five locations within the Loxahatchee River estuary to assess the performance of the various computational meshes. While it is shown that the tidal flats provide some benefit to the numerical model, the hydrodynamics resulting from the extension of the AIW permit for a more significant improvement of the simulation results. In addition, globally computed velocity residuals reveal significantly different net circulation patterns within the Loxahatchee River estuary, depending on the spatial coverage of the AIW, and further demonstrate the importance of including the AIW in the numerical model. Finally, rotational residual flows generated offshore and within the Loxahatchee River estuary, for when the advective terms are considered, indicate that advection is a contributory factor in the long-term tidal circulation occurring within the estuarine, coastal, and continental shelf waters found along the east coast of Florida.