The Port Everglades Shipping Channel (PESC) Study

Introduction

The Port Everglades Shipping Channel Study was designed to accurately characterize the flow through the Port Everglades inlet.

Figure 1. Location of the Port Everglades Shipping Channel, Port Everglades, Florida.

An acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP) was installed on the south side of the Port Everglades Inlet to measure the velocity of the water flow at levels starting near the surface and reaching down to near the channel bottom. The system was built using a commercial, horizontal-looking ADCP deployed in a hybrid manner to measure the vertical velocity structure. This system was calibrated so that its velocity measurements could estimate the mean channel velocity at specific depth layers by repeatedly transecting a vessel-mounted, down-looking ADCP across the channel at the location of the fixed system. The channel cross-sectional area at the location of the fixed system was measured, and a pressure sensor on the fixed system allowed the cross section of the channel to be estimated at the time of each velocity measurement. From the area and mean channel velocity measurements, an estimate of the volume transport per unit of time (Q) in a surface and deep layer was made. By integrating the Q measurements over a tidal phase, measurements of total volume transport per tidal phase in the surface and bottom layers were made. These volume estimates were used to estimate the seaward flux of certain substances measured by a Florida International University group during the study. Using an independent data set, the dispersion of materials advected seaward from the inlet into the coastal ocean was estimated.

The report "Port Everglades Flow Measurement System", NOAA Technical Report OAR-AOML-42, is available here (PDF). .

Instrumentation

In conjunction with the flow measurements, a number of meteorological instruments have been installed on the southside of the inlet (26°5.549' N, 80°5.532' W). The instrumentation includes: wind speed and direction, relative humidity, dew point, barometric pressure, and rain parameters. The instrumentation has the designation as Buoy PVGF1 of NOAAs National Data Buoy Center, and of station PVGF1 of NOAA's CREWS/ICON coral reef monitoring program.

FACE is a part of the Coastal Environment Group in the Ocean Chemistry Division of NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory.