Abstract
Bottom-mounted instrumentation was deployed at two sites on a large sandy shoal of an ebb tidal delta offshore of the Port Royal Sound of South Carolina of USA to collect hydrodynamics and sediment dynamics data. One site (“borrow site”) was 2 km offshore in a dredge pit for nearby beach nourishment and the other site (“reference site”) was 10 km offshore. In situ time-series data were collected during two periods after the dredging: 15 March–12 June (spring) and 18 August–18 November (fall) of 2012. Data at the reference site indicated active migrating bedforms from centimeters to decimeters tall, and sediment concentrations were highly associated with semidiurnal and fortnightly tidal cycles. In the fall deployment, waves at the reference site were higher than those at the shallow borrow site. Both Tropical Storm Beryl and Hurricane Sandy formed high waves and strong currents but did not generate the greatest sediment fluxes. The two sites were at different depths and distances offshore, and waves contributed more to sediment mobility at the reference site whereas tidal forcing was the key controlling factor at the borrow site. This study provides valuable datasets for the selection of sites, prediction of pit infilling, and the modeling of storm impact in future beach nourishment and coastal restoration projects.
Highlights
Beaches and barrier islands are common sandy sedimentary environments, and their stability forms an integral part of the economy of coastal areas by providing support for tourism and infrastructure protection
Our study provides valuable and comprehensive datasets of hydrodynamics, sediment dynamics and seabed elevation changes that have been collected under the influence of varying waves, tides, and storm events on a large ebb tidal delta offshore of the Port Royal Sound of South Carolina of USA
The study area was located on a portion of a large half-circle-shaped ebb tidal delta southeast of the Port Royal Sound (PRS) in South Carolina, USA, near which multiple pits have been dredged for beach nourishment on Hilton Head Island (HHI) (Figure 1A) [12]
Summary
Beaches and barrier islands are common sandy sedimentary environments, and their stability forms an integral part of the economy of coastal areas by providing support for tourism and infrastructure protection. Ebb tidal deltas of barrier systems are sometimes regarded as potential borrow areas for beach nourishment due to their proximity to beaches and their large volumes of high-quality beach-compatible sand. There is, a lack of higher-temporal-resolution datasets pertaining to the infilling rates in borrow areas, especially on dynamic and complex ebb tidal deltas. This is most likely because (a) most ebb tidal deltas are located in very energetic wave and tidal environments where anchoring costly instrumentation on mobile sands is quite challenging; (b) mobile sand waves can potentially bury the instrumentation and pose a challenge to equipment retrieval; and (c) biofouling impacts the acoustic and optical sensors and can require costly periodic cleaning and mJ.
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