Equilibrium slopes and cross-shore velocity asymmetries in a storm-dominated, barred nearshore system

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The near-bed (0.10 m elevation), horizontal velocities were measured across a two-barred, lacustrine shoreface during a storm and reveal a spatially coherent but temporally variable pattern in the low-order moments of the velocity field. Large cross-shore velocity asymmetries indicated: 1. (1) Spatially extensive and temporally persistent offshore mean flows (up to 0.18 m s −1 across the landward slope of the linear outer bar) reflecting an undertow driven by a wave-induced setup. 2. (2) An onshore directed skewness opposing the mean flow, of wind wave origin and persistent under propagating bores in the inner bar system long after this asymmetry had disappeared from the outer bar. Extensive sediment reactivation with near-zero net sediment flux over the whole of the upper shoreface indicated a sediment prism in a steady state (volumetrically) over the storm cycle. Uniform depths of sediment reactivation with zero bed elevation change over the storm cycle revealed local slopes in a steady state in the outer linear bar. However, time integration of the near-bed velocity field at this location indicated an offshore net flux of water, while sedimentary structures indicated bedform migration (and thus at least bedload) almost uniformly onshore when ripples and megaripples were present. The sediment transport giving rise to the local equilibrium cannot be explained therefore on the basis of the mean properties of the near-bed velocity vector, but requires knowledge of the time-varying, instantaneous sediment transport vector. Onshore migration of the inner bar correlated well with the large and persistent onshore skewness of the velocity distribution in the inner surf zone associated with translatory surf bores throughout the storm decay period. Low-frequency oscillations were only significant close to the shoreline, but may have influenced the development of a sinuous three-dimensional inner bar form as it migrated onshore.