Modeling estuarine sand dunes
Wessel van der Sande is a PhD student in the department Water Engineering and Management in particular Watersystems. (Co)Promotors are dr.ir. P.C. Roos and prof.dr. S.J.M.H. Hulscher from the faculty of Engineering Technology and Dr. T. Gerkema from the Royal Institute for Sea Research.
Sandy beds of water bodies are often characterized by large-scale undulating patterns; in estuaries, these are termed estuarine sand dunes. They have lengths of tens to hundreds of meters, heights on the order of meters, and are commonly asymmetric. Sand dunes are a relevant study object for a variety of reasons: they decrease the navigable water depth, are an important source of form roughness, interfere with infrastructure, and influence salinity dynamics. This thesis presents new process-based models to unravel the physical processes that drive estuarine sand dune characteristics.
