Modeling the Transport and Fate of Sediments Released from Marine Construction Projects in the Coastal Waters of British Columbia, Canada

Abstract

Major marine construction projects, resulting in the release of sediments, are subject to environmental assessment and other regulatory approval processes. An important tool used for this is the development of specialized numerical methods for these marine activities. An integrated set of numerical methods addresses four distinct topics: (1) The near-field release and mixing of suspended sediments into the water column (i.e., the initial dilution zone); (2) the transport of the suspended sediments under the influence of complex ocean currents in the far-field; (3) the settling of the transported suspended sediments onto the seabed; and (4) the potential for resuspension of the deposited sediments due to sporadic occurrences of unusually large near-bottom currents. A review of projects subjected to environmental assessment in the coastal waters of British Columbia, from the year 2006 to 2017, is presented to illustrate the numerical models being used and their ongoing development. Improvements include higher resolution model grids to better represent the near-field, the depiction of particle size dependent vertical settling rates and the computation of resuspension of initially deposited sediments, especially in relation to temporary subsea piles of sediments arising from trenching for marine pipelines. The ongoing challenges for this numerical modeling application area are also identified.