The use of particle tracking in sediment transport studies: a review

Abstract

New European environmental legislation such as the Shellfish and Habitats Directives, together with the more recent Water Framework Directive, are driving new and fresh approaches to sediment management. Regional authorities, environment protection agencies and consultants are increasingly being required to adopt a holistic, system-wide appreciation of sediment flux in aquatic systems. Increasingly, and necessarily, there is a need to describe sediment (and contaminant) transport pathways on dynamically variable and spatially distributed scales rather than at single point localities. 'Particle tracking', or as it is also known 'particle' or 'sediment tracing', providing certain assumptions are satisfied, offers a practical methodology for the assessment of transport pathways of a variety of sediments across wider temporal and spatial scales, and is available for silts, sands, granules, pebbles and cobbles. Although not a new technique, particle tracking has experienced a resurgence of interest and application by geologists, hydrologists and oceanographers principally as a result of the arrival of new, innovative manufacturing and measurement technologies. These have overcome previous limitations presented by the method, and have also provided a foundation for silt tracking that previously did not exist. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the particle tracking methodology in the modern context, with a bias towards the practicalities of conducting a tracking experiment. We present a detailed summary of the factors and considerations involved in conducting tracking studies, including an assessment of tolerance limits on synthetic tracers and the importance of appropriate sampling strategies. In addition, we highlight the principal technical limitations of the method. We summarise the historical background regarding the use of the particle tracking method outlining the dominance of studies on sand transport and the paucity of silt tracking studies, and draw attention to some of the potential areas of application of this innovative approach.

Guidance on Setup, Calibration, and Validation of Hydrodynamic, Wave, and Sediment Models for Shelf Seas and Estuaries

“…Sediment tracing techniques have values in studies examining the sediment ux and have been used e ectively to study dredging impacts and disruptions to sediment supply attributable to structures. A comprehensive review of tracing techniques and options is given by Black et al [76]. Passive acoustic techniques using hydrophones to record the sediment-generated noise, SGN, arising during bed load transport of coarse sediments have been used (e.g., [77]) but to be e ective, they require objective calibration which can be very costly.…”

Everything goes somewhere; tracking the movement of contaminated sediments in an industrialised estuary using dual signature sediment tracers

“…Typically manufactured tracer is ∼ 400-500 times "more magnetic" than quartzrich beach sand. The para-magnetic attribute of tracer can also be exploited in situ through use of a fieldportable, hand-held magnetic susceptibility sensor (see www.bartington.co.uk), which can be used in a semiquantitative fashion to map tracer concentration on soil or sediment surfaces [10,12].…”

“…are compared quantitatively to those of the native particles. Black et al [10] discuss similitude tolerances 04001-p.2 TRACER 6 -The 6 th International Conference on Tracers and Tracing Methods since manufacturing constraints dictate that tracer can never be the exact copy of the native sediments. 3.…”

“…Black and McComb [1]). Black et al [10] provide a comprehensive overview of the historic evolution of these differing approaches to the present day.…”

Dynamic sediment profile imaging (DySPI): a new field method for the study of dynamic processes at the sediment‐water interface

“…Black et al (2007) provided a comprehensive review of the method and highlighted its technical limitations, mainly due to the high recovery rate of tracer needed. 2) Ripple progression monitoring uses a camera-based technique (Kachel and Sternberg 1971) or an echo-sounder based technique (Bell and Thorne 1997).…”