Recolonization patterns of benthic assemblages after relict sand dredging in the central Tyrrhenian sea

Recolonization patterns of benthic assemblages after relict sand dredging were investigated in an area offshore of Capo d’Anzio (central Tyrrhenian Sea). Surveys were performed before, during, and after dredging in 2007. Sampling stations were located within and outside the dredging site in water depths between 40 and 56 m. Defaunation due to sand extraction was the main impact observed in the inner stations and in stations located in proximity of the dredging site. At the inner stations, 9 months after dredging, a significant increase in species richness and diversity was observed: the sediment removal led to an increase of the sandy sediment fraction, favouring the settlement of sabulicolous species. A decrease in number of individuals and species was also observed in most of the outer stations, probably due to fine sediment redeposition. Recolonization of macrobenthic assemblages was essentially achieved at inner stations both in terms of abundance and species richness, while at outer stations it was still in progress. Results of this study, providing a picture of recovery times and processes in the Tyrrhenian Sea, could be used to develop predictions of the effects of future offshore sand dredging projects in comparable areas. Monitoring programs and research have a key role to provide a more detailed overview of biological recovery processes and times in different regions and with different dredging intensity.     

Warming of intermediate water in the sea of Okhotsk since the 1950s

Okhotsk Sea Intermediate Water (OSIW), the source water for ventilation of North Pacific Intermediate Water, exhibits a multidecadal warming trend. Historical data show that OSIW temperatures increased by 0.28, 0.57, 0.31 and 0.10°C during 1955 to 2003 at potential densities of 26.8, 27.0, 27.2 and 27.4σ _θ , at depths of approximately 250, 500, 700 and 900 m, respectively. This rate of warming is much faster than that of the global ocean. This OSIW warming is likely linked to the reduced ventilation of cold Dense Shelf Water associated with brine rejection during sea ice formation.     

Preliminary results about the stability of an intermediate water current

Experiments were run on a 14 m diameter rotating platform to study the stability conditions for a constant volume flow rate current of intermediate water. The flow was introduced in a two-layer system initially at rest in solid body rotation, along the sidewall of the tank, and allowed freely to evolve. A sink collected the intermediate water and thus ensured that the free surface height was constant. Thus the upstream conditions were the rotation rate, the volume flow rate, the density and the initial width of the intermediate current, which was in geostrophic equilibrium when it left the source; i.e. its thickness along the wall at the source was fixed by this condition. The relevant parameters appear to be the Ekman and the Burger numbers. The data collected from the experiments are very consistent, and it appears that there were five typical flow regimes: (1) a stable current along the whole basin; (2) a series of cyclonic vortices attached to the outer edge of the current, with an upstream stable current; (3) a large cyclonic vortex attached to an anticyclonic instability; (4) dipoles shed from the current into the interior fluid; and (5) generation of lenses of intermediate water, similar to meddies. This last result shows that no topographical effect is required to generate such long-lived lenses, which then drift slowly upstream as the dipoles do.     

Mercury levels in the dissolved and particulate fractions of the Tyrrhenian sea

Determination of the actual mercury concentration in Mediterranean basin seawater was achieved by means of an instrument based on fluorescence spectrometry developed for this purpose, during a field study aboard the oceanographic ship “L.F. Marsili”, between August 1980 and May 1982.Dissolved ·total’ and ·reactive’ mercury and mercury associated with particulate matter were determined on surface and subsurface waters in the Tyrrhenian Sea from La Spezia to Sicily.Concentrations in the range 1.4–19.7 ng l⁻¹ for ·total dissolved mercury’, 0.5–5.9 ng l⁻¹ for ·reactive dissolved mercury’ and 0.3–8.0 ng l⁻¹ for mercury associated with the particulate matter, were measured on surface and subsurface waters in the Tyrrhenian Sea from La Spezia to Sicily.Even if the mean value of the total mercury concentration (dissolved + particulate) was found to be about twice as high as those observed for the oceans, the difference does not seem to be as high as predicted by the model proposed by Buffoni and co-workers to explain the large difference of mercury levels between tunas caught, respectively, in the Mediterranean and in the Oceans.     

Bacterial response to presence of eukaryote inhibitors in water from a coastal marine environment

A method involving chemical (cycloheximide, thiram) inhibition of protozoan bacterivores was applied in an attempt to estimate marine bacterioplanktonic growth rates. The inhibitors were capable of preventing growth of marine protozoan bacterivores at concentrations which did not inhibit growth of marine bacterial assemblages. Use of the predator-inhibition method with incubated water samples from a nearshore marine environment indicated that protozoan grazing control of the size of bacterial standing crop was quite variable with time and site. The apparent degree of control ranged from non-existent to complete. As a means of estimating bacterial generation times, the predator-inhibition method gave results more closely aligned with those of a dividing-cells technique than a [³H]thymidine technique.     

Water exchange and water quality in the coastal zone in the presence of structures

The water exchange and water quality around coastal structures are considered by analytical, numerical and experimental methods. Water exchange for a small yacht harbour at the Black Sea coast is discussed as an application example. Physical and numerical experiments were carried out to determine the wave induced current field and to correlate the water exchange inside the area around the harbour mole. A hydraulic approach was applied to estimate the water exchange intensities for typical zones. The proposed mathematical model is an irregular wave-current model which includes the interaction between waves and current and a modified breaking criterion. The evolution of salinity concentration during the experimental investigations shows the water exchange intensity. A satisfactory agreement between calculated and measured concentration evolution was obtained.     

Long-term changes in sea surface temperature(SST) within the southern Levantine Basin

Knowledge of sea surface temperature(SST) behaviour is vital for long-term climate scenarios. This study highlights essential outcomes about the distinguishable and unsurprising warming of the SST along the southern border of the Levantine Basin. The analysis is based on monthly SST data for the period 1948–2018. The southern Levantine Basin has undergone SST increase, during the last 71 years. In this study, a consistent warming trend has been found for the analysed SST data series, with a rate of 0.04°C/a, i.e., 0.4°C/(10 a). From 1975 to 1991 the mean annual SST was 17.1°C, and this increased to be 19.2°C, over the period 2002–2018. Results revealed two opposite trends of variability: a decreasing trend(–0.06°C/a) over the period 1975–1991, and an increasing trend(0.2°C/a) from 2002 to 2018. Over the period 1948–2018, positive mean annual SST anomalies had an average of1.8°C, and negative anomalies had an average of –1.1°C. The lowest SST total increase was found from January to April, with values about 0.03°C, while the highest warming appeared from June to September. The driving mechanisms behind the SST changes need to be more investigated, to understand the future trends and impacts of climate change in the Levantine Basin.     

Shocks in a coastal boundary current

We studied shocks in a coastal boundary current with zero potential vorticity. By coastal boundary current, we mean a semigeostrophic light fluid flow over an infinitely deep dense fluid and along a coast on its right hand side, with its lower interface exposed to the ocean surface at some finite distance from the coast. The shocks are assumed to conserve mass and momentum. It is found that the shocks can be classified into two categories, coastal shocks and frontal shocks, by the signs of the upper layer flux relative to the shocks. Coastal shocks, for which the relative upper layer flux is negative, always propagate downstream. The upper layer at the coast is thicker on the upstream sides of coastal shocks than on the downstream sides. Frontal shocks, for which the relative upper layer flux is positive, propagate upstream as well as downstream. In most cases, the current is wider on the downstream sides of frontal shocks than on the upstream sides. However, under the circumstances that the current is nearly separated from the coast, the current is wider on the upstream sides of frontal shocks. Coastal and frontal shocks both dissipate energy of the current. We also demonstrate that special shocks with no light fluid on the downstream sides cannot exist irrespective of the potential vorticity distribution.     

The statistical distribution of nearbed wave orbital velocity in intermediate coastal water depth

The statistical distribution of wave orbital velocity in intermediate coastal water depth has been quantitatively determined from the comprehensive field velocity data collected near the seabed in this study. Two ocean ADV current meters, which were mounted at 0.5 m above the seabed on two separate stainless steel tripods sitting on the seabed, were used to measure instantaneous water particle velocities at a 2 Hz sampling rate for 17.07 min every hour in two coastal water depths of 11 m and 23 m in nine field deployments over a period of 2 years. The zero-crossing method is applied to analyse the field velocity data collected in each field deployment to obtain a large sample of wave orbital velocity amplitudes of individual waves. Based on the collected field velocity data, it is found that the histogram of instantaneous wave orbital velocities perfectly follows the Gaussian distribution as commonly assumed, while the histogram of wave orbital velocity amplitudes is less accurately described by the Rayleigh distribution than the modified Rayleigh and the Weibull distribution. It is also found that large orbital velocity amplitudes are generally overestimated by the Rayleigh distribution, but well predicted by the modified Rayleigh and the Weibull distribution. The expected value of maximum orbital velocity in a velocity record of finite size is also derived from the three distributions and found to agree well with the present field data.     

从“煮海为盐”到“沿海经济带建设”——论盐城沿海滩涂开发的路径选择

沿海滩涂是盐城市最大的资源优势开发利用好这片天赋资源是盐城经济社会发展的永恒课题，本文拟通过对盐城市沿海滩涂开发模式的探讨，分析沿海滩涂开发的路径选择的内在原因，以期对今后滩涂开发战略制定有所裨益。     

厦门市近岸海域水环境污染现状及对策研究

厦门市位于中国东南沿海,台湾海峡西岸,具有重要的战略地位。然而随着经济社会的发展,近岸海域水环境污染已成为影响厦门市环境质量的瓶颈。文章在分析近岸海域水质状况的基础上,阐述了厦门近岸海域主要污染物来源及污染的主要原因,并提出了关于提高厦门近岸海域水环境质量的对策建议。     

On the potentiality of using the fluorescence of humic substances for the determination of hydrological structures in coastal sea waters and in inland water basins

This paper describes the potentialities of the characteristics of the fluorescence of humic substances (HS), namely, their intensity normalized to the Raman band intensity of water and the shape of their fluorescence band, as indications of the hydrological structures of the surface water layer in marine coastal areas (using the example of the North Sea region near the East Frisian Islands and the estuary zone of the Weser River) and in inland water basins (using the example of the Rybinsk Reservoir). We demonstrate that the HS fluorescence band??s shape parameters allow stricter discrimination of the dominant water masses as compared to the admixtures?? concentration-related indicators (the salinity, electric conductivity, and HS fluorescence intensity).     

Meso-scale variability of coastal suprabenthic communities in the southern Tyrrhenian Sea (western Mediterranean)

Meso-scale spatial variability of coastal suprabenthic communities inhabiting muddy bottoms at 50–80 m depth in three gulfs of northern Sicily (Western Mediterranean) was here investigated. Although similar as concerns the hydrological and oceanographic conditions, the three areas, that encompass a large portion of the continental shelf (135 km), are characterized by different geo-morphological features. In addition, they are subjected to different trawl fishery pressures. The Gulf of Castellammare is a semi-enclosed bay, where the trawling activity has been banned since 1990. The Gulf of Termini Imerese and the Gulf of Sant’Agata are open areas, subjected to high trawl fishing intensity. In terms of density, gammarid amphipods showed differences among the three gulfs; in terms of biomass, cumaceans and amphipods were more abundant in the Gulf of Castellammare than in the other two areas. Multivariate analyses provided evidence for separation of suprabenthic assemblages between the Gulf of Castellammare and the other two gulfs. The Gulf of Castellammare seemed to host the most diversified and stable community according to α- and β-diversity indices. In the same way the low value of δ¹³C vs. δ¹⁵N correlation found in the gulf of Castellammare, which evidences the occurrence of several food sources, supports the idea of a higher stability in the semi-enclosed, trawl-ban area. In the other two areas δ¹³C vs. δ¹⁵N correlations were high, suggesting the existence of a pelagic source sustaining the suprabenthic communities. This is also confirmed by the lower δ¹³C concentrations found in suprabenthic species. Taking into account the homogeneous oceanographic conditions among gulfs, other factors, such as geo-morphology and trawling pressure should be involved in the observed differences among the three areas in terms of assemblage structure, diversity, and trophodynamics of suprabenthic communities.     

Sinking of less dense water in the bottom Ekman layer formed by a coastal downwelling current over a sloping bottom

Laboratory experiments on the dynamics of a downwelling coastal current over a sloping bottom were conducted in a tank on a rotating platform. The current was generated by a source of stable water flow of the same density (barotropic case) or of lesser density (baroclinic case) compared with the surrounding water in the tank. It was found that even in the case of the baroclinic current, a less dense water downflow in the bottom Ekman layer was formed under certain conditions. At some moment, this downflow undergoes convective instability. Taking into account the results of the experiment, the parameters of the bottom Ekman layer on the continental shelf/slope of the Black Sea were preliminarily estimated and the possible sinking depth of less dense water was calculated.     

威海南部近岸海域表层海水化学要素时空变化及富营养化研究

为了客观评价威海南部近岸海域海水化学要素时空分布及富营养化状况,分别于2013年春季、夏季及秋季3个航次进行表层海水水质调查.样品分析表明:调查海域表层海水水质符合二类水质标准,其中DO含量为6.040~7.880 mg/dm~3,DIN含量为0.156~0.252 mg/dm~3,DIP含量为0.006~0.018 mg/dm~3,COD含量为0.670~1.730 mg/dm~3.DO呈现从海岸线向外海逐渐升高的趋势,DIN、DIP及COD均呈现从海岸线向外海逐渐降低的趋势.营养盐的时空变化趋势受外源污染物的输入、养殖生物的排泄输入、浮游植物及大型海藻生长的共同影响.N/P分析表明春季变化最大,夏季次之,秋季变化幅度最小,3个季节中均为磷限制,可以通过控制磷酸盐的输入控制浮游植物的生长,从而避免赤潮的发生.富营养化状态指数分析表明调查海域的富营养化状态指数从海岸向外海逐渐降低,其中2号站(靖海湾湾口)、11号站(乳山湾湾口)及12号站(乳山湾湾口)受外源污染物的影响较大,呈现富营养化.调查表明3个季节的富营养化状态指数逐渐升高,与外源污染物的输入加大及养殖活动的逐渐频繁密切相关.     

Effects of environmental gradients concerning water qualities on the structure of the phytoplankton community in the coastal sea

The effects on the structure of the phytoplankton community of in situ environmental gradients concerning water qualities, formed during the mixing process of coastal with oceanic waters, were investigated on macro scale over a wide area of the Seto Inland Sea, Japan.The community structure of the phytoplankton varied almost constantly along the in situ environmental gradients in the community, which was shown by use of the diversity index rather than a mere listing of the phytoplankton community. These observations were considered to be the result of the direct or indirect response of the phytoplankton community to environmental gradients which occur in situ, which mean a series of variations of the habitat of the phytoplankton community. Their effects were reflected not in biomass but in the structure of the phytoplankton community. It was difficult to establish quantitatively the extent of their effects because of the variability in the degree of the environmental gradients which occur in situ.