Modelling storm responses on a high-energy coastline with XBeach

The XBeach model has been used to simulate the morphological impacts of storms on sandy and gravel beaches. Taking as a case study Rossbeigh Spit located on the high-energy coast of western Ireland, the study reported here tests the capacity of XBeach to reproduce barrier breaching during a storm in December 2008. It demonstrates that predictions of the breaching event agree reasonably well with observations. However, the main focus of the paper is to establish using the model results, site-specific critical wave and water level conditions giving rise to dune erosion, overwashing and breaching. By deriving simple-to-use expressions to define hydrodynamic thresholds the study advances the ability to predict the impacts of infrequent and rarely observed storm events and is considered to provide useful coastal management tool for assessing the vulnerability of sandy barriers to breaching high-energy during storms.

[1]  E. Bird,et al.  Coastline Changes: A Global Review , 1985 .

[2]  R. Holman,et al.  A simple model for the spatially-variable coastal response to hurricanes , 2007 .

[3]  Jennifer M. Brown,et al.  Quantifying thresholds for significant dune erosion along the Sefton Coast, Northwest England , 2012 .

[4]  Michael Hartnett,et al.  Storms and surges in Irish coastal waters , 2010 .

[5]  A. Terchunian,et al.  Little Pikes inlet, Westhampton, New York , 1995 .

[6]  J. T. D. Vries.  Dune Erosion During Storm Surges , 2009 .

[7]  U. Andersen,et al.  Storminess and vulnerability along the Atlantic coastlines of Europe: analysis of storm records and of a greenhouse gases induced climate scenario , 2004 .

[8]  Jr. Asbury H. Sallenger.  Storm Impact Scale for Barrier Islands , 2000 .

[9]  Gerhard Masselink,et al.  The Effect of Tide Range on Beach Morphodynamics and Morphology: A Conceptual Beach Model , 1993 .

[10]  J. Cooper,et al.  Identifying storm impacts on an embayed, high-energy coastline: examples from western Ireland , 2004 .

[11]  Manel Grifoll,et al.  Breaching of a barrier under extreme events. The role of morphodynamic simulations , 2013 .

[12]  N. Kraus,et al.  Coastal Overwash: Part 2, Upgrade to SBEACH , 2004 .

[13]  Edgar Mendoza,et al.  An artificial reef improves coastal protection and provides a base for coral recovery , 2016 .

[14]  Jimmy Murphy,et al.  Predicting and Monitoring the Evolution of a Coastal Barrier Dune System Postbreaching , 2013 .

[15]  Jinrong Hu,et al.  Coastal Environments , 2020, Coastal and Marine Environments.

[16]  M. Gourlay.  Beach and Dune Erosion Report M935/M936 , 1968 .

[17]  Kenneth Pye,et al.  Decadal-scale variation in dune erosion and accretion rates: An investigation of the significance of changing storm tide frequency and magnitude on the Sefton coast, UK , 2008 .

[18]  Agustín Sánchez-Arcilla,et al.  Breaching in a wave-dominated barrier spit: The trabucador bar (north-eastern spanish coast) , 1994 .

[19]  M. Gourlay,et al.  Beach and dune erosion tests (I) , 1968 .

[20]  J. Dorandeu,et al.  Effects of Global Mean Atmospheric Pressure Variations on Mean Sea Level Changes from TOPEX/Poseidon , 1999 .

[21]  T. van der Meulen,et al.  BEACH AND DUKE EROSION TESTS , 1968 .

[22]  J. Orford,et al.  Mesoscale temporal changes to foredunes at Inch Spit, south-west Ireland , 1999 .

[23]  D. Roelvink,et al.  Modelling storm impacts on beaches, dunes and barrier islands , 2009 .

[24]  Nicholas C. Kraus,et al.  Coastal Barrier Breaching. Part 1. Overview of Breaching Processes , 2003 .

[25]  N. Kraus.  Analytical Model of Incipient Breaching of Coastal Barriers , 2003 .

[26]  Richard Soulsby,et al.  Evaluating the performance of morphological models , 2004 .

[27]  Jimmy Murphy,et al.  Monitoring the morphodynamic behaviour of a breached barrier beach system and its impacts on an estuarine system , 2011, OCEANS 2011 IEEE - Spain.

[28]  Shunqi Pan,et al.  The predictability of cross-shore bed evolution of sandy beaches at the time scale of storms and seasons using process-based Profile models , 2003 .