Sediment transport balance investigations for the Saaremaa harbour with mike 21 models

The proposed construction of a new harbour, into the vicinity of the bird protection area on the island of Saaremaa, initiated probably the most serious program of investigations in the history of Estonian port construction. It involved on site measurements of water properties, bird observations, investigations on local sea fauna and flora and different types of mathematical modeling procedures starting from wave hindcast and ending with different types of spill analysis (oil and suspended material). The main idea was to confirm that no harm come to the bird protection area and to work out a disaster recovery plan if an accident of some kind would happened in the harbour. The present paper describes only a part of the whole set of investigations: wave and current hindcast and sediment transport balance investigations.