Georg Umgiesser

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

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255
Publications
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6,705
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Publications

Publications (255)
Article
Full-text available
This study advances the understanding of climate projection variabilities in the Nemunas River, Curonian Lagoon, and southeastern Baltic Sea continuum by analyzing the output of a coupled ocean and drainage basin modeling system forced by a subset of climate models. A dataset from a downscaled high-resolution regional atmospheric climate model driv...
Preprint
Full-text available
This study advances the understanding of climate projection uncertainties in the Nemunas River, Curonian Lagoon, and southeastern Baltic Sea continuum by analyzing a subset of climate models, focusing on a coupled ocean and drainage basin model. Four downscaled and bias-corrected high-resolution regional atmospheric climate models were used to set...
Article
Full-text available
Sea-level rise (SLR) and flooding are among the climate change stressors challenging human society in the twenty-first century. Many coastal areas and cities are implementing innovative solutions to mitigate flood risks and enhance resilience. Venice has recently developed a system of storm surge mobile barriers, known as the MoSE (Modulo Speriment...
Article
Full-text available
We propose a discrete multilayer shallow water model based on z-layers, 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-step procedure used in numerical simulations with moving boundaries (grid movem...
Article
Introducing ESTAS-AQUABC, a new software tool designed for modelling nutrient cycles and eutrophication in highly-eutrophic estuaries. Our focus on replicating intense cyanobacteria blooms and N2-fixation sets us apart from other estuary models. We account for N2-fixation by cyanobacteria, the inorganic carbon cycle, nonconservative alkalinity, and...
Article
The recent projections of sea level raising will make the closings of the mobile gate in the inlets of the Venice lagoon, designed to defend the city from high waters, more frequent. At the end of this century, the sea level will force the gates to be closed so often that it will be necessary to definitively separate the lagoon from the sea. It is...
Article
Full-text available
The potential impacts of climate changes on the Manila clam fishery in the Venice lagoon have been analyzed according to two different scenarios by 2030.
Article
Full-text available
On November 12, 2019, an exceptional flood event took place in Venice, second only to the one that occurred on November 4, 1966. The sea level reached a peak value of 1.89 m above the local datum determining the flooding of almost 90% of the pedestrian surface of the historical city. Several processes concurred to raise the water level in Venice an...
Preprint
Full-text available
p>The potential of active microwave satellite observations of sea surface height (radar altimetry) and of sea surface wind (radar scatterometry) has been exploited for storm surge modeling purposes. The altimetry observations were assimilated into a storm surge model (SSM) with a dual 4D-Var system, in order to obtain the best possible surge level...
Article
Full-text available
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 was developed using hydrological and hydrodynamic models. The results of four regional downscaled...
Article
Full-text available
The EuroGOOS Coastal working group examines the entire coastal value chain from coastal observations to services for coastal users. The main objective of the working group is to review the status quo, identify gaps and future steps needed to secure and improve the sustainability of the European coastal service provision. Within this framework, our...
Article
Full-text available
This paper analyses the variability of the sea level barotropic components in the Mediterranean Sea and their reproduction using a hydrodynamic model with and without data assimilation. The impact of data assimilation is considered both in reanalysis and short-forecast simulations. We used a two-dimensional finite element model paired with an ensem...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
This work is focused on the implementation of 3D hydrodynamic model (SHYFEM model) to simulate the 3D interaction between Nador lagoon and its surrounding area for the Alboran Sea. A description of the study area and the 3D hydrodynamic model, have been used in this work to describe the water exchange circulation between the lagoon and its external...
Preprint
Full-text available
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....
Preprint
Full-text available
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...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Preprint
Full-text available
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...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Article
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...
Article
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...
Article
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...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Article
Full-text available
Saltwater intrusion (SWI) in deltas, estuaries, and other coastal areas represents a pressing problem affecting the sustainability of freshwater resources. Observations and numerical experiments are used to investigate SWI in the surface waters of the Italian's largest river delta (the Po Delta) under low discharge conditions. The model successfull...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Article
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...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Preprint
Full-text available
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...
Preprint
Full-text available
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...
Preprint
Full-text available
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...
Preprint
Full-text available
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...
Preprint
Full-text available
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...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Presentation
Full-text available
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
Article
A re-analysis of historical data from two field campaigns was undertaken to examine the accuracy of measurements of bed load ( Q<sub>b</sub> ) and total transport ( Q<sub>tot</sub> ) 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...
Technical Report
Full-text available
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...
Article
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...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Article
Full-text available
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 community has coordinated with universities, research centers, research i...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Article
Full-text available
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 (...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Article
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...
Article
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...
Article
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...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Article
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...
Article
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...