The transportation of cohesive sediments has attracted great attention for decades due to the significant influences of sediments on various coastal and offshore engineering (e.g., siltation, dredging, seawall foundation treatment, and riverbed morphology) and environmental (e.g., pollutant transport, phytoplankton photosynthesis, and coastal wetland sustainability) issues (Coats et al., 1989;Edmonds & Slingerland, 2010;Sun et al., 2021;Teisson, 1991). It is a challenge to precisely predict the dynamic processes of cohesive sediments because they exist in the form of flocs (clusters) rather than single particles, which further controls the size and the settling velocity (