Applicability of MASW Technology to Safety Assessment of Artificial Intertidal Flats

Most of the artificial intertidal flats are filled with dredged clay and have a sand capping. Immediately after the construction, because the dredged clay has not consolidated, a safety assessment system is strongly required to avoid a person who is caught in a soft clay layer at a place where sand capping is significantly thin. The authors have applied MASW method to various types of intertidal flats, and confirmed that the MASW is very useful method to efficiently survey the stratigraphy of intertidal flats. In this study, the MASW was applied to three intertidal flats: an artificial flat which was immediately after the filling; an artificial flat which was about ten years after the filling; and a natural muddy flat which has deposited over many years. Through these investigations, it was confirmed that MASW technology is useful to evaluate the safety of artificial intertidal flats.