Understanding sedimentary dynamics and bottom sediment characteristics in Bons Sinais Estuary – Mozambique: Insights from statistical analysis and Pejrup diagram

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

This article addresses the Bons Sinais Estuary sedimentary dynamics and bottom sediment characterization and its implication to pollution, based on bottom sediment grain size and statistical parameters. There were collected 15 bottom sediment samples with a Van veen sampler, which were further analysed by sieve and pipette methods. Sand was the most dominant textural class (51%), followed by silt (25%) and clay (24%). The sedimentary dynamics have varied from moderate to high. Both size of sediments and Pejrup diagram suggests that the hydrodynamics of this Estuary is high. Although the percentage of coarse sediments is higher, the estuary is susceptible to pollution, as the amount of thinner sediments is considerable regarding the values of skewness. These results may be useful to environmental management actions including pollutants tracking.