Simulating the influence of various nutrient sources on hypoxia off the Changjiang River Estuary

Hypoxia is increasingly reported off the Changjiang River Estuary with the confluence of multiple high volume nutrient sources. The Regional Ocean Modeling System coupled with a biological model was used to analyze the effect of different nutrient sources on the development of hypoxia off the Changjiang River Estuary. By comparing to observed data, our model suitably captured the regional dynamics of chlorophyll a, dissolved oxygen, and nutrient concentration. A series of sensitivity experiments were conducted to investigate the hypoxia response to the various nutrient sources, such as loading from the Changjiang River, Kuroshio and Taiwan Warm Current. Our model results indicated that nutrients from different sources significantly influenced the hypoxia off the Changjiang River Estuary, and it was mostly affected by nutrients sourced from the Kuroshio. The nutrients input from the Changjiang River had larger impacts on the hypoxia in the north of 30°N than that in the south of 30°N. The nutrients sourced from the Taiwan Strait had a least influence on the hypoxia off the Changjiang River Estuary.