Use of a hydrodynamic model for the management of water renovation in a coastal system

In this contribution we investigate the hydrodynamic response in Alfacs Bay (Ebro Delta, NW Mediterranean Sea) to different anthropogenic modifications in freshwater flows and inner bay–open sea connections. The fresh water coming from rice field irrigation contains nutrients and pesticides and therefore affects in multiple ways the productivity and water quality of the bay. The application of a nested oceanographic circulation modelling suite within the bay provides objective information to solve water quality problems that are becoming more acute due to temperature and phytoplankton concentration peaks during the summer period when seawater may exceed 28&thinsp;∘C, leading to high rates of mussel mortality and therefore a significant impact on the local economy. The effects of different management “solutions” (like a connection channel between the inner bay and open sea) are hydrodynamically modelled in order to diminish residence times (e-flushing time) and water temperatures. The modelling system, based on the Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS), consists of a set of nested domains using data from CMEMS-IBI for the initial and open boundary conditions (coarser domain). One full year (2014) of simulation is used to validate the results, showing low errors with sea surface temperature (SST) and good agreement with surface currents. Finally, a set of twin numerical experiments during the summer period (when the water temperature reaches 28&thinsp;∘C) is used to analyse the effects of proposed nature-based interventions. Although these actions modify water temperature in the water column, the decrease in SST is not enough to avoid high temperatures during some days and prevent eventual mussel mortality during summer in the shallowest regions. However, the proposed management actions reveal their effectiveness in diminishing water residence times along the entire bay, thus preventing the inner areas from having poor water renewal and the corresponding ecological problems.</p

Performance analysis of atmospheric optical communication systems with spatial diversity affected by correlated turbulence

This paper presents a complete analytical framework for obtaining the performance associated with a free-space optical (FSO) communication system with a spatial diversity and equal gain-combining technique. The system is affected by gamma gamma scintillations with different realistic degrees of channel correlation depending only on the physical parameters of the link. We derive new analytical closed-form expressions for the average bit error rate (ABER) considering different scenarios to provide very realistic behavior of the system including different numbers of FSO receivers in several geometric configurations, with different receiving areas, different path lengths, and a variety of turbulence conditions. Furthermore, a very accurate approximate closed-form expression is also derived for the ABER of any generic coding scheme with either a very complex or, directly, no closed-form expression for its associated conditional BER that is first obtained in the ideal case of absence of turbulence. Numerical results via Monte Carlo simulation are provided to corroborate the validity of all the derived analytical expressions