Assessing the Spatial and Temporal Volumes of Siltation with a Historical Approach: Application in Nador’s Harbor (Morocco)

• Autores: Najat Amarjouf, Mostafa Oujidi, Halima Rezqi, Luis Menezes Pinheiro, Abida Hammadi
• Localización: Thalassas: An international journal of marine sciences, ISSN 0212-5919, Vol. 32, Nº. 1, 2016, págs. 51-64
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • In harbors, siltation interrupts navigation and creates environmental problems that necessitate the expensive dredging of seaports. This paper proposes a simple and cost-effective method that uses Surfer 12 (Golden Software, Inc.) to estimate the distribution of sedimentary deposits at the bottom of a harbor. This method is based on a historical approach to determine the volume of dredged sediments in each harbor basin. In the proposed method, the bathymetry of cross-sections and the sediment volume are calculated separately. Furthermore, it explains the variations in sedimentary dynamics due to tide and swell currents. The cross-sections are obtained for each basin of the harbor. An analytical examination of the data revealed the hydrodynamic mechanisms that control the distribution and spatial evolution of the sediments. The results showed that methods based on modeling existing bathymetric data are necessary to evaluate the siltation in a harbor. The analysis suggested that the occurrence of siltation in a harbor is supported by not only the marine currents but also its geometry. Nador’s Harbor was considered as a case study in order to develop suitable alternatives for dredging management.