What could be done for sampling of sediments if technologically sound facilities are not available.. ?

The lake or pond likes a sedimentation reservoir, from sedimentation rate, we can estimate the erosion rate of the basin/catchment included it, sedimentation rate can be used as a factor for designing the hydropower dam in term of filling sediment or dead of the reservoir.

How long of samples you want to take or how depth of water in the lake?

I am unable to understand you mean why do people estimate sedimentation rate or the principle for estimation of sedimentation rate. Yes Tran is right, you need to know how much is the rate of deposition. Incase of pond/lake teh sediment supply is also often required to see the pollution load.

I am not very sure if I am answering your exact question, but have you thought of erosion modeling or analyse interactions of soil, water transport through some modeling platforms like RUSLE or SWAT?

The principle behind sedimentation rate in a pond or lake can be a constant rate of supply or constant flux, if your question is directed towards establishing rate of sedimentation / stratification.

In Lentic water bodies,sedimentation rate would mean how much of anthropogenic activities takes place around it. In certain areas it is possible that surface soil particles could find its way into the water bodies due to wind action,hence in windy areas,the rate could be high enough,leading to lessening of water body depth,thereby decreasing water holding volume. This is due to more layers of water being exposed to higher surface temperatures & leading to more evaporation. More the sedimentation rate, lesser is the light penetration,which leads to less amount of photosynthetic activity, leading to lower primary production. If sediments is of biotic origin,it means that dead parts of biota has found its way in to the water body, which means that the neighborhood around the water body has high amount of greenery & a fair amount of animal population.

Tailor who has asked the question has never clarified and responded on what his actual question was. I guess he requires to clarify his question prior to us getting more into explanations.

@ Saif Uddin,

What Tailor meant was the reasons for estimating rates of sedimentation in Lentic water bodies. These water bodies could have sedimentation rates which are not the same even for the same place.The reason is a tank will have lower capacity to recycle biotic sediments as compared to say a pond,where light penetration is available right up to its bottom.This rate could be different than that found in a lake,where sunlight penetration is not available.More the sunlight,more is the photosynthetic activity,which leads to more use of minerals, which leads to very slightly lowering the height of sediments.On the other hand, presence of benthic feeders lowers sediments,whereas accumulation of very slow degrading compounds like say chitin,shells of shell fishes & bones of vertebrates tend to increase the amount.

May be you are right Chandravadan, I was not able to understand the question fully.

For sampling of sediments,you can use piston corer if the sediment depth is substantial,or a simple Grab if it is shallow. A crude method is to use 'Dafli' a term in local parlance,which is an ordinary iron cylinder of say 3 to 5 feet, with facility to tie a rope in a shakle attached to the top opening, & with a 3/4 diameter opening at the bottom with an inside same metal flap opening inside,so that when the equipment is impinged into the sediment,the benthic matter enters into the cylinder, & when it is about to be lifted,the inner flap closes the bottom opening,thereby engulfing & trapping the sample,which is then lifted out of water surface. Thiel Meiosclicer can be used to find out the meiofauna in the mud samples,on the other if not available,a fine brush can be used to trace out fauna.

Dear respondents, apologies for late response and partial clarification of my question. the intention behind the question was to develop a methodology to carry out analysis of sedimentation rate for two reasons: 1) to find out the primary production of the water body and correlate the same with sedimentation rate. 2) if the same sedimentation rate remains unchecked, how much time will it take for the water body to get converted into a land mass (if this will be the end point).

Thank you all for kind responses.. !

1) As said earlier,primary production alone will not lead to sedimentation,as many other factors are also involved.In case primary production is to be correlated with sedimentation rate,then the sediments due to materials other than products of primary production are to be deducted from the total figure.

2) If waters are oligotrophic, it would take substantial amount of time to get converted into a land mass. If there is constant eutrophication,then it would take a smaller time for the water body to be converted into a bog, & then into a land mass. It also depends upon the mineral holding capacity of soil & water,along with ingress of nutrients from outside.

Tailor are you trying to say that sedimentation will change primary productivity of a water body, it can but cannot be the said unless you know the type of sediments how much nutrient rich they are. Again the notion that how long will it take to become landmass will solely depend on how big and deep is water body and what is the rate of sediment supply. They are bit too unrelated .

It is possible to estimate the sedimentation rate by measuring the activity of Cs-137

How will you measure by 137Cs without measuring excess 210-Pb

see the article in french language, I just put online on researchgate (conference proceeding)