Tidal basin

A tidal basin is the catchment area of ​​a lake in the Wadden Sea , which is separated from neighboring tidal basins by wadden separations or islands, sandbanks, etc. Tidal basins consist of a sea channel, an associated system of branched troughs , the tidal flats that irrigate and drain them, and an ebb delta on the lake side of the sea channel .

The water volume in the tidal basin is composed on the one hand of the tidal volume, which is located in the basin at every water level, and the tidal prism, which shows the difference between the highest and lowest water level. In general, the smaller the tidal basin, the greater the proportion of the total volume of the tide prism, while the proportion of the tidal volume decreases. In general, the tidal basins are hydrologically and morphologically separated from one another, but there are still connections. Normally, water flows from one basin into a neighboring basin at high tide, but none flows back at low tide, but leaves the Wadden Sea through the neighboring lake gate. There are Seegatts where significantly more water flows at high tide than at low tide, and those where a greater water current flows at low tide than at high tide.

Large and important tidal basins in the German Wadden Sea are, for example, the tidal basin of the Heverstrom with an area of ​​415.4 km² and a volume of 1.753 billion m³ of water at medium high tide or the Sylt-Rømø Wadden Sea Bay with 407.7 km² and a volume of 1.086 Billion m³ of water at mean high tide .

literature

• Frank Spiegel : Volumes of tidal basins in the North Frisian Wadden Sea . In: Federal Environment Agency and national park administrations of Lower Saxony Wadden Sea / Schleswig-Holstein Wadden Sea (ed.): Wadden Sea Environment Atlas . Vol. 1: North Frisian and Dithmarsches Wadden Sea . Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 1998/1999, ISBN 3800134918 , pp. 46-47.