Despite availability of a large amount of observational data and modelling studies, the mechanisms maintaining the Turbidity Maximum in the Belgian-Dutch coastal zone around the port of Zeebrugge (Belgium) are insufficiently understood. In order to better understand the dynamics of this turbidity maximum we examine the role of baroclinic (salinity and sediment-induced) processes and local sediment sources on the formation and persistence of the turbidity maximum through two different numerical model approaches. One model approach allows erosion of the highly compacted muddy seabed, serving as a sediment source, in line with observations of bed level change over several decades. The other approach reduces the exchange between the bed and the water column, to mimic the formation of highly concentrated near-bed suspensions with concentrations of several g/l observed around the port of Zeebrugge. Both model approaches are calibrated to various sources of available data (in situ sediment concentration observations, satellite image, bed level changes, mud content and dredging data), which they reproduce comparably well. However, reducing the water-bed exchange strengthens sediment convergence in the turbidity maximum, whereas the sediment source leads to sediment export. With the available data, it is difficult to determine which of the approaches is more realistic. Apparently, the lack of knowledge on near-bed exchange processes introduces an important source of uncertainty which cannot be adequately addressed with currently available observations. This work therefore shows that more quantitative knowledge on water-bed exchange processes in turbid marine environments is needed. It is further hypothesized that the large-scale erosion of the muddy seabed following the extension the port of Zeebrugge in the early 1980's brought such a large amount of sediment in suspension (50–100 million ton) that sediment convergence was strengthened. This increasing sediment convergence introduces a positive feedback mechanism that maintains sediment in the Turbidity Maximum, or even strengthens it. The high sediment concentrations observed today may therefore be a long-term effect of port construction carried out decades earlier.@en

An extensive field campaign, the Ems-Dollard Measurements (EDoM), was executed in the Ems Estuary, bordering the Netherlands and Germany, aimed at better understanding the mechanisms that drive the exchange of water and sediments between a relatively exposed outer estuary and a hyper-turbid tidal river. More specifically, the reasons for the large up-estuary sediment accumulation rates and the role of the tidal river on the turbidity in the outer estuary were insufficiently understood. The campaign was designed to unravel the hydrodynamic and sedimentary exchange mechanisms, comprising two hydrographic surveys during contrasting environmental conditions using eight concurrently operating ships and 10 moorings measuring for at least one spring–neap tidal cycle. All survey locations were equipped with sensors measuring flow velocity, salinity, and turbidity (and with stationary ship surveys taking water samples), while some of the survey ships also measured turbulence and sediment settling properties. These observations have provided important new insights into horizontal sediment fluxes and density-driven exchange flows, both laterally and longitudinally. An integral analysis of these observations suggests that large-scale residual transport is surprisingly similar during periods of high and low discharge, with higher river discharge resulting in both higher seaward-directed fluxes near the surface and landward-directed fluxes near the bed. Sediment exchange seems to be strongly influenced by a previously undocumented lateral circulation cell driving residual transport. Vertical density-driven flows in the outer estuary are influenced by variations in river discharge, with a near-bed landward flow being most pronounced in the days following a period with elevated river discharge. The study site is more turbid during winter conditions, when the estuarine turbidity maximum (ETM) is pushed seaward by river flow, resulting in a more pronounced impact of suspended sediments on hydrodynamics. All data collected during the EDoM campaign, but also standard monitoring data (waves, water levels, discharge, turbidity, and salinity) collected by Dutch and German authorities are made publicly available at 4TU Centre for Research Data (https://doi.org/10.4121/c.6056564.v3; van Maren et al., 2022).@en

Many estuaries and tidal basins are strongly influenced by various human interventions (land reclamations, infrastructure development, channel deepening, dredging and disposal of sediments). Such interventions lead to a range of hydrodynamic and morphological responses (a changing channel depth, tidal amplitude and/or suspended sediment concentration). The response time of a system to interventions is determined by the processes driving this change, the size of the system, and the magnitude of the intervention. A quantitative understanding of the response time to an intervention therefore provides important insight into the processes driving the response. In this paper we develop and apply a methodology to estimate the response timescales of human interventions using available morphological and hydraulic data. Fitting an exponential decay function to data with sufficient temporal resolution yields an adaptation timescale (and equilibrium value) of the tidal range and deposited sediment volumes. The method has been applied in the Dutch Wadden Sea, where two large basins were reclaimed and where long-term and detailed bathymetric maps are available. Exponential fitting the morphological data revealed that closure of a very large part of a tidal basin in the Wadden Sea initially led to internal redistribution and import of coarse and fine sediments, and was followed by a phase of extensive redistribution while only fine-grained sediments are imported. Closure of a smaller part of a smaller basin led to shorter response timescales, and these response timescales are also more sensitive to rising mean sea levels or high waters. The method has also been applied to tidal water level observations in the Scheldt and Ems estuaries. Exponential fits to tidal data reveal that adaptation timescales are shortest at the landward limit of dredging. The adaptation time increases in the landward direction because of retrogressive erosion (Scheldt) or lowering of the hydraulic roughness (Ems). The seaward increase in adaptation time is related to the seaward widening of both systems.@en

In this paper, we analyse the behaviour of fine sediments in the hyper-turbid Lower Ems River, with focus on the river’s upper reaches, a stretch of about 25 km up-estuary of Terborg. Our analysis is based on long records of suspended particulate matter (SPM) from optical backscatter (OBS) measurements close to the bed at seven stations along the river, records of salinity and water level measurements at these stations, acoustic measurements on the vertical mud structure just up-estuary of Terborg and oxygen profiles in the lower 3 m of the water column close to Leerort and Terborg. Further, we use cross-sectionally averaged velocities computed with a calibrated numerical model. Distinction is made between four timescales, i.e. the semi-diurnal tidal timescale, the spring–neap tidal timescale, a timescale around an isolated peak in river flow (i.e. about 3 weeks) and a seasonal timescale. The data suggest that a pool of fluid/soft mud is present in these upper reaches, from up-estuary of Papenburg to a bit downestuary of Terborg. Between Terborg and Gandersum, SPM values drop rapidly but remain high at a few gram per litre. The pool of fluid/soft mud is entrained/mobilized at the onset of flood, yielding SPM values of many tens gram per litre. This suspension is transported up-estuary with the flood. Around high water slack, part of the suspension settles, being remixed during ebb, while migrating down-estuary, but likely not much further than Terborg. Around low water slack, a large fraction of the sediment settles, reforming the pool of fluid mud. The rapid entrainment from the fluid mud layer after low water slack is only possible when the peak flood velocity exceeds a critical value of around 1 m/s, i.e. when the stratified water column seems to become internally supercritical. If the peak flood velocity does not reach this critical value, f.i. during neap tide, fluid mud is not entrained up to the OBS sensors. Thus, it is not classical tidal asymmetry, but the peak flood velocity itself which governs the hyper-turbid state in the Lower Ems River. The crucial role of river flow and river floods is in reducing these peak flood velocities. During elongated periods of high river flow, in e.g. wintertime, SPM concentrations reduce, and the soft mud deposits consolidate and possibly become locally armoured aswell by sand washed in from the river. We have no observations that sediments are washed out of the hyper-turbid zone. Down-estuary of Terborg, where SPM values do not reach hyper-turbid conditions, the SPMdynamics are governed by classical tidal asymmetry and estuarine circulation. Hence, nowhere in the river, sediments are flushed from the upper reaches of the river into the Ems-Dollard estuary during high river flow events. However, exchange of sediment between river and estuary should occur because of tide-induced dispersion. @en

The Ems and Loire evolved into hyper-turbid estuaries in the course of the 20th century. Winterwerp et al. (2013 a, b) argued that narrowing and deepening of these rivers induced a regime shift towards these hyper-turbid conditions. This regime shift was presumed to be driven by a positive feed-back between tidal amplification, tidal asymmetry and sediment-induced drag reduction. As also the Sea Scheldt was/is subject to narrowing and deepening, Winterwerp et al. reasoned that also this river may be at risk to become hyper-turbid.@en

The mechanisms leading to the formation and maintenance of a Coastal Turbidity Maximum (CTM) along the Belgian coastline was investigated using a complex 3D numerical model. Interpretation of model results suggests that the sediment concentration in this CTM may have strongly increased as a result of human interventions in the 1980’s. The large amount of sediment that became available then triggered self-organizing mechanisms that maintain or strengthen the CTM. @en