Monitoring of cohesive sediment transport in the Belgian Part of the North Sea

The main part of the dataset has been collected within the MOMO project (Monitoring and modelling of cohesive sediment transport and evaluation of the effects of dredging and dumping operations on the marine ecosystem) at four locations (MOW1, Blankenberge, WZ-buoy, MOW0, Ostend and Geul van de Walvisstaart buoy). A large part of the data is from the MOW1 station, situated about 3 km offshore the harbour of Zeebrugge. Shorter time series have been collected for the Environmental Impact Assessment of the Belwind offshore windfarm at two locations (Blighbank, Gootebank) and the MOZ4 project (Westdiep location). A central objective of the MOMO project is to collect long-term time series of Suspended Particulate Matter concentration, size and transport in the coastal turbidity maximum located in the Belgian Part of the North Sea. Data from two sensors are included in this dataset. First, from a LISST-100X instrument, which contains four parameters: the optical transmission, the median distribution of the sediment particle size (micrometers), the Sauter mean diameter (micrometer) and the total SPM volume concentration (microlitres/litre). Second from in-situ observation of water turbidity derived from an Optical Backscatter Sensor (OBS) together with a CTD sensor. The following parameters are included: water pressure, salinity, water temperature, turbidity and SPM mass concentration (mg/l). The OBS is calibrated in the laboratory using standard turbidity solutions, and in the field using SPMC determined through filtration of water samples. These data can be visualized and downloaded via a Sensor Observations Service (SOS). ADV (point velocity, turbulence, altimetry and acoustic backscatter), ADCP (velocity profile and acoustic backscatter) and LISST 100X particle size distribution are also available from the tripod measurements, but the data are not yet available via web-services. Please contact the data provider if interested.