Restricted Research - Award List, Note/Discussion Page
Fiscal Year: 2023
322 The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (142210)
Principal Investigator: Breier,John A
Total Amount of Contract, Award, or Gift (Annual before 2011): $ 149,918
Exceeds $250,000 (Is it flagged?): No
Start and End Dates: 1/25/23 - 11/15/23
Restricted Research: YES
Academic Discipline: Sch of Earth Env & Marine Sci
Department, Center, School, or Institute: Sch of Earth Env & Marine Sci
Title of Contract, Award, or Gift: An Observational Study of Ship Channel and Shallow Bay Interactions and their Influence on Sediment Transport, Mixing, and Water Quality in Corpus Christi Bay
Name of Granting or Contracting Agency/Entity:
Texas A&M University at Corpus Christi
CFDA: 21.015
Program Title: Resources and Ecosystems Sustainability, Tourist Opportunities, and Revived Economies of the Gulf Coast States
Note:
SAMs 1.1.1--Texas and much of the Gulf Coast interfaces with the Gulf of Mexico through shallow bays, most of which are protected by barrier islands. These bays exchange water through limited inlets, many of which include deep, dredged navigation channels. These estuaries also experience both anthropogenic (e.g., dredging) and naturogenic (e.g., sea-level rise, flood driven salinity dynamics) stressors that may be strongly related to mixing and exchange processes occurring in, around, and through their deep shipping channels. To better understand the influence of physical mixing related processes in and around ship channels on multiple environmental stressors, this project will develop new tools to observe exchange dynamics in ship channels and use them in Corpus Christi Bay to demonstrate the value of real-time data for informed socio-economic management of the Corpus Christi Ship Channel, Port and Bay system.The observations collected during this study will serve as a baseline for mixing processes as they occur in the present ship channel geometry. Future deepening of the ship channel is likely to alter these mixing processes and in so doing alter exchange between the bay and the Gulf of Mexico. This study will provide insight into how future models and simulations of mixing processes in Texas bays may better account for hydrodynamic mixing processes accentuated by shipping channels and how these processes influence nutrient loading, estuarine salinity and the residence times of constituents in general within the bay.
Discussion: No discussion notes