A Case Study on Shear Velocity Estimation in a Protected Coastal Region

Three approaches; eddy-correlation (EC), turbulent kinetic energy (TKE), and inertial dissipation (ID) methods were compared to evaluate their potential for estimation of shear velocity in a protected coastal region. As an independent assessment parameter we used simultaneous oxygen recordings in the vicinity of the sediment-water interface that were compared with theoretical distribution as derived from the respective shear velocity estimates. Overall differences from measured oxygen concentration were 0.2% for EC method, 9.8% for TKE method, and 0.7% and 4.6% for ID method using vertical and longitudinal velocity components, respectively. The results revealed that the EC method appeared to be the best approach though not significantly different from the ID method using vertical velocity component at the study site.