статья в журнале

En

International Journal of Remote Sensing

ISSN:0143-1161
eSSN:1366-5901

2020

Lebedev, S.A.²

Kostianoy, A.G.²

Kostianaia, E.A.⁰

Ekba, Y.A.⁰

10.1080/01431161.2019.1685723

The coastal zone of the northeastern part of the Black Sea is characterized by 80 small rivers with a runoff which may reach 800 m(3) s(-1). Maximum values of the runoff are related to heavy rain that occasionally occurs over the coastal zone. River runoff forms a river plume in the coastal zone of the sea, which, depending on the local wind speed and direction and current velocity and direction, amount of the runoff and density difference with sea water, may propagate in different directions from the river mouth, and may be involved in the mesoscale and sub-mesoscale circulation. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between the runoff of the main rivers along the Russian coast of the Black Sea and the area of the appropriate river plumes. In this paper, we compared the daily runoff from the Mzymta and Sochi rivers and the area of river plumes detected by high concentration of suspended matter acquired daily from Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) of satellite Envisat (Environmental Satellite) on different dates in 2006-2011. We took 1 g m(-3) as a formal threshold to calculate an outer limit and area of the river plume because it better corresponds with the form of the plume on true colour satellite images. As a result, we obtained a linear regression between the river runoff and the river plume area with a correlation coefficient 0.99 for the Mzymta River and a parabolic regression for the Sochi River. A linear regression with a correlation coefficient 0.98 can be applied to the Sochi River as well. The slope of the linear regressions differs three times between these two rivers, which may be explained by a significantly different distance of hydrological gauge stations from the river mouths, as well as by physical and geochemical characteristics of the river mouths. Anyway, such relationships even though they can be specific for each river, will considerably help estimate areas of river plumes and identify coastal regions subject to environmental risks after heavy rain.

2020-02-06 11:31:33