Assessment of Flocculation Kinetics of Cohesive Sediments from the Seine and Gironde Estuaries, France, through Laboratory and Field Studies
Publication: Journal of Waterway, Port, Coastal, and Ocean Engineering
Volume 136, Issue 6
Abstract
Cohesive suspended particles in a river aggregate into microflocs with average diameters of , which on their arrival in the estuary aggregate to macroflocs with average diameters of . We performed a laboratory study on samples from the Seine estuary. The experiments show a more or less systematic behavior of floc size with drivers. Macrofloc size relates to turbulence, , suspended particulate matter concentration ( ), salinity ( ), time ( ), and mineral and biological composition of primary particles . Generally, floc size increases with , , , and . We performed Eulerian field surveys of floc size and the same drivers on various sites in the Gironde estuary. Our field samples show an ambiguous behavior of floc size against salinity and suspended sediment concentration. Floc size does not seem to simply increase with , , , and , but flocs grow and decay with time.
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Acknowledgments
The writers acknowledge the work of Caren Tiphagne on the time series in the Seine River. They thank Valérie Mesnage for the measurement of carbon content of the samples. They are grateful to Irène Zimmerlin for the SEM images. They are obliged to Michel Bélorgey and Fréderic Murzyn for the laser Doppler velocity distribution. Daniel Mikeš was supported by the European Commission TMR SWAMIEE network (Contract No. UNSPECIFIEDERBFMRXCT970111). Andrew Manning's contribution to this paper was part funded by the HR Wallingford Company Research project UNSPECIFIEDDDY0409, and he acknowledges the support of his colleagues from the Coasts and Estuaries group at HR Wallingford during the production of this paper. Peter Ganderton (University of Plymouth) is also thanked for his expert technical support and Cyril Mallet for his assistance during the TMR SWAMIEE experiments. Daniel Mikeš acknowledges support from his colleagues at the Geology Department of the University of Rouen.
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Published In
Journal of Waterway, Port, Coastal, and Ocean Engineering
Volume 136 • Issue 6 • November 2010
Pages: 306 - 318
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© 2010 ASCE.
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Received: Jun 28, 2009
Accepted: Feb 23, 2010
Published online: Feb 25, 2010
Published in print: Nov 2010
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