Changed sediment composition prevents recovery of macrobenthic community four years after a shoreface nourishment at the Holland coast

Sand nourishment is a widespread management strategy to protect sandy coasts against erosion. Nourishments can impact the benthic fauna directly by burial and indirectly by changing environmental conditions such as bottom shear stress and/or sediment composition (grain size distribution). The macrobenthic community in softbottom environments is often strongly correlated with sediment composition, however, because of the strong correlation with other environmental conditions, it is difficult to determine the direct effects of sediment composition on the macrobenthic community from field observa... Mehr ...