Author(s): Cordula Berkenbrink, Hanz D. Niemeyer
Linked Author(s): Cordula Berkenbrink
Keywords: Tide, salinity, artificial neural network (ANN), estuary, waterway deepening
Abstract: The deepening of estuarine waterways primarily effects changes of tidal water levels and secondly those of tidal volumes and salt intrusion. These effects are subjected to Environmental Impact Assessments which are often checked by monitoring for the purpose of preservation of evidence. After the deepening of the waterway in the Outer Weser estuary, certain measurements are carried out among others aimed at detecting potential changes of salinity intrusion. Though the data indicated alterations of salt intrusion into the Weser estuary as a reliable quantification of the changes by conventional procedures when nonlinear regression analysis failed. However, tests with the Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) provided reliable results for each data set gained before and after the waterway deepening. Nevertheless, the application of the ANN that supplied data before deepening of the waterway proved to be a mismatch with the data gained after deepening. These differences provide a reliable measure for the increased salt intrusion into the Weser estuary due to deepening of the Waterway. The method is transferrable to other estuaries in order to determine changing salt intrusion resulting from waterway deepening or other measures
Year: 2017