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Present and future prolonged drought impacts on a large temperate embayment: Port Phillip Bay, Australia

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Abstract

Observations of a large temperate embayment in Victoria, Australia, reveal a sustained climatic shift that occurred in response to a prolonged drought in the region during 1997–2009. Historically, the bay is fresher than the ocean with fresh outflow to the sea. However, the drought has caused substantially elevated salinity and temperatures above adjacent oceanic waters. The bay's capacity to dilute and flush waste discharges to the ocean was also changed. Observed conditions have been numerically modelled with hydrodynamic and coupled lagrangian particle dispersion models to test differences in dispersion and exchange during historically fresher conditions and hypersaline bay scenarios. Further scenarios were tested for projected climate conditions which were similar to the recent drought responses in the bay. The models identified the effects on the circulation of the climatic shift including regions of increased vulnerability to extreme salinity in the bay, with some existing discharges concentrating in these regions of heightened vulnerability. Absolute salinity in the bay could reach critical levels of over 38 g kg−1, in places, which may compromise bay ecology.

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Acknowledgments

This work was borne from an earlier project that was funded by the National Department of Environment and Heritage to develop bay and catchment models for the Port Phillip Bay and Western Port region. The authors wish to thank Shaun Harrison, Sebastien Mancini, Guillaume Martinez, Rachael Bathhgate and Andy Longmore for their contributions to the background of this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Environment Protection Authority, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    Randall S. Lee

  2. University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    Kerry P. Black

  3. University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia

    Cyprien Bosserel

  4. ASR Pty Ltd, Raglan, New Zealand

    Dougal Greer

Authors
  1. Randall S. Lee
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  2. Kerry P. Black
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  3. Cyprien Bosserel
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  4. Dougal Greer
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Randall S. Lee.

Additional information

Responsible Editor: Chari Pattiaratchi

This article is part of the Topical Collection on Physics of Estuaries and Coastal Seas 2010

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Lee, R.S., Black, K.P., Bosserel, C. et al. Present and future prolonged drought impacts on a large temperate embayment: Port Phillip Bay, Australia. Ocean Dynamics 62, 907–922 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10236-012-0538-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10236-012-0538-4

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