On the influence of suspended sediment transport on the generation of offshore sand waves

Sand waves are bed-forms occurring in shallow seas. Although their characteristics are mainly affected by bed load transport, during rough weather suspended sediment transport can influence their characteristics. As a first step to model these influences, we added suspended sediment transport to a numerical 2DV model that was specifically developed for simulating sand waves. In this paper, results are presented for initial, small amplitude, sand waves. Incorporating suspended sediment transport increases the growth rate of sand waves significantly while their wave length is more robust. Furthermore, we found that the results are sensitive to flow conditions, as expected, and sediment diffusivity, which needs a more advanced description.