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1 ABP Marine Environmental Research Ltd, Suite B, Waterside House, Town Quay, Southampton SO14 2AQ, UK (e-mail: bcooper{at}abpmer.co.uk)
2 Geo Sea Consulting (Canada) Ltd, 789 Saunders Lane, Brentwood Bay, BC, V8M 1C5, Canada
Carmarthen Bay is a large embayment on the northern coast of the Bristol Channel; a location that is exposed directly exposed to both Atlantic waves and a macro-tidal environment. Until recently this embayment was comparatively poorly described in terms of its sediment regime. In particular, limited data were available to identify sediment types and sediment exchanges with the offshore.
The Bristol Channel is an active interest area for marine aggregate extraction, with the majority of licenses falling in Welsh Territorial Waters. To enable the Government View procedure on marine aggregate extraction in this area to develop with a more complete understanding a research project (Bristol Channel Marine Aggregates: Resource and Constraints, also commonly referred to as BCMA) was commissioned. This research project identified Carmarthen Bay as a strategic unit of the overall sediment regime, and defined a programme of primary research in this area to improve understanding of sediment exchanges. A key part of this research has been an application of sediment trend analysis (STA). This paper describes components of the STA technique, the rationale for its application, the survey design, results and subsequent interpretation of the information in the context of determining probable patterns of net sediment transport across Carmarthen Bay.
