Coastal Mixing Observation and Operation of Long-Term Coastal Monitoring Station

This study focus on the land-sea interaction process in coastal ocean. The purposes are twofold, i.e.development of high-resolution in-situ/remote sensing technologies for observation and discussion onmixing and diffusion processes in coastal ocean; and secondly, long-term monitoring of coastal environmentat northwestern coast of Taiwan.The miniaturized drifters array and coherent Doppler microwave radar both are self-developed and willbe applied to coastal ocean hydrodynamic mapping with high spatial resolution in this study. Theminiaturized drifter, which uses the GPS/GLONASS satellite signals and IMU sensors, has improvedaccuracy on current velocity and wave height monitoring. The drifters can be mass deployed due to thelow-cost to obtain multiple Lagrangian trajectories of the current synchronizely. The coherent microwaveradar is capable to detect the water particle velocity using Doppler Effect in each radar scan. The small scaleprocesses such as macrovortices and horizontal eddies induced by the interaction of current to thermaldischarge/estuary/artificial structures can be mapped and studied. The mixing and transport characteristicsof suspended sediment on inner shelf will be discussed. Up to now, prototype of both land-based remotesensing microwave radar and in-situ drifter have been integrated, built and calibrated. The fine-modulationsof instruments, field campaign on thermal discharge and theoretical construction will be concerned mainlyin the first year. Estuary or vicinity water of coastal artificial construction will be choose as study areas inthe next two years.On the other hand, the long-term monitoring of coastal environmental background for the vicinitywaters around the algal reef will be continually carried out using the facilities at NCU TaiCOASTobservatory and TORI TOROS station at Da-Tan breakwater. Monitoring items include waves, surfacecurrents, air-sea gas exchange, and ocean water temperature, salinity, turbidity, chlorophyll and pH.Analysis will be focused on the long-term variability of the hydrodynamic and hydrological factors at thecoastal zone of north Taiwan Strait.