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Last edited 07 Sep 2021

Sediment

Sediments are; ‘...the layers of particles that cover the bottom of water bodies such as lakes, ponds, rivers and reservoirs.’

Sedimentation is; ‘The process of deposition and consolidation of suspended material carried by water, wastewater or other liquids by gravity.'

Ref The SuDS Manual (C753), published by CIRIA in 2015.

Till is an unsorted glacial sediment deposited directly by a glacier. Ref The HS2 London-West Midlands Environmental Statement, Glossary of terms and list of abbreviations, DETR 2013.

Groynes in coastal engineering (CIRIA C793), published by CIRIA in 2020, defines cohesive sediment as: ‘Sediment containing significant proportion of clays, the physico-chemical properties of which cause the sediment to bind together.’

It defines sediment grading as: 'Distribution defined by nominal and extreme limits with regard to size or mass of individual sediment grains.'

And sediment transport as: 'The movement of a mass of sedimentary material by the forces of currents and waves. This can be either perpendicular (cross-shore) or parallel (longshore) to the shoreline.'

Geoarchaeology, Using Earth Sciences to Understand the Archaeological Record, published by Historic England in 2015, defines sediment as: ‘a collection of rock, mineral and/or organic particles that has been moved from their original source and redeposited elsewhere by natural or human agencies.’