Investigation of sediment transport and optimization of dredging operations in Indian ports using radiotracer technique

India has a long coastline of about 7,515 km and there are twelve major ports situated on the coastline. Out of them, six are situated on the West Coast whereas other six are situated on the East Coast. In addition to this, there are more than 140 minor ports and other marine establishments situated along the coastline. Each port and marine project has a navigation channel and depth of this navigation channel needs to be maintained to a level of at least 12-15 meters for smooth sailing of ships. Sediments continuously move along the coast due to alongshore currents generated by the waves and tides; and get deposited in navigation channels. For maintaining the required depth of the channels, the dredging operation is carried out. throughout the year or as and when required. Development of a new port or harbour also involves huge capital dredging. The dredged sediments generated during maintenance or capital dredging needs to be dumped at a suitable location, so that it does not find its way back to the channel and obstruct sailing of ships. Moreover the selected site should be such that the turn around time of the dredger is kept minimum to economize the dredging operation. In order to meet the above requirements, the knowledge of transport parameters such as the general direction of movement, extent of lateral and longitudinal movement, transport velocity, transport thickness and bed load movement rate is required. Radiotracer techniques are commonly used to investigate sediment transport on seabed and evaluate the suitability of the proposed dumping sites. Scandium-46 (half-life: 84 days, Gamma energies: 0.89 MeV (100%), 1.12 MeV (100%)) in the form of scandium glass powder is the most suitable radiotracer for tracing sediments on seabed. The activity used in an investigation ranges from 75-300 GBq (2-8 Ci). The suitably prepared particulate radiotracer is injected on seabed at the proposed site using a specially designed injection system and its movement is tracked at regular intervals using waterproof scintillation detector. The concentration of radiotracer is recorded as counts per unit time and plotted as a function of latitude and longitude to obtain iso-activity contours. The iso-activity contours are analyzed to obtain various transport parameters of sediments and subsequently used to evaluate the suitability of dumping site and optimize the dumping operation. More than eighty large-scale radiotracer investigations have been carried out in all the major ports in India during last five decades. The results of a few recently carried out sediment transport investigations will be discussed. (author)