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Nearshore Sediment Transport Measurement

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Encyclopedia of Coastal Science

Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series ((EESS))

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Definitions and Key Parameters

Sediment transport in coastal environments is driven by the combined motions of waves and currents. Due to the orbital nature of wave motion, methods developed for measuring sediment transport in unidirectional flow field may not be directly applicable in measuring coastal sediment transport. Furthermore, wave breaking and associated intense turbulence play a significant role in nearshore sediment transport. In the following, the term nearshore is used in a general sense, representing various coastal environments with shallow water.

Generally, sediment transport rate is calculated as

$$ Q=\frac{1}{t}\underset{0}{\overset{t}{\int }}\underset{0}{\overset{x_n}{\int }}\underset{0}{\overset{h}{\int }}{C}_s\left(x,z,t\right){U}_s\left(x,z,t\right)\mathrm{dzdxdt} $$
(1)

where x and z = horizontal and vertical coordinates, t = time, xn = width of a certain nearshore zone over which the transport is computed, Us = particle velocity, and Cs= sediment...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Geosciences, Coastal Research Lab, The University Of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA

    ** Wang

Authors
  1. ** Wang
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Correspondence to ** Wang .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Coastal Education and Research Foundation, Asheville, NC, USA

    Charles W. Finkl

  2. Coastal Education and Research Foundation, Coconut Creek, FL, USA

    Christopher Makowski

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Wang, P. (2019). Nearshore Sediment Transport Measurement. In: Finkl, C.W., Makowski, C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Coastal Science. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93806-6_224

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