The Filling Dynamics of an Estuary: From the Process to the Modelling

Sylvain Guillou (1) , Jérôme Thiebot (1) , Julien Chauchat (2) , Romuald Verjus (1) , Anthony Besq (1) , Duc Hau Nguyen (1) , Sé Pouv Keang (1)

1 LUSAC - Laboratoire Universitaire des Sciences Appliquées de Cherbourg
2 LEGI - Laboratoire des Écoulements Géophysiques et Industriels [Grenoble]

The aim of this chapter is to summarise the main hydrosedimentary processes that take place in estuaries and to present different approaches for their modelling. Section 2 is dedicated to the description of the physical processes involved in estuaries. Section 3 presents the classical (single phase) approach focussing on different ways to model the bed evolutions; the rheological and erosion properties of mud are discussed. Section 4 deals with the two-phase model for sediment transport. Several applications are presented. Finally, the shortcomings of each modelling strategy are discussed and the perspectives are given in section 5.

Domaines: Sciences de l'environnement

Sylvain Guillou, Jérôme Thiebot, Julien Chauchat, Romuald Verjus, Anthony Besq, et al.. The Filling Dynamics of an Estuary: From the Process to the Modelling. Sediment Transport in Aquatic Environments, intech, pp.125-146, 2011, 978-953-307-586-0. ⟨10.5772/19933⟩. ⟨hal-00696510⟩