Coupling Effects of Unsteady River Discharges and Wave Conditions on Mouth Bar Formation

As a key morphological unit at delta front, the evolution of mouth bar is of critical importance to channel bifurcation and the formation of deltaic distributaries, and therefore have received wide attention, primarily using numerical modelling approaches. Notably, the existing numerical modelling studies were mostly carried out under the assumption that most of the sediments are delivered to the ocean during bankfull discharge stages, so is the most significant deltaic morphological evolution, and hence periods of relatively low river discharge were `safely' neglected, leaving out the effects of unsteadiness of river discharge on the relevant morphodynamic processes altogether. However, the above assumption is worth reviewing in the context of combined fluvial and marine forcing as the relative wave strength has been repeatedly proved to be a critical parameter in estuarine-deltaic morphodynamics. In natural deltas, the period of high river discharge may or may not coincide with the occurrence of maximum wave strength, which further complicates their coupling effects. To assess the coupling effects of unsteady river discharges and wave conditions on mouth bar formation, numerical experiments using Delft3D-SWAN were conducted in this study. A host of combined high-and-low river discharges coupled with varying wave strengths were assumed to mimic the natural variability. Numerical simulation results suggest the existence of three regimes for mouth bar formation, namely, nonexistence of mouth bar (G1), formation of ephemeral mouth bar (G2) and formation of stable mouth bar (G3), which were dictated by the relative wave strength during both onset and reworking stages as well as the reworking time. Implications of the mouth bar formation regimes on delta distributary networks were also discussed. The findings have implications for coastal management at estuaries and deltas such as erosion prevention and mitigation, water and sediment regulation scheme, etc.