ARTÍCULO
TITULO

Beach Profile Evolution towards Equilibrium from Varying Initial Morphologies

Sonja Eichentopf    
Joep van der Zanden    
Iván Cáceres and José M. Alsina    

Resumen

The evolution of different initial beach profiles towards the same final beach configuration is investigated based on large-scale experimental data. The same wave condition was performed three times, each time starting from a different initial profile morphology. The three different initial profiles are an intermediate energy profile with an offshore bar and a small swash berm, a plane profile and a low energy profile with a large berm. The three cases evolve towards the same final (equilibrium) profile determined by the same wave condition. This implies that the same wave condition generates different sediment transport patterns. Largest beach changes and differences in hydrodynamics occur in the beginning of the experimental cases, highlighting the coupling between morphology and hydrodynamics for beach evolution towards the same profile. The coupling between morphology and hydrodynamics that leads to the same final beach profile is associated with differences in sediment transport in the surf and swash zone, and is explained by the presence of bar and berm features. A large breaker bar and concave profile promote wave energy dissipation and reduce the magnitudes of the mean near-bed flow velocity close to the shoreline limiting shoreline erosion. In contrast, a beach profile with reflective features, such as a large berm and a small or no bar, increases negative velocity magnitudes at the berm toe promoting shoreline retreat. The findings are summarised in a conceptual model that describes how the beach changes towards equilibrium from two different initial morphologies.

 Artículos similares

       
 
Cuiping Kuang, Jiadong Fan, Xuejian Han, Hongyi Li, Rufu Qin and Qingping Zou    
With the recent development from grey infrastructures to green infrastructures, artificial reefs become more popular in coastal protection projects. To investigate the responses of beach profile evolution to the presence of an artificial reef, a non-hydr... ver más
Revista: Water

 
Ellie Newell and Sergio Maldonado    
Due to the significant mismatch in timescales associated with morphological and hydrodynamic processes in coastal environments, modellers typically resort to various techniques for speeding up the bed evolution in morphodynamic simulations. In this paper... ver más

 
Carla Labarthe, Bruno Castelle, Vincent Marieu, Thierry Garlan and Stéphane Bujan    
Beach slope is a critical parameter to, e.g., beach safety, wave reflection at the coast and longshore transport rate. However, it is usually considered as a time-invariant and profile-average parameter. Here, we apply a state-of-the-art equilibrium mode... ver más

 
Yingtao Zhou, Xi Feng, Maoyuan Liu and Weiqun Wang    
Beach width is an important factor for tourists? comfort, and the backshore is a swash zone where sediment moves quickly. Artificial sandy beaches focus on beach width stability and evolution. This paper is based on an artificial beach project in Haikou ... ver más

 
Kyu-Tae Shim and Kyu-Han Kim    
This study investigated the beach nourishment effect and topographical changes when using nourishment sand with relatively large particle diameters to perform beach nourishment on a beach subject to erosion. A physical model test was conducted in a 2D wa... ver más
Revista: Water