The wave-induced solute flux from submerged sediment

The issue of the transport of dissolved nutrients and contaminants between the sediment in the bottom of a lake or reservoir and the body of water above it is an important one for many reasons. In particular the biological and chemical condition of the body of water is intricately linked to these mass transport processes. As the review by Boudreau (Rev Geophys 38(3):389–416, 2000) clearly demonstrates those transport processes are very complex involving mechanisms as diverse as the wave-induced flux between the sediment and the overlying water and the effect of burrowing animals on the transport within the sediment as well as basic diffusion mechanisms. The present paper focuses on one facet of these transport processes; we re-examine the balance of diffusion and wave-induced advection and demonstrate that the wave-induced flux of a solute from submerged sediment is not necessarily purely diffusive as suggested by Harrison et al. (J Geophys Res 88:7617–7622, 1983) but can be dominated by a mean or time-averaged flux induced by the advective fluid motion into and out of the sediment caused by the fluctuating pressure waves associated with wave motion. Indeed along the subtidal shoreline where the fluctuating bottom pressures are greatest, wave-induced advection will dominate the mean, time-averaged transport of solute into or out of the sediment as suggested in the work of Riedl et al. (Mar Biol 13:210– 221, 1972). However, the present calculations also indicate that this advective flux decreases rapidly with increasing depth so that further away from the shoreline the advective flux becomes negligible relative to the diffusive flux and therefore the latter dominates in deeper water.