Print Email Facebook Twitter The Existence and Origin of Multiple Equilibria in Sand-Mud Sediment Beds Title The Existence and Origin of Multiple Equilibria in Sand-Mud Sediment Beds Author Colina Alonso, A. (TU Delft Coastal Engineering; Deltares) van Maren, D.S. (TU Delft Environmental Fluid Mechanics; Deltares; Shanghai Estuarine and Coastal Science Research Center) Herman, P.M.J. (TU Delft Environmental Fluid Mechanics; Deltares) van Weerdenburg, R. J.A. (Deltares) Huismans, Y. (TU Delft Coastal Engineering; Deltares) Holthuijsen, S. J. (NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research; Waardenburg Ecology) Govers, L. L. (NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research; University Medical Center Groningen) Bijleveld, A. I. (NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research) Wang, Zhengbing (TU Delft Coastal Engineering; Deltares) Date 2022 Abstract The sediment composition of the seabed governs its mobility, hence determining sediment transport and morphological evolution of estuaries and tidal basins. Bed sediments often consist of mixtures of sand and mud, with spatial gradients in the sand/mud content. This study aims at increasing the understanding of processes driving the sediment composition in tidal basins, focusing on depositional processes. We show that bed sediments in the Wadden Sea tend to be either mud-dominated or sand-dominated, resulting in a bimodal distribution of the mud content where the two modes represent equilibrium conditions. The equilibria depend primarily on the sediment deposition fluxes, with bimodality originating from the dependence of suspended sand/mud concentrations on the local bed composition. Our analysis shows that bimodality is a phenomenon that is not only specific for the Wadden Sea; it can be expected for a wide range of suspended sediment concentrations and thus also in other systems worldwide. Subject bed compositionmorphodynamicssand-mudsand-mud segregationtidal basinsWadden sea To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:831ef593-b474-4678-9cb7-5cdafd91f111 DOI https://doi.org/10.1029/2022GL101141 ISSN 0094-8276 Source Geophysical Research Letters, 49 (22) Part of collection Institutional Repository Document type journal article Rights © 2022 A. Colina Alonso, D.S. van Maren, P.M.J. Herman, R. J.A. van Weerdenburg, Y. Huismans, S. J. Holthuijsen, L. L. Govers, A. I. Bijleveld, Zhengbing Wang Files PDF Geophysical_Research_Lett ... diment.pdf 1.77 MB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:831ef593-b474-4678-9cb7-5cdafd91f111/datastream/OBJ/view