A group of islands will be constructed in the lake Markermeer to act as nature reserve for birds, called the Marker Wadden. These islands will be constructed out of soft clay, dredged from the bottom of the lake. Building with soft cohesive soils, also referred to as mud, is still a largely unknown territory. Traditionally, sand is used for land reclamations although mud is abundantly available in many coastal areas in the world. This discrepancy is due to the predictable behaviour of sand deposits as opposed to the behaviour of mud deposit layers. One of the largest uncertainties of the Marker wadden, and of all projects involving large mud deposits, is the amount of consolidation that the mud layer experiences after deposition. In order to improve understanding of the consolidation behaviour of a mud deposit, and the possible scale effects, three experimental test are executed, analysed and compared. One large-scale test consisting of three bulk containers are designed to mimic the actual field conditions. A Seepage Induced Consolidation (SIC) test is performed by Deltares, which is believed to be state of the art , but a rather expensive laboratory test. And finally, simple settling column tests are performed in the laboratory of Boskalis Environmental. All tests are executed with mud from the same sample collected from the borrow pit for the Marker Wadden project. The main objectives of this thesis read: Analyse the correspondence and differences between consolidation behaviour derived from small scale laboratory experimental tests and large scale tests that are representative of the field. Determine if simple settling column tests can accurately predict the consolidation behaviour of large mud layers and eliminate the need for more advances and expensive tests like the SIC test. The large scale container test is designed to represent field conditions as closely as possible. Inside the containers bed and water levels are measured, the pore water pressures are continuously monitored, and a density profile is derived with a core sampler. The consolidation behaviour of soft mud beds can be described by the equation of Gibson et al. (1967) accounting for large deformations of the soil. To solve this equation the relations between permeability (k) and void ratio (e) and between void ratio and effective vertical stress (σ’z) need to be known, these are also called the constitutive relations: k=A_k e^(B_k ) e=A_p 〖σ_z^'〗^(〖- B〗_p ) With Ak, Bk, Ap and Bp material specific, empirical coefficients. The Seepage Induced Consolidation test, executed by Deltares, directly derives the constitutive relations from measurements of the permeability and applied load steps. For derivation of the relations from the settling column tests, the fractal method of Kranenburg (1994) is applied, enabling empirical derivation of the constitutive relations from observations of the bed elevation in time by applying the method of Merckelbach and Kranenburg (2004). The derived constitutive relations from each test (column and SIC) than serve as input parameters in the numerical model DELCON. This model is a one dimensional finite strain consolidation program allowing for large deformations of the soil (Sittoni and van Kesteren, 2012) according to the Gibson equation. The method of Merckelbach and Kranenburg, as well as the model simulations with DELCON, are based on a mud fraction only and do not account for sand. From the soil core samples of the containers it could be concluded that the sand fraction almost completely segregated. This segregation was also observed from the settling column tests, however, not from the SIC test soil sample. This most likely caused the permeability of the SIC soil sample to be higher, and therefore not representative of the container tests. Because of this assumption, it is hypothesised that the column tests are likely to perform better than the SIC test, in predicting the consolidation behaviour inside the containers for this particular research. The experimental test performance is very sensitive to the resemblance of the soil characteristics for the field conditions. Since the derivation of the constitutive relations from the column tests (method of Merckelbach and Kranenburg, 2004) and the simulation in DELCON, are based on the mud fraction only it is likely that the column test perform well for soils that contain very little sand or for soils that show almost complete segregation. In both cases the consolidation behaviour would be characterized by the mud fraction only, just as the method of Merckelbach and Kranenburg (2004) and DELCON require. For soils that contain sand, and incomplete or no segregation occurs, the SIC test are likely to perform better because the constitutive relations are derived from direct measurements and does not correct for a sand fraction.