Erodibility of permafrost exposures in the coasts of Eastern Chukotka

Abstract

Coastal retreat caused by coastal erosion decreases the territory of Russia by 50 km2 annually. Erosion of the Arctic coasts composed by fine-grained permafrost turns coastlines into badlands dozens of meters wide and is harmful to the coastal infrastructure. Regional-level variations in the coastal retreat rate in the Arctic tend to follow the climate change dynamics and its consequences, mainly the shrinkage of the perennial sea ice area. This study considers the lower level local-scale variability linked to permafrost features, lithology, and morphology of the coasts in the remote region on the western shore of the Bering Sea within Lorino settlement (Chukotka, Russia). The coastal dynamics was tracked by means of geodesy and remote sensing in 2012–14, and the archival engineering survey data available since 1967. We have derived the erodibility of sediments from the conventional soil properties measured by engineers, and linked the coastal retreat rates to erodibility of the sediments, so that it could be extrapolated to other coastal areas of Eastern Chukotka with similar sediment structure.