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- Sediment grain-size distribution analysis at the shallow sandy shelf using multivariate geostatistics
Sediment grain-size distribution analysis at the shallow sandy shelf using multivariate geostatistics
Postdoc Project by Dr. Ella Meilianda
In the shallow sandy shelf sea such as the North Sea of Germany, seabed morphology is very complex. The hydrodynamic condition influences the spatial distribution of the surficial sediment over the complicated bed forms, thus, must be intrinsically related to the seabed morphological development. On the other hand, sediment grain-sizes are often sampled in a low spatial resolution. Using poor data quality may result in poor decision on coastal management because it fails to show the important details of the grain-size complexity over the entire study area. A high-resolution map is thus valuable for different purposes, i.e. aggregate extraction, habitat mapping, ecological valuation, spatial planning and sediment transport.
The objective of this study is to produce a high-resolution map of the mean grain-size distribution of the sandy shelf of the Spiekeroog at the North Sea by taking into account the inherent correlation between the grain-size and bathymetry. We use three pairs of existing data set of sediment grain-size distribution from grab sampling and bathymetry of 1986, 2005 and 2007. We apply a complex multivariate geostatistical technique called Co-Kriging for the interpolation process. The demanding part of this method in which the individual and cross variogram models are required, have been incorporated in ILWISTM, the GIS software used for this study. Such method has never been tested before at a nearshore with complex seabed morphology.
The objective of this study is to produce a high-resolution map of the mean grain-size distribution of the sandy shelf of the Spiekeroog at the North Sea by taking into account the inherent correlation between the grain-size and bathymetry. We use three pairs of existing data set of sediment grain-size distribution from grab sampling and bathymetry of 1986, 2005 and 2007. We apply a complex multivariate geostatistical technique called Co-Kriging for the interpolation process. The demanding part of this method in which the individual and cross variogram models are required, have been incorporated in ILWISTM, the GIS software used for this study. Such method has never been tested before at a nearshore with complex seabed morphology.