Slib en zandtransport onder invloed van de actie van golven en stromingen in kustgebieden

Mixed sand and mud sediments play a vital role in coastal ecosystem services. They are the substratum where coastal flora and benthic communities develop. From an engineering perspective, sand and mud mixtures are at the centre of coastal protection, dredging, maintenance of navigation waterways, infrastructure projects and marine development works. In the context of ecology, sediment may become a source of nutrients or pollution, either by chemical desorption or when they are ingested by biota [Rakowska et al., 2012]. Given their importance, it is necessary to understand their transport drivers and processes. That involves making sense of simultaneous effects of phenomena such as water currents, waves, and sediment mobilization. This research project studies these phenomena and contributes with new formulas and applications. We have developed a new formulation for the flocculation of suspended sediments, which allowed to simulate the suspension dynamics of sands and mud in the Belgian Coast. Our results agree with suspended sediment concentrations and floc size measurements off the coast of Zeebrugge, with satellite-retrieved suspended particle matter concentration from the PROBA-V mission, and with qualitative transport patterns identified by [Baeye et al., 2011; Fettweis et al., 2012; Fettweis et al., 2019a]. This research also managed to simulate flocculation dynamics at a spatial scale of dozens of kilometres, something that few models achieve [Soulsby et al., 2013; Zhu, 2014; Shen et al., 2018a; Penaloza-Giraldo et al., 2023]. During this research we also developed various pieces of software, contributing to the development of state of the art models. We made use of the openTELEMAC software and further developed its capabilities for simulating suspended sediment transport through the development of new subroutines to account for flocculation, and updated other subroutines that deal with erosion and deposition fluxes. In conclusion, the value of this research is both scientific and social. It adds to the solution of challenges to coastal development by introducing mixed sand and mud transport formulations into state-of-the-art models for scientists and engineers to use.