Environmental scientists can tell a lot about the health of rivers, bays, wetlands and other waterways by studying the flow of sediments suspended in the water, and from the mud that forms when these sediments settle to the bottom.
Environmental scientists can tell a lot about the health of rivers, bays, wetlands and other waterways by studying the flow of sediments suspended in the water, and from the mud that forms when these sediments settle to the bottom.
“Mud is not glamorous, but mud is where all the contaminants collect and stick,” notes Oliver Fringer, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford.
Suspended sediments can trap toxic pollutants and prevent the formation of fish-killing red-tides, he explained. And measuring and predicting how sediment flows will form mud will help reveal how waterways will respond to rising sea levels and climate change. But until now, studying sediment flows — also known as measuring turbidity — has been slow, imprecise and labor-intensive, hampering efforts to better understand the health of waterways.
Read more at Stanford University
Image Credit: Kurt Hickman
