Methodology for estimation of river discharge and application of the Zhujiang River Estuary(ZRE)

The ZRE is a very complicated estuary with multi-river inlets.The total sum of river discharge in the upstream(away from the tidal influence region) of the Zhujiang River can be easily measured.However,when the total river discharges into the estuary from eight inlets,it is a very difficult task to obtain a continuous river discharge flux data from each branch of the Zhujiang River.However,the different ratios of river discharges between the river branches can significantly affect the estuarine circulation feature and baroclinic process.Moreover,the accuracy of numerical forecast for the estuarine circulation is very much dependent on the accuracy of the time history of the river discharge flux for each branch.Therefore,it is important to estimate river discharge from each branch in order to improve the accuracy of the model forecast for the circulation of the ZRE.The development of a new estimation method of the river discharges is focused on based on the system identification theory,numer modeling and the time history from the CODAR observed sea surface current.The new approach has been applied to estimating the time history(hourly) of river discharge from each branch in the upstream of the ZRE.