• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.105-118
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• 2000

Anchored measurements (12.5 hr) of suspended sediment concentration and other hydrodynamic parameters were carried out at two stations located at the entrance to Hampyung Bay in summer (August 1999). Tidal variations in water temperature and salinity were in the range of 26.0-27.9$^{\circ}C$ and 30.9-31.5, respectively, indicating exchange offshore and offshore water mass. Active tidal mixing processes at the entrance appear to destroy the otherwise vertical stratification in temperature and salinity in spite of strong solar heating in summer. On the contrary, suspended sediment concentrations show a marked stratification with increasing concentrations toward bottom layer. Clastic particles in suspended sediments consist mostly of very fine to fine silt (4-16 ${\mu}$m) with a poorly-sorted value of 14.7-25.9 ${\mu}$m. However, at slack time with less turbulent energy, flocs larger than 40 ${\mu}$m are formed by cohesion and inter-collision of particles, resulting in a higher settling velocity. Strong ebb-dominated and weak flood dominated tidal currents, in the southwestern and the northeastern part, respectively, result in a seaward residual flow of -10${\sim}$-20 cm $s^{-1}$ at station H1 and a bayward residual flow less than 5.0 cm $s^{-1}$ at station H2. However, mean concentration of suspended sediments at station H1 is higher at flood (95.0-144.1 mg $1^{-1}$) than in ebb (75.8-120.9 mg $1^{-1}$). On the contrary, at the station H2, the trend is reversed with higher concentration at the ebb (84.7-158.4 mg $1^{-1}$) than that at the flood (53.0-107.9 mg $1^{-1}$). As a result, seaward net suspended sediment fluxes ($f_{s}$) are calculated to be -1.7 ${\sim}$-$15.610^{3}$ kg $m^{-2}$ $s^{-1}$ through the whole water column. However, the stations H1 and H2 show definitely different values of the flux with higher ones in the former than in the latter. Alternatively, depth-integrated net suspended sediment loads ($\c{Q}_{s}$) for one tidal cycle are also toward the offshore with ranges of 0.37${\times}$$10^{3}$ kg $m^{-1}$ and 0.21${\times}$$10^{3}$ kg $m^{-1}$, at station H1 and H2, respectively. This seaward transport of suspended sediment in summer suggests that summer-time erosion in the Hampyung muddy tidal flats is a rather exceptional phenomenon compared to the general deposition reported for many other tidal flats on the west coast of Korea.