Issue |
E3S Web Conf.
Volume 40, 2018
River Flow 2018 - Ninth International Conference on Fluvial Hydraulics
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | 05063 | |
Number of page(s) | 8 | |
Section | Fluid mechanics and sediment processes | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/e3sconf/20184005063 | |
Published online | 05 September 2018 |
Sediment properties in the fluvial and estuarine environments of the Mekong River
1
Civil and Environmental Engineering, Institute of Mechanics, Materials and Civil Engineering (IMMC), Université catholique de Louvain, Place du Levant 1, B-1348 Louvain - la - Neuve, Belgium
2
Asian Research Center on Water (CARE-Rescif), Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, Block B7, 268 Ly Thuong Kiet Street, District 10, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
3
Le laboratoire Géosciences Environnement Toulouse, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, 14 Avenue Edouard Belin, 31400 Toulouse, France
4
IRD, Géosciences Environnement Toulouse (GET), Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France
5
Université catholique de Louvain, Institute of Mechanics, Materials and Civil Engineering (IMMC) & Earth and Life Institute (ELI), 4 avenue Georges Lemaître, B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
6
Delft University of Technology, Delft Institute of Applied Mathematics (DIAM), Van Mourik Broekmanweg 6, 2628XE Delft, The Netherlands
* Corresponding author: anh.le@uclouvain.be
The Mekong river, located in Southeast Asia, is one of the largest rivers in the world. It is facing serious problems related to sediment transport, e.g. the reduction of sediment volume supply to the delta and estuary. This study focuses on the physical properties of suspended particles in the upstream fluvial section (Luang Prabang, Laos) and in the region of tidal influence (Song Hau estuary, Vietnam). These sites are respectively the upper and lower limits of the Lower Mekong River (LMR), which are experiencing contrasted transport modes. The main objective of this study is to quantify the proportion of inert sand and of cohesive particles in the water through comprehensive measurements of particle size, settling velocity and flocculation in the water column. Two field campaigns were undertaken in the summer monsoon season. The results point out the predominance of flocculi, with sizes of 18 ± 5 μm in the fluvial environment and 15 ± 5 μm in the estuary and the similarities in patterns, mixture of sand (12 ± 5 %) and mud (88 ± 5 %). They also provide a statistically representative set of suspended particle populations in the upstream and downstream regions that could be used for improving numerical models.
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2018
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Current usage metrics show cumulative count of Article Views (full-text article views including HTML views, PDF and ePub downloads, according to the available data) and Abstracts Views on Vision4Press platform.
Data correspond to usage on the plateform after 2015. The current usage metrics is available 48-96 hours after online publication and is updated daily on week days.
Initial download of the metrics may take a while.