Design criteria and theoretical basis for capping contaminated marine sediments

Contamination of rivers, waterways and harbors, directly affects their recr eational and commercial uses. Contaminated sediments can exert a significan t oxygen demand, support a poor diversity of benthic organisms and adversel y affect local (overlying) and downstream water quality. In-situ, subaqueou s capping is an attractive, non-intrusive and cost-effective method of reme diating contaminated sediments. The successful design of an underwater cap requires the proper application of hydraulic (armor and filter equations), chemical (diffusive and advective/dispersive transport equations), and geot echnical (settlement and stability equations) engineering principles. Theor etical considerations for cap and anmor design are presented in this paper and illustrated using an example application of a cap design for a confiden tial contaminated harbor site. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights re served.