Abstract
Coastal erosion is controlled by two sets of factors, one related to storm intensity and the other related to a location’s vulnerability. This study investigated the role of each set in controlling dune erosion based on data compiled for eighteen historical events in New Jersey. Here, storm intensity was characterized by the Storm Erosion Index (SEI) and Peak Erosion Intensity (PEI), factors used to describe a storm’s cumulative erosion potential and maximum erosive power, respectively. In this study, a direct relationship between these parameters, beach morphology characteristics, and expected dune response was established through a classification tree ensemble. Of the seven input parameters, PEI was the most important, indicating that peak storm conditions with time scales on the order of hours were the most critical in predicting dune impacts. Results suggested that PEI, alone, was successful in distinguishing between storms most likely to result in no impacts (PEI < 69) and those likely to result in some (PEI > 102), regardless of beach condition. For intensities in between, where no consistent behavior was observed, beach conditions must be considered. Because of the propensity for beach conditions to change over short spatial scales, it is important to predict impacts on a local scale. This study established a model with the computational effectiveness to provide such predictions.
Highlights
Of the storm intensity measures noted in the above section, this study focuses on the Storm Erosion Index (SEI), which was introduced by Miller and Livermont [14] and describes a storm’s erosion potential by the sum of an instantaneous erosion intensity (IEI)
The eighteen storms captured a full range of impacts, with losses extending from 0%
The correlation analysis and classification trees presented in the previous section highlighted the most important parameters in controlling dune impacts and the interaction of those parameters
Summary
Shortcomings of these methods have been brought to light with regard to characterizing a storm’s erosion potential For this reason, additional parameters were developed that combined multiple factors (i.e., wave conditions; water level; storm duration) known to be drivers of coastal erosion [8,9,10,11,12,13,14]. Additional parameters were developed that combined multiple factors (i.e., wave conditions; water level; storm duration) known to be drivers of coastal erosion [8,9,10,11,12,13,14] These parameters served as proxies for storm impacts, with qualitative relationships established between erosion potential and observed impacts. Direct quantitative relationships were more challenging to establish because of: (1) difficulties in obtaining spatially varying storm information and quantified impacts; and (2) variation introduced by other site-specific controls of dune erosion
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