Abstract
Abstract. This work assesses the impacts in reshaping coastlines as a result of sea level rise and changes in wave climate. The methodology proposed combines the SWAN and SWASH wave models to resolve the wave processes from deep waters up to the swash zone in two micro-tidal sandy beaches in Mallorca island, western Mediterranean. In a first step, the modelling approach has been validated with observations from wave gauges and from the shoreline inferred from video monitoring stations, showing a good agreement between them. Afterwards, the modelling set-up has been applied to the 21st century sea level and wave projections under two different climate scenarios, representative concentration pathways RCP45 and RCP85. Sea level projections have been retrieved from state-of-the-art regional estimates, while wave projections were obtained from regional climate models. Changes in the shoreline position have been explored under mean and extreme wave conditions. Our results indicate that the studied beaches would suffer a coastal retreat between 7 and up to 50 m, equivalent to half of the present-day aerial beach surface, under the climate scenarios considered.
Highlights
Rising sea levels represent one of the major threats for coastal regions, causing submersion, erosion and increased vulnerability to extreme marine events, among other negative impacts (Nicholls and Cazenave, 2010)
In Playa de Palma, wave data came from a coastal buoy located at 23 m depth and an acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP) deployed at 17 m depth, both operating since January 2012 as part of the SOCIB beach monitoring programme
This paper has investigated the capabilities of state-of-theart numerical models to reproduce the changes in the shoreline position in the Cala Millor and Playa de Palma beaches
Summary
Rising sea levels represent one of the major threats for coastal regions, causing submersion, erosion and increased vulnerability to extreme marine events, among other negative impacts (Nicholls and Cazenave, 2010). The impact of sea level rise in the shoreline position has become a subject of increasing concern, in densely populated regions with high urban development This is the case for many Mediterranean regions, whose economies, which constitute about 14 % of the total gross domestic product of the EU (Eurostat, 2011), largely rely on tourism based on beach and other seaside recreational activities. In this study the beach erosion has not been considered, which means that our estimates of landward migration of the coastline could be biased low if erosion rates increase and sediments are carried offshore; in other words, what is assessed here is the minimum impact in beach shoreline retreat.
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