Ocean Sciences 2012: Sediment in Estuaries and Caosts

[ckharris]

Please consider submitting an abstract regarding modeling of sediment transport to our session:

Session 029: Sediment Transport and Deposition in Lakes, Estuaries, and Shallow Shelves

Organizers: Nathan Hawley, Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, nathan.hawley@noaa.gov; Courtney K. Harris, Virginia Institute of Marine Science, ckharris@vims.edu; Lawrence P. Sanford, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, lsanford@umces.edu

The physical characteristics of many lakes, estuaries, and shallow shelves - relatively small volumes of water, shallow water depths, relatively long coastlines, and high loadings from rivers and shoreline sources - make them particularly susceptible to environmental degradation. In recent years human population pressures have increased demands on these regions, and in many cases have resulted in an increase in the frequency and severity of problems such as hypoxia, harmful algal blooms, excess turbidity, and high rates of sedimentation. Climate change is expected to add stressors such as increased runoff, storminess, and sea level rise. The importance of sediment transport has become increasingly recognized since not only are many nutrients and anthropogenic pollutants transported by sediments, but sediment-induced turbidity also may limit the amount of light available for photosynthesis and visual predation. Recent advances in theoretical, observational, and numerical modeling have led to increased understanding of sediment dynamics in these complex systems. The session encourages submissions covering any aspect of sediment transport and depositional processes in lakes, estuaries, and shallow shelves, including field observations, laboratory experiments, and modeling studies. Studies of physical forcing, sedimentary response, different modes of transport, biogeochemical feedbacks with sediments, and particle behavior are all welcomed. (1, 2, 5, 6)