Long-Term Dataset of Tidal Residuals in New South Wales, Australia

Continuous water level records are required to detect long-term trends and analyse the climatological mechanisms responsible for extreme events. This paper compiles nine ocean water level records from gauges located along the New South Wales (NSW) coast of Australia. These gauges represent the longest and most complete records of hourly—and in five cases 15-min—water level data for this region. The datasets were adjusted to the vertical Australian Height Datum (AHD) and had the rainfall-related peaks removed from the records. The Unified Tidal Analysis and Prediction (Utide) model was subsequently used to predict tides for datasets with at least 25 years of records to obtain the associated tidal residuals. Finally, we provide a series of examples of how this dataset can be used to analyse trends in tidal anomalies as well as extreme events and their causal processes.

Investigating an Innovative Sea-Based Strategy to Mitigate Coastal City Flood Disasters and Its Feasibility Study for Brisbane, Australia

This study examines an innovative Coastal Reservoir (CR) technique as a feasible solution for flood adaptation and mitigation in the Brisbane River Estuary (BRE), Australia, which is vulnerable to coastal flooding. The study analysed the operation of a CR by using the MIKE 21 hydrodynamic modelling package. The 2D hydrodynamic model was calibrated and validated for the 2013 and 2011 flood events respectively, with a Nash-Sutcliffe coefficient (Ens) between 0.87 to 0.97 at all gauges. River right branch widening and dredging produced a 0.16 m reduction in water level at the Brisbane city gauge. The results show that by suitable gate operation of CR, the 2011 flood normal observed level of 4.46 m, with reference to the Australian Height Datum (AHD) at Brisbane city, could have been reduced to 3.88 m AHD, while under the improved management operation of the Wivenhoe Dam, the flood level could be lowered to 4 m AHD at Brisbane city, which could have been reduced with CR to 2.87 m AHD with an overall water level reduction below the maximum flood level. The results demonstrated that the innovative use of a CR could considerably decrease the overall flood peak and lessen flood severity in the coastal city of Brisbane.

Development of a precise local quasigeoid model for the city of Krakow – QuasigeoidKR2019

A geoid or quasigeoid model allows the integration of satellite measurements with ground levelling measurements in valid height systems. A precise quasigeoid model has been developed for the city of Krakow. One of the goals of the model construction was to provide a more detailed quasigeoid course than the one offered by the national model PL-geoid2011. Only four measurement points in the area of Kraków were used to build a national quasigeoid model. It can be assumed that due to the small number of points and their uneven distribution over the city area, the quasigeoid can be determined less accurately. It became the reason for developing a local quasigeoid model based on a larger number of evenly distributed points. The quasigeoid model was based on 66 evenly distributed points (from 2.5 km to 5.0 km apart) in the study area. The process of modelling the quasigeoid used height anomalies determined at these points on the basis of normal heights derived through levelling and ellipsoidal heights derived through GNSS surveys. Height anomalies coming from the global geopotential model EGM2008 served as a long-wavelength trend in those derived from surveys. Analyses showed that the developed height anomaly model fits the empirical data at the level of single millimetres – mean absolute difference 0.005 m. The developed local model QuasigeoidKR2019, similar to the national model PL-geoid2011, are models closely related to the reference and height systems in Poland. Such models are used to integrate GNSS and levelling observations. A comparison of the local QuasigeoidKR2019 and national PL-geoid2011 model was made for the reference frame PL-ETRF2000 and height datum PL-KRON86-NH. The comparison of the two models with respect to GNSS/levelling height anomalies shows a triple reduction in the values of individual quartiles and a mean absolute difference for the developed local model. These summary statistics clearly indicate that the accuracy of the local model for the city of Krakow is significantly higher than that of the national one.

Unification of global vertical height system using precise frequency signal links

<p>The realization of International Height Reference System (IHRS) is one of the major tasks of the International Association of Geodesy (IAG). Here we formulate a framework for connecting two local VHSs using ultra-precise frequency signal transmission links between satellites and ground stations, which is referred to as satellite frequency signal transmission (SFST) approach. The SFST approach can directly determine the geopotential difference between two ground datum stations without location restrictions, and consequently determine the height difference of the two VHSs. Simulation results show that the China’s VHS and the US’s VHS can be unified at the accuracy of several centimeters, provided that the stability of atomic clocks used on board the satellite and on ground datum stations reach the highest level of current technology, about 4.8×10<sup>-18</sup> in 100 s. The SFST approach is promising to unify the global vertical height datum in centimeter level in future, providing a new way for the IHRS realization. This study is supported by NSFCs (grant Nos. 41721003, 41631072, 41874023, 41804012, 41429401, 41574007) and Natural Science Foundation of Hubei Province of China (grant No. 2019CFB611).</p>

Subsidence in the Dutch Wadden Sea

Ground surface dynamics is one of the processes influencing the future of the Wadden Sea area. Vertical land movement, both subsidence and heave, is a direct contributor to changes in the relative sea level. It is defined as the change of height of the Earth's surface with respect to a vertical datum. In the Netherlands, the Normaal Amsterdams Peil (NAP) is the official height datum, but its realisation via reference benchmarks is not time-dependent. Consequently, NAP benchmarks are not optimal for monitoring physical processes such as land subsidence. However, surface subsidence can be regarded as a differential signal: the vertical motion of one location relative to the vertical motion of another location. In this case, the actual geodetic height datum is superfluous.In the present paper, we highlight the processes that cause subsidence, with specific focus on the Wadden Sea area. The focus will be toward anthropogenic causes of subsidence, and how to understand them; how to measure and monitor and use these measurements for better characterisation and forecasting; with some details on the activities in the Wadden Sea that are relevant in this respect. This naturally leads to the identification of knowledge gaps and to the formulation of notions for future research.