Sand-mud erosion from a soil mechanical perspective

‘Wetlands’ in tidal lagoons and estuaries are among the most valuable ecosystems in the world. Managing these systems requires both a thorough knowledge and validated tools to predict their behavior and development. An important morpho-dynamic process herein is the erosion (‘pick-up’) of the bed, which are in inter-tidal areas often composed of...

Benthic community-mediated sediment dynamics

We assessed the influence of benthic communities on sediment properties in large defaunation experiments in replicated 16 m2 plots on a tidal flat in the Westerschelde estuary (SW Netherlands). We compared microphytobenthos and benthic macrofauna recovery and recolonisation between control and defaunated sediments during 8 mo following the...