Quantifying the 3D structure and function of porosity and pore space in natural sediment flocs

Lawrence, Thomas, Carr, Simon ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4487-3551 , Wheatland, Jonathan, Manning, Andrew and Spencer, Kate (2022) Quantifying the 3D structure and function of porosity and pore space in natural sediment flocs. Journal of Soils and Sediments .

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Abstract

Purpose: Flocculated cohesive suspended sediments (flocs) play an important role in all aquatic environments, facilitating the transport and deposition of sediment and associated contaminants with consequences for aquatic health, material fluxes, and morphological evolution. Accurate modelling of the transport and behaviour of these sediments is critical for a variety of activities including fisheries, aquaculture, shipping, and waste and pollution management and this requires accurate measurement of the physical properties of flocs including porosity.

Methods: Despite the importance of understanding floc porosity, measurement approaches are indirect or inferential. Here, using μCT, a novel processing and analysis protocol, we directly quantify porosity in natural sediment flocs. For the first time, the complexity of floc pore spaces is observed in 3-dimensions, enabling the identification and quantification of important pore space and pore network characteristics, namely 3D pore diameter, volume, shape, tortuosity, and connectivity.

Results: We report on the complexity of floc pore space and differentiate effective and isolated pore space enabling new understanding of the hydraulic functioning of floc porosity. We demonstrate that current methodological approaches are overestimating floc porosity by c. 30%.

Conclusion: These new data have implications for our understanding of the controls on floc dynamics and the function of floc porosity and can improve the parameterisation of current cohesive sediment transport models.

Item Type:	Article
Journal / Publication Title:	Journal of Soils and Sediments
Publisher:	Springer
ISSN:	1614-7480
Departments:	Institute of Science and Environment > STEM
Additional Information:	This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Depositing User:	Anna Lupton
Date Deposited:	12 Sep 2022 11:56
Last Modified:	13 Jan 2024 13:46
URI:	https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/6582

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