Georg Umgiesser

Italian National Research Council | CNR · Institute of Marine Science ISMAR

We analyse the cumulative impacts of climate change in a complex basin-lagoon-sea system continuum, which covers the Nemunas River basin, Curonian Lagoon, and the southeastern part of the Baltic Sea. A unique state-of-the-art coupled modelling system, consisting of hydrological and hydrodynamic models, has been developed and used for this purpose....

We propose a z-coordinate algorithm for ocean models which, thanks to the insertion and removal of surface layers, can deal with an arbitrarily large tidal oscillation independently of the vertical resolution. The algorithm is based on a classical two steps procedure used in numerical simulations with moving boundaries (grid movement followed by a...

We present a novel 3D implementation of a horizontal axis tidal turbine (HATT) in the shallow water hydrostatic code SHYFEM. The uniqueness of this work involves the blade element momentum (BEM) approach: the turbine is parameterized by applying momentum sink terms in the x and y momentum equations. In this way, the turbine performance is the resul...

This paper analyses the variability of the sea level in the Mediterranean Sea and its reproduction with a barotropic model, with and without applying data assimilation. The impact of data assimilation is considered in hindcast and forecast simulations, considering its usefulness for both reanalysis studies and short-term forecasts. We used a two-di...

A Double Multiple Stream Tube (DMST) routine to predict the performance of cross-flow hydrokinetic turbines in real environments is presented, along with a site assessment application to identify the most efficient turbine aspect ratio, solidity and configuration (single, or paired) for a selected area of the Northern Adriatic Sea. The peculiarity...

The finite element model SHYFEM was used to study the hydrodynamics and variability of water level, salinity, temperature, and water residence time (WRT) in the Oualidia lagoon located on the Moroccan Atlantic coast. The lagoon hosts a RAMSAR convention-protected area and also offers a set of valuable ecosystem services providing the source of inco...

This paper presents major gaps and challenges for implementing the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030) in the Mediterranean region. The authors make recommendations on the scientific knowledge needs and codesign actions identified during two consultations, part of the Decade preparatory-phase, framing them in the Medi...

A MATLAB routine, based on a Double Multiple Stream Tube model, developed to quickly predict the performance of cross-flow hydrokinetic turbine, here is presented. The routine evaluate flow data obtained with the open-source marine circulation code SHYFEM. The tool can establish the best locations to place tidal devices taking into account bathymet...

Venice is an iconic place and a paradigm of huge historical and cultural values at risk. The frequency of the flooding of the city centre has dramatically increased in recent decades, and this threat is expected to continue to grow – and even accelerate – through this century. This special issue is a collection of three review articles addressing d...

This paper reviews the state of the art in storm surge forecasting and its particular application in the northern Adriatic Sea. The city of Venice already depends on operational storm surge forecasting systems to warn the population and economy of imminent flood threats, as well as help to protect the extensive cultural heritage. This will be more...

The city of Venice and the surrounding lagoonal ecosystem are highly vulnerable to variations in relative sea level. In the past ∼150 years, this was characterized by an average rate of relative sea-level rise of about 2.5 mm/year resulting from the combined contributions of vertical land movement and sea-level rise. This literature review reassess...

Floods in the Venice city centre result from the superposition of several factors: astronomical tides; seiches; and atmospherically forced fluctuations, which include storm surges, meteotsunamis, and surges caused by atmospheric planetary waves. All these factors can contribute to positive water height anomalies individually and can increase the pr...

The Lagoon of Nador (Morocco) has been subject to relevant man-made changes in recent years, which consisted of closing the inlet and opening a new one, wider and deeper, with long lateral jetties. In this paper, we study some of the consequences of this modification, using a 3D hydrodynamic model that allows a comparison of the two configurations...

On 12 November 2019, an exceptional flood event took place in Venice, second only to the one that occurred on 4 November 1966. Moreover, with four extremely high tides since 11 November 2019, this was the worst week for flooding in Venice since the beginning of sea level records (1872). The event that struck Venice and the northern Adriatic Sea on...

This study provides an in-depth analysis of the Nemunas River watershed, situated in the Baltic Sea basin, and possible future changes to the stream flow, hydrologic regime, sediment (SS), Total Nitrogen (TN) and Total Phosphorus (TP) load from the river to the Curonian Lagoon under different climate change scenarios using high-resolution modelling...

In this study, we apply an ice thermodynamic model to a shallow freshwater lagoon in the southeastern part of the Baltic Sea-the Curonian Lagoon. The model results were compared with the measurement data from three near-shore stations during the period of 2004-2017. The simulation data showed the model to be capable of replicating ice thickness dyn...

The Goro Lagoon Finite Element Model (GOLFEM) presented in this paper concentrates on the high-resolution downscaled model of the Goro Lagoon, along with five Po river branches and the coastal area of the Po delta in the northern Adriatic Sea (Italy) where crucial socio-economic activities take place. GOLFEM was validated by means of validation sco...

Monitoring networks aims at capturing the spatial and temporal variability of one or several environmental variables in a specific environment. The optimal placement of sensors in an ocean or coastal observatory should maximize the amount of collected information and minimize the development and operational costs for the whole monitoring network. I...

A temporally and spatially detailed historical (1985–2018) analysis of cyanobacteria blooms was performed in the Curonian Lagoon (Lithuania, Russia), the largest coastal lagoon in the Baltic Sea. Satellite data allowed for the mapping of cyanobacteria surface accumulations, so-called “scums”, and of chlorophyll-a concentration. The 34-year time ser...

Our aim was to embed a 2D analytical model of a cross-flow tidal turbine inside the open-source SHYFEM marine circulation code. Other studies on the environmental impact of Tidal Energy Converters use marine circulation codes with simplified approaches: performance coefficients are fixed a priori regardless of the operating conditions and turbine g...

Venice is an iconic place and a paradigm of a huge historical and cultural value at risk. The frequency of flooding of the city centre has dramatically increased in recent decades and this threat is expected to continue to grow and even accelerate through this century. This special issue collects three review papers addressing different and complem...

This paper reviews the state-of-the-art in storm surge forecasting and its particular application in the northern Adriatic Sea. The city of Venice relies crucially on a good flood forecasting system in order to protect the extensive cultural heritage, their population, and their economic activities. Storm surge forecasting systems are in place to w...

Floods in the Venice city centre result from the superposition of several factors: astronomical tides, seiches and atmospherically forced fluctuations, which include storm surges, meteotsunamis, and surges caused by planetary waves. All these factors can contribute to positive sea-level anomalies individually and can also result in extreme sea-leve...

The City of Venice and the surrounding lagoonal ecosystem are highly vulnerable to variations in relative sea level. In the past ~150 years, this was characterized by a secular linear trend of about 2.5 mm/year resulting from the combined contributions of vertical land movement and sea-level rise. This literature review reassesses and synthesizes t...

Abstract. Monitoring networks aims at capturing the spatial and temporal variability of one or several environmental variables in a specific environment. The optimal placement of sensors in an ocean or coastal observatory should maximize the amount of collected information and minimize the development and operational costs for the whole monitoring...

In this study, we present an analysis of the hydrodynamic processes under ice cover in the largest lagoon in Europe – the Curonian Lagoon. By applying a finite element numerical modelling system (SHYFEM) and remote sensing ice cover data, the residual circulation, water fluxes through specific areas of the lagoon, saltwater intrusions, and water re...

An overview of the current European capacity in terms of operational modeling of marine and coastal systems is presented. This overview is compiled from a survey conducted in 2018–2019 among members of EuroGOOS and its related network of Regional Operational Oceanographic Systems, addressing the purposes, context and technical specificities of oper...

Hydrodynamic numerical modelling of the Goro lagoon in the delta of Po system with a focus on the effects of dredging new channels (what if scenarios) on the dynamic and thermodynamic of the system

A re-analysis of historical data from two field campaigns was undertaken to examine the accuracy of measurements of bed load ( Q_b ) and total transport ( Q_tot ) of sand in (1) a wave-dominant shoreface off western Newfoundland, Canada, and (2) a tide-dominant inlet of Venice Lagoon, Italy. Video tapes recorded within Sea Carou...

This Science and Innovation Agenda summarises the scientific and technical framework for the development of DANUBIUS-RI. The International Centre for advanced Studies on River-Sea Systems is a distributed environmental research infrastructure dedicated to River-Sea Systems on the Roadmap of the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (E...

Coastal lagoons support intense human activity. Dredging or closing the inlets to regulate water exchanges in order to manage fisheries or improve navigation, prevent floods, reduce pollution or prevent dystrophic crises are among the most frequent management actions. Increased social concerns about the Mar Menor have arisen during the last decades...

The aim of this study was to investigate the sediment dynamics in the largest lagoon in Europe (Curonian Lagoon, Lithuania) through the analysis of in situ data and the application of a sediment transport model. This approach allowed to identify the propagation pathway of the riverine suspended sediments, to map erosion-accumulation zones in the la...

Tintoré et al. Sustained Mediterranean Observing Forecasting System The Mediterranean community represented in this paper is the result of more than 30 years of EU and nationally funded coordination, which has led to key contributions in science concepts and operational initiatives. Together with the establishment of operational services, the commu...

A first-ever spatially detailed record of ice cover conditions in the Curonian Lagoon (CL), Europe's largest coastal lagoon located in the southeastern Baltic Sea, is presented. The multi-mission synthetic aperture radar (SAR) measurements acquired in 2002-2017 by Envisat ASAR, RADARSAT-2, Sentinel-1 A/B, and supplemented by the cloud-free moderate...

Climate scenarios produce climate change-related information and data at a geographical scale generally not useful for coastal planners to study impacts locally. To provide a suitable characterization of climate-related hazards in the North Adriatic Sea coast, a model chain, with progressively higher resolution was developed and implemented. It inc...

In this paper we focus on the model setup scheme for medium-size watershed with high resolution, multi-site calibration, and present results on the possible changes of the Minija River in flow, sediment load, total nitrogen (TN), and total phosphorus (TP) load in the near-term (up to 2050) and long-term (up to 2099) in the light of climate change (...

The oceanographic forecast capability in coastal seas is often limited by the capacity of the numerical models in correctly reproducing the complex morphology of the coastline and the exchange processes between the shelf and the open seas. In the marginal Adriatic Sea this task is of uppermost importance due to the presence of several coastal water...

Oil extraction platforms are potential sources of oil spills. For this reason, an oil spill forecasting system was set up to support the management of emergencies from the oil fields in the Italian seas. The system provides ready-to-use products to the relevant response agencies and optimizes the anti-pollution resources by assessing hazards and ri...

Microbiological impact is critical in coastal areas where tourism is particularly important for both the local and regional economy. Submarine outfalls are commonly used to enhance the dispersion of treated sewage thus avoiding pollution along the coast. The Venice lagoon (North Italy) has a very sensitive ecosystem, due to the morphological and na...

The aim of this study is to assess a different approach of SWAT model setup with enhanced Hydrologic Response Unit (HRU) definition procedure. The method uses a set of customizable MATLAB scripts (hence, SWAT-LAB) to produce HRUs from a combination of topographic, soil, landuse and administrative unit rasterized datasets. We used this approach to s...

Farming of shellfish and seaweeds is a tested tool for mitigating eutrophication consequences in coastal environments, however as many other marine economic activities it should be a subject of marine spatial planning for designating suitable sites. The present study proposes site selection framework for provisional zebra mussel farming in a eutrop...

In this study we investigated the hydrodynamics and the interaction between riverine and marine waters in the Po River-Delta-Sea (RDS) system (Italy). Through the application of an unstructured 3D numerical model to a domain comprising the Po river branches, seven coastal lagoons and the shelf sea, many of the hydrodispersive phenomena evolving fro...

The Mar Menor lagoon has been subjected to high anthropogenic pressures. Among them, in the early 1970s, dredging and enlargement of one of the inlets to make a navigable channel has had strong consequences on the hydrology, ecology, and fisheries of the lagoon. In recent years, changes in agricultural practices have induced an eutrophication proce...

A crucial aspect in climate change is to understand how an ecosystem will adapt under different environmental conditions and how it will influence the ecological resources and the connected human activities. In this study, a numerical model reproduces the growth dynamics, dispersion and settlement of clam’s larvae in the Venice lagoon. On the basis...

In inner coastal waters such as lagoons, which are very turbid and rich in suspended particles, the survival of fecal pollution microorganisms may find favorable environments. In order to better characterize the sources and dynamics of fecal pollution in a strongly turbid environment, in situ observations were made in the Curonian Lagoon. A combina...

A 3D hydrodynamic model has been applied to the Curonian Lagoon to study the pollution impact of E. coli on a new beach that might be opened in the lagoon. Through a field survey the E. coli inputs were measured and then used in the numerical model, and through laboratory experiments the decay rate of E. coli was established. The model has been cal...

Storm winds with direction from western quarter have a negative impact on the shore of the Sambia Peninsula (South-Eastern Baltic). Cliffs and dunes are partly protected against erosion by different constructions including geotextile. Most of them are located at the northern shore of the Sambia Peninsula, namely, near Svetlogorsk and Pionerskiy tow...

The morphology of scour holes at tidal channel confluences was investigated through high-resolution acoustic mapping of the channel network in the Venice Lagoon (Italy). Our investigation identified 29 confluence scours ranging in depth from 7 to 26 m and characterized by different confluence geometry and scour properties. Scours were found at the...

The hydrodynamics and the interaction between riverine and marine waters in the Po River-Delta-Sea (RDS) system (Italy) was investigated. Many of the hydro-dispersive phenomena evolving from the interaction of the different water bodies of the RDS system were described applying an unstructured 3D numerical model to a domain comprising the Po river...

The numerical model are useful instruments to assess quickly and with a high rate of reliability the changes in morphology of the water bodies. For this reason, a numerical model of the Nador Lagoon (Morocco) based on the SHYFEM code (a finite elements shallow water equations model) was implemented and calibrated to assess the improvement of the wa...

Connectivity among marine populations plays a fundamental role in the dynamic of metapopulations and communities. Moreover, genetic connectivity is important for the evolutionary history and adaptive capability of species while demographic connectivity is essential to maintain ecological processes. In coastal lagoons, isolation degree or confinemen...

Dense water (DW) formation commonly occurs in the shallow Northern Adriatic Sea during winter outbreaks, when there is a combination of the cooling of surface waters by the winds and high salinity as a result of reduced river inputs. These DWs subsequently propagate southwards over a period of weeks/months, eventually arriving in the Southern Adria...

In this study we investigated the tidal dynamics in a system of inter-connected land-locked basins formed by the Mediterranean, the Marmara, the Black and the Azov seas (MMBA system). Through the application of an unstructured grid hydrodynamic model to a unique domain representing the whole MMBA system, we simulated the tidal propagation and trans...

Tidal channels are crucial for the functioning of wetlands, though their morphological properties, which are relevant for seafloor habitats and flow, have been understudied so far. Here, we release a dataset composed of Digital Terrain Models (DTMs) extracted from a total of 2, 500 linear kilometers of high-resolution multibeam echosounder (MBES) d...

In this study the effects that lagoons exert on the barotropic tidal dynamics of a regional sea, the Adriatic Sea, were numerically explored. This semi-enclosed basin is one of the places with the highest tidal range in the Mediterranean Sea and is characterised by the presence of several lagoons in its northern part. The tidal dynamics of a system...

Satellite data are rarely used in storm surge models because of the lack of established methodologies. Nevertheless, they can provide useful information on surface wind and sea level, which can potentially improve the forecast. In this paper satellite wind data are used to correct the bias of wind originating from a global atmospheric model, while...

poster

The northern Adriatic Sea is affected by storm surges, which often cause the flooding in Venice and the surrounding areas. We present the results of the eSurge-Venice project, funded by the European Space Agency (ESA) in the framework of its Data User Element programme: the project was aimed to demonstrate the potential of satellite data in improvi...