Salinity and Current Distribution in the Godavari Estuary, East Coast of India

Abstract

Temperature, salinity and current data in the Godavari Estuary for 2 representative months (July and January) are presented. Since the river discharge in July is fairly considerable, the salinity and current distributions are similar to those found in a partly mixed estuary. But in January, as the river discharge becomes negligible, the tidal effect dominates making it a well mixed type of estuary. The continuous current observations at 2 tidal stations reveal that the tidal currents are fairly strong at the mouth (55 cm.sec-1) and decrease upstream away from the mouth.