The AMANDES tidal model for the Amazon estuary and shelf

The AMANDES project aims to study transports from the Andean mountains to the Atlantic Ocean through the Amazon system. This requires realistic estuarine modelling in this area strongly forced by tides and river discharge. As none of the existing models for this region would fit the actual needs of the project, a specific new generation model has been implemented. The model is based on the hydrodynamic finite element model T-UGOm. In a first step, we limit our investigations to tidal dynamics. As the Amazon estuary is a very shallow macro-tidal area, it is necessary to improve the available bathymetries and to develop a precise bottom friction parametrisation. In this paper, we discuss the implementation of a high resolution regional model. This allows us to develop a precise and accurate tidal model: for instance, the overall root mean square error on complex differences is reduced from 54 cm in a standard model to 27 cm in our best model. Such precise and accurate tidal modelling is a prerequisite for modelling particle transport. (c) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.