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Characteristics of Salt Water Movement in Iwaki River Estuary, Japan



Author(s)

Mikio Sasaki, Hitoshi Tanaka and Makoto Umeda

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DOI:10.17265/2159-581X/2017.01.002

The present study aims to investigate the characteristics of the motion of salt water and to show the temporal fluctuation of the vertical salinity distribution in Lake Jusan located in the estuary of Iwaki River in Aomori Prefecture, Japan. The Lake Jusan is the best productive water area of the shellfish, corbicula, in Japan in 2013. Then, the lake is very important in Aomori Prefecture as corbicula’s home. The change of the brackish environment influences the ecology of the corbicula shellfish, then, the shellfish harvest changes every year. Now, it is important to make clear the characteristics of the motion of salt water in the lake. In the present study, observations for the motion of the salt water going up to the lake and going down from the lake to the sea were carried out from June to September in 2015. The present study investigates the time change of the salinity distribution in a perpendicular direction and shows that the movement of the saltwater in the lake can be generated well by the theory given by Sasaki et al., 2009.

Estuary, river mouth, brackish water, saltwater, stratified flow, salt wedge, Iwaki River, Lake Jusan.