Direct assessment of dredging impact in sensitive environments using Particle Tracking Technology
Type:
Presented during:
WODCON XVII: "Dredging in a Sensitive Environment" - 2004, Hamburg, Germany
Authors:
Kevin S. Black, Sam Athey, Peter Wilson, and Darren Evans
Abstract: New European environmental legislation such as the Shellfish and Habitats Directives, together with the more recent Water Framework Directive (WFD), are driving new and fresh approaches to sediment management. The Water Framework Directive, in particular, forms perhaps the most important and far-reaching piece of water legislation ever to emerge from the EU, and provides a framework that embodies - for all water bodies - the principles of environmental protection, improvement and restoration on an integrated basis. In addition, the WFD specifies that there must be no temporal deterioration in chemical and biological status for many water bodies, and identifies (Annex VIII) `material in suspension' as one of the main pollutants. Member states are required to address the issues in the WFD and to initiate monitoring as part of statutory River Basin Management Plans. Particle Tracking Technology (PTT), or as it is also known `particle' or `sediment tracing technology', providing certain assumptions are satisfied, offers a practical methodology for the visualisation and assessment of particle transport pathways, and so for physical impact assessment, in water bodies. PTT presents a far more definitive approach than other methods such as current velocity measurements or numerical modelling of surface sediment plumes, and has application across dynamically variable and spatially distributed scales rather than at single point localities. This presentation describes the philosophy of sediment tracking methods, as well as recent technological advances, and outlines some of the approaches used in studies.
Keywords: particle tracking technology, conservation area, turbidity, monitoring, sediment capture