Estuarine sediments - near bed processes - field measurement of near bed cohesive sediment processes

The ability to predict the moment of cohesive sediment within tidal waters has a significant economical and ecological importance in the development of new engineering works and the maintenance of existing installations. The processes of transport, deposition, consolidation and erosion of cohesive sediment are controlled by a complex array of physical and chemical factors which are only partly understood. Any attempt to predict the movement of cohesive sediment must first investigate the nature of the hydrodynamics of the water and then relate the movement of water to the movement of cohesive sediment.