Pd. Thorne et al., ON THE USE OF ACOUSTICS FOR MEASURING SHALLOW-WATER SUSPENDED SEDIMENT PROCESSES, IEEE journal of oceanic engineering, 19(1), 1994, pp. 48-57
Acoustics have the promise of being able to have a significant impact
on our understanding of coastal sedimentary processes, which play such
an important role in the dynamics of the coastal and shallow water en
vironment. Due to this, the application of acoustics for remotely meas
uring suspended sediments, over ranges from metres to tens of metres,
is gaining acceptance within the sediment community. This recognition
of the use of acoustics to the area of sediment processes is based on
advances which have been made over the past decade in our understandin
g of the interaction of sound with marine suspended sediments, and als
o due to ongoing field observations which have shown the unique abilit
y of the acoustic technique to measure suspended sediment profiles. In
the present work acoustic measurements of suspended sediments have be
en conducted at 1, 2.5, 3, and 5 MHz in a number of different shallow
water environments. The interpretation of the acoustic data to obtain
suspended sediment concentration is presented, and some of the difficu
lties when inverting the acoustic information to obtain the suspended
load are considered. Some discussion is also given to future uses of a
coustics for studying sediment processes, and how we may utilize the a
pplication of underwater sound to manage our coastal environment more
effectively.