A simple model for estimating current velocity in tidal inlets: example from Grådyb in the Danish Wadden Sea

A simple zero-dimensional model relating water-level measurements inside a tidal basin to current velocity in the inlet has been formulated and calibrated for the tidal inlet Grådyb in the Danish Wadden Sea. The model combines a dynamical and a continuity-based approach, and predicts velocity in the inlet with a high correlation between measured and calculated current velocities (R ²=0.94), when tested on the basis of an independent dataset. Once calibrated, the model requires only a minimum of input data (water level and water-level variation in time). It is therefore well suited to bridge the gap between discrete velocity observations (e.g. ADCP profiles used to evaluate the dynamics of an inlet prior to other observations of, amongst others, bedform behaviour) and longer time series of inlet dynamics, and this with a minimum of cpu-time.