Leverhulme fellowship: Bed slope effects on sand and mud transport in coastal environments

Project Description

Estuaries, deltas and tidal basins are dynamic systems that are uniquely sensitive to changes in forcing, including sediment supply, waves and currents. State-of-the-art morphodynamic models are unable to accurately predict estuarine evolution due to a lack of understanding of basic sediment transport processes, including transport under waves and currents on the side-slopes of channels and sandbanks and transport mediated by the impact of complex cohesive muddy-sand mixtures, often found in coastal systems, carried in suspension. Research herein will conduct novel physical experiments that will unlock development of a new transport model that will have improved physical validity and predictive power.