ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Mar. Sci.
Sec. Coastal Ocean Processes
Sediment Dynamics in Adjacent Bays of Fujian during Late-Spring Spring Tide
Provisionally accepted
- 1Center for ports and maritime safety, Dalian Maritime University, Dalian, China
- 2Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences Institute of Geophysical and Geochemical Exploration, Langfang, China
- 3Ministry of Transport Tianjin Research Institute of Water Transport Engineering, Tianjin, China
- 4Wuxi Haiying-Cal Tec Marine Technology Co., Ltd., Wuxi, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Bays are active land–sea transition zones where the internal hydrodynamic processes control the material exchange between the bay and open sea. Yet, the differences and potential connectivity of those processes between adjacent bays and off-bay areas remains understudied. Using in situ observations during a spring tide in May 2020, complemented with satellite imagery and reanalysis dataset, this study examines sediment dynamics in two neighboring bays of central Fujian—Shenhu Bay (SHB) and Weitou Bay (WTB). Results show that SHB exhibits tidal asymmetry with strong offshore export, while WTB has weaker, vertically divergent residual currents with bottom-layer seaward suspended sediment flux. Outside the bays, residual currents and sediment flux follow a northeastward coastal pathway under late-spring circulation. Sediment transport from bay interiors to mouths and is further transported downstream by regional circulation, potentially entering adjacent bay through exchange between the bay and the open sea. Mechanism analysis indicates that Eulerian residual currents dominate net sediment transport, whereas tidal pumping is minor. These findings reveal sediment export pathways and inter-bay connectivity, advancing understanding of coastal sediment dynamics and material cycling in Fujian waters.
Keywords: Sediment dynamics, residual current, Bay, In-situ observation, coastal processes
Received: 01 Oct 2025; Accepted: 04 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Liu, Hu, Ma, liu, Gu, Yu, Hu, Jin and Zhu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Mengying Hu, humengying@mail.cgs.gov.cn
Yingtao Zhu, zhuyt@tiwte.ac.cn
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.