The influence of tides, wind and waves on the redistribution of nourished sediment at Terschelling, The Netherlands

Abstract

A calibrated morphodynamic model of the barrier island of Terschelling, The Netherlands [Grunnet, N.M., Walstra, D.J.R., Ruessink, B.G., 2004. Process-based modelling of a shoreface nourishment. Coastal Eng. 51/7, 581–607], comprising the island and its two adjacent tidal inlet systems, is applied to identify the relative contribution of tides, wind and waves to the cross-shore and alongshore redistribution of a 2 Mm 3 nourishment supplied to the nearshore zone along the island. Several model simulations with varying combinations of horizontal and vertical tide, wind and wave forcing were designed to investigate the effect of each individual forcing on a large spatio-temporal scale (order of kilometres and months, respectively). As expected, stirring and transport by waves and wave-induced currents are predicted to be by far the dominant contributor to the net sediment transport along the coast of Terschelling. Because of the strong obliquity of the winds and the relatively small tidal currents in front of the island (≈ 0.5 m/s), alongshore wind-driven currents increase sediment transport rates and horizontal tides virtually have no net transport capacity. This motivated a local model of the study area along the closed coast of Terschelling, not including tidal inlets and further simplifying tidal boundary definitions by omitting the horizontal tides: morphodynamic simulations of the local model show virtually identical results as the larger model predictions. The reduction in complexity in setting up a local model instead of a regional model coupled with the corresponding significant reduction in computational time points to an increasing applicability of complex process-based models.