The Submarine Morphology of certain Port Approach Channel Systems

Abstract

Many of the major ports of the British Isles, including two of the most important, London and Liverpool, are situated at or near the head of sand-filled bays or estuaries. Their continued utility depends not only on the provision of adequate berthing facilities within the harbour area itself but also on the maintenance of a deep-water approach channel through the shoals of the outer estuary. In some cases the latter requisite is the more difficult of the two to achieve, especially where the bottom configuration is liable to considerable change over a relatively short period of time.The problems connected with a changing sea-bed configuration come within the scope of loose-boundary hydraulics, a branch of flow mechanics which has only begun to be investigated. Some success in this direction has already been achieved using scale models of specific areas but many unsolved problems remain and much remains to be done.