Abstract

<strong class="journal-contentHeaderColor">Abstract.</strong> Sandy beaches are unique environments composed of unconsolidated sediments that are constantly reshaped by the action of waves, tides, currents, and winds. The most seaward region of the dry beach, referred to as the beach face, is the primary interface between land and ocean and is of fundamental importance to coastal processes, including the dissipation and reflection of wave energy at the coast and the exchange of sediment between the land and sea. The slope of the beach face is a critical parameter in coastal geomorphology and coastal engineering, as it is needed to calculate the total elevation and excursion of wave run-up at the shoreline. However, datasets of the beach-face slopes along most of the world's coastlines remain unavailable. This study presents a new dataset of beach-face slopes for the Australian coastline derived from a novel remote sensing technique. The dataset covers 13 200 km of sandy coast and provides an estimate of the beach-face slope every 100 m alongshore accompanied by an easy-to-apply measure of the confidence of each slope estimate. The dataset offers a unique view of large-scale spatial variability in the beach-face slope and addresses the growing need for this information to predict coastal hazards around Australia. The beach-face slope dataset and relevant metadata are available at <span class="uri">https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5606216</span> (Vos et al., 2021).

Highlights

  • The world’s coastlines are unique geological environments at the interface between land and sea

  • 255 This study presents a new dataset of beach-face slopes for the Australian coastline derived from a newly-available remote sensing technique

  • The dataset covers a total of 13,200 km of sandy coast and provides an estimate of the beach-face slope from Mean Sea Level (MSL) to Mean High Water Spring (MHWS) spaced every 100 m alongshore

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Summary

Introduction

The world’s coastlines are unique geological environments at the interface between land and sea. Along this coastal fringe, 20 which is often densely populated (Small et al, 2011), we find beaches composed of unconsolidated sediments (e.g., gravel, sand, mud) that are constantly reshaped by the action of waves, currents, winds and tides (Dean and Dalrymple, 2004). The steepness of the beach face (tanβ), or beach-face slope, is a key parameter 25 in coastal geomorphology and coastal engineering due to its control on important coastal processes. The beach-face slope controls the elevation of wave run-up and total swash excursion at the shoreline (Gomes da Silva et al, 2020; Stockdon et al, 2006), processes that are of primary importance for the assessment of coastal erosion and inundation hazards along the coastal boundary (Senechal et al, 2011; Stockdon et al, 2007). The beach-face slope parameter is a useful proxy for surfzone hydrodynamics in the absence of costly surf-zone bathymetric surveys and can provide insights into beach swimmer 30 safety (Short et al, 1993) and wave set-up across the surf zone (Stephens et al, 2011)

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