In a collaboration with the university of New South Wales we are exploring the interactions between topography and flow in shallow coastal regions, where headlands and islands are common features that disrupt mean currents, creating wakes and eddies that may trap or disperse nutrients, sediments and biota.

In particular, we are using laboratory experiments to examine the effects of flow irregularities such as eddies or turbulence when these are carried into a wake region from upstream. To date we have demonstrated a strong coupling between incident eddies and eddies generated on the wake flow, creating dipolar vortices, and there are preliminary indications that incident disturbances lead to a greater release of kinetic energy from the mean shear into eddy kinetic energy.