Characterising the erosional sortability of fine sediment

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The transport of fine sediment and its constituents affects the health and sustainable uses of the coastal zone in Canada. For example, the navigability of coastal waters, the response of coastal ecosystems to sea level rise, the exposure of humans and other organisms to sediment-bound contaminants, and the impact of activities like aquaculture and waste disposal on coastal marine ecosystems all depend on fine sediment transport. To complicate matters, all of these effects are tied to the sortability of fine marine sediment, which is not well understood due to physically and biologically mediated cohesion, or stickiness, among sediment particles. The goal of this research is to improve understanding of the factors that affect the erosional sortability of fine marine sediment.