Highlights

Leaflet
Head Office of the Hydraulics and Environment Department Harbours and Maritime Structures Division  Estuary and Coastal Zones Division  Water Resources and Hydraulic Structures Division  Sanitary Engineering Division  Groundwater Division  Information Technology Division
National Civil Engineering Laboratory
Hydraulics and Environment Department

Estuaries and Coastal Zones Division

Activity

The Estuaries and Coastal Zones Division (NEC) of LNEC’s Hydraulics and Environment Department was created in 1961 and pursues its activity in the following domains:

  • Estuarine and coastal hydraulics
    • Flows driven by tides, wind and river flows
    • Coastal currents
    • Stratified flows
    • Salinity intrusion in estuaries
    • Wind-wave propagation 

    

 

  • Sediment dynamics in estuaries and coastal zones
    • Coastal dynamics and protection
    • Morphodynamics and stability of tidal inlets
    • Processes and evolution of estuarine margins
    • Dynamics and behaviour of cohesive sediments
    • Dredging and disposal of dredging spoils
    • Laboratory characterization of cohesive and non-cohesive sediments

 

  • Environmental quality in coastal zones
    • Water quality in coastal systems
    • Effluent disposal and submarine outfalls
    • Systems of environmental indicators
    • Integrated coastal zone management

 

Various types of tools are used:

 

  • Numerical models:

    • Shallow water flows
    • Short wave propagation
    • Nearshore currents
    • Estuarine and coastal morphodynamics
    • Advection-diffusion
    • Cohesive sediment transport
    • Water quality
   

 

  • Laboratory equipment (Experimental facility for Cohesive Sediments):
    • Annular flume, sedimentation column and consolidation columns for the study of cohesive sediment behaviour 
    • Sedimentology laboratory for the physical characterization of cohesive and non-cohesive sediments.

 

  • Scale models:
    • Two-dimensional channels to study the stability of beach profiles
    • Tri-dimensional tanks to study the longitudinal stability of beaches
    

 

  •  Specification and analysis of field work