Robert Sanchez
Harvey Mudd College, CA·Earth & Environmental Science
Estuaries, where rivers meet the sea, support distinctive ecosystems as well as aquaculture farms and recreation. Some estuaries receive little river water for part of the year.
- Fields
Earth & Environmental Science
Engineering
Physics
- Topics
estuaries
estuarine circulation
physical oceanography
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2027
What they work on
- Simulate how low-inflow estuary circulation responds to strong surface heating and intense freshwater pulses using the ROMS hydrodynamic model.
- Test the conditions that form mid-estuary thermal plugs and salt plugs, density features that affect mixing and water residence time.
- Vary estuary depth, tidal amplitude and air temperature to compare density-driven and tidally driven circulation regimes.
- Quantify estuary flushing timescales and their response to extreme weather using passive dye tracer experiments in the simulations.
More about the research
These low-inflow estuaries are found in places such as California, Texas and Latin America. They are especially exposed to drought and shrinking freshwater supplies. Most theories of how estuary water circulates were built for estuaries with year-round river flow, and they do not fit low-inflow systems well. So it is hard to predict how these systems will respond to a drier, more extreme climate.
Why it matters
Low-inflow estuaries in drought-prone coasts such as California, Texas and Latin America face growing water scarcity. Better predictions of their circulation and flushing could help coastal managers plan for future climate variability. The results could also support biological and chemical studies of the ecosystems and aquaculture that depend on these waters.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Johanna Rosman
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC·Earth & Environmental Science
Simulate constant wind blowing at different angles to a straight estuarine channel using ROMS (Regional Ocean Modeling System) to see how wind direction controls circulation and salinity.
Paul Montagna
Texas A & M University-Corpus Christi, TX·Earth & Environmental Science
Test whether reduced freshwater runoff lowers alkalinity production in estuarine sediments by changing rates of oxygen-free microbial respiration, by comparing three northwestern Gulf of Mexico estuaries that differ in freshwater input.
John Wilkin
Rutgers University-New Brunswick, NJ·Earth & Environmental Science
Measure water mass and transport variability at the same time in the inflow and outflow straits of the Indonesian Throughflow, using a 3-year mooring array run jointly with China and Indonesia.
The school
Harvey Mudd College: 1 labs on PI Pages, $4M a year on research.
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