PREDICTING THE RECOVERY OF BIOLOGICAL COMMUNITIES ON THE SEABED AFTER MARINE AGGREGATE DREDGING

This paper describes the development of a mathematical model for predicting the recovery of the seabed and the associated ecological communities after marine aggregate dredging. The sediment dynamic model is based on a rule-based cellular automata technique rather than conventional process-based methods, and has been developed from an earlier model of aeolian sand transport. The biological model is driven by the sediment dynamic model and depicts the behaviour of five functional groups, i.e. groups of species sharing similar feeding behaviour and habitat. This model describes their response to physical and hydrodynamic conditions perturbed by the dredging process. Modelling results display the backfilling of a trench left after dredging is complete. They also demonstrate the modelling of benthic community dynamics and the long-term prediction of recovery of groups of species after major disturbances, such as dredging.