State Paths Of Clay Dominated Soils Of Coastal Marshland: Scale Effect And Hydrodynamic Behaviour

The paper is focused on clayey dominated sediments of coastal marshes of the West Atlantic coast of France because of their homogeneity in texture and mineralogy, and their vertical structure evolution from dried and solid state in surface down to saturated plastic-toliquid state in depth. It proposes a "review" of the complementary petrographic and hydro-mechanical data obtained on theses clay dominated soils and a method of calculation for the relationships prevailing between the hydro-mechanical properties and microstructure behaviour of the clay matrices. This tool, based on the shrinkage curve of the clay matrix is applied as aid to the hydraulic management of marshlands regarding the soil-plant interactions.