At the industrial port of Al Jubail, Saudi Arabia, new harbour facilities are currently being planned. These facilities will be constructed at an area to be reclaimed. The first part of the required backfill material, with a volume of about 2,600,000 m³, is dredged from the nearby planned new inner harbour basin. The dredged material contains about 5% of fines smaller than 75 µm.

Most of these fines will settle during the backfill process. However, the overflow discharge could still contain some fines. With the overflowing water, these fines are disposed into the harbour basin resulting in an increased turbidity there. The disposal of fines into the port area and/or the sea in general is subject to environmental regulations.

The following services were provided:

• Determination of hydraulic conditions in the harbour and near the disposal area,
• interpretation of velocity measurements taken for this project,
• quantification of the fines in suspension due to the dredging process,
• dispersal of the fines due to nearfield and farfield mixing.