Numerical simulation of shoreline responses in the vicinity of the western artificial inlet of the Bardawil Lagoon, Sinai Peninsula, Egypt

Abstract

This paper introduces an appropriate visualization of the tidal inlets including the characterization of internal siltation and the remediation of associated non-affirmative consequences due to the existence of its protective jetties, such as down-side erosion and up-side accretion. Accordingly, the 2D hydrodynamic circulation models CMS-Flow and CMS-Wave have been initially set up to describe the morphodynamics situation inside the artificial western inlet (inlet (1)) of the Bardawil Lagoon, which is situated along the Mediterranean coastline of the Sinai Peninsula, in the presence and absence of the jetties. Simultaneously, the Littoral Processes and Coastline Kinetics (DHI-LITPACK) numerical model is essentially applied to predict the shoreline responses in the vicinity of inlet (1) to numerous different scenarios considering both hard (i.e., groins and detached breakwaters) and soft (i.e., sand nourishment and sand bypassing systems) measures during the period from 2010 to 2030. The study has revealed that the use of hard measures to the east of the inlet would induce exceedingly high recession rates of the shoreline. Nevertheless, the use of a one-time nourishment of 250,000 m3 in the areas between short groins (with lengths of 90 m and an interval of 400 m) during their construction would optimally reduce the expected area of erosion by approximately 91.85%. Meanwhile, a single groin with a length of 200 m and a westward drift distance of 450 m to the west of the inlet would be superior with regard to optimizing the sedimentary stock compared to an annual dredging rate of 100,000 m3/year. Finally, an optimization model has been constructed using a Mamdani-type fuzzy inference system to determine the cheapest and most efficient solution with the minimum impact on the sandy barrier zone of inlet (1).