Abstract
Resilient coastal protection requires adaptive management strategies that build with nature to maintain long-term sustainability. With increasing pressures on shorelines from urbanisation, industrial growth, sea-level rise and changing storm climates soft approaches to coastal management are implemented to support natural habitats and maintain healthy coastal ecosystems. The impact of a beach mega-nourishment along a frontage of interactive natural and engineered systems that incorporate soft and hard defences is explored. A coastal evolution model is applied to simulate the impact of different hypothetical mega-nourishment interventions to assess their impacts’ over 3 shoreline management planning epochs: present-day (0–20 years), medium-term (20–50 years) and long-term (50–100 years). The impacts of the smaller interventions when appropriately positioned are found to be as effective as larger schemes, thus making them more cost-effective for present-day management. Over time the benefit from larger interventions becomes more noticeable, with multi-location schemes requiring a smaller initial nourishment to achieve at least the same benefit as that of a single-location scheme. While the longer-term impact of larger schemes reduces erosion across a frontage the short-term impact down drift of the scheme can lead to an increase in erosion as the natural sediment drift becomes interrupted. This research presents a transferable modelling tool to assess the impact of nourishment schemes for a variety of sedimentary shorelines and highlights both the positive and negative impact of beach mega-nourishment.
Highlights
Climate change and the associated rise in sea level are increasing the vulnerability of coastal communities and industries to flood and erosion risk globally (Nicholls et al, 2007)
Scenarios S1, S2 and S3 are just less than half the area of the Dutch Zandmotor
From the results presented it is clear that in the short-term there is immediate benefit locally, while down drift of the intervention the coast can become sediment starved as the natural alongshore drift is inhibited
Summary
Climate change and the associated rise in sea level are increasing the vulnerability of coastal communities and industries to flood and erosion risk globally (Nicholls et al, 2007). Management options that adapt with the natural environment are used to build long-term resilience into new coastal schemes (Kuklicke and Demeritt, 2016). The approach is intended to create a resilient beach that evolves with changing coastal conditions over a 20-year period. To inform decision makers on the possible consequences of such an intervention in other locations, this research aims to assess the potential benefits and adverse impacts of different approaches to beach meganourishment. This research considers the impacts in terms of erosion reduction and creation of beach width and sheltered water, informing management needs in relation to flood and erosion risk in addition to the creation of habitat and recreational space
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