scholarly journals SURF ZONE RESONANCE AND COUPLED MORPHOLOGY

1978 ◽  
Vol 1 (16) ◽  
pp. 80
Author(s):  
John Chappell ◽  
Lynn Donelson Wright

The edge wave hypothesis for periodic inshore morphology and circulation is tested for five beaches and is supported by resulting wave-current spectral and cross-spectral data. Beach types range from a reflective, narrow surf zone, case through various dissipative medium to high energy beaches including some with inshore bar-trough morphology and one broad surf zone troughless one. In all cases beachface reflectivity is moderately high (E < 2.5) and inshore resonance occurs, indicated by strong spectral peaks at lower than incident frequency with wave-current co-peaks being 90°out of phase. Several different edgewave frequency and mode combinations are indicated. The reflective beach shows an n = o subharmonic edgewave (i.e. at half incident wave frequency) which Guza and Davis (1974) predict as the most likely case, viz. the (o,o) triad. The troughless dissipative case shows a (1,0) edgewave triad; the same occurs in some bar-trough dissipative cases but in other cases is supplanted by the (o,o) sub-harmonic wave and/or by a lower subharmonic wave at h, incident frequency. The likelihood of a given edge .waveset appears to be regulated by surf friction, and a change of edge wave set appears likely to explain observed changes of inshore circulation.

1984 ◽  
Vol 1 (19) ◽  
pp. 130
Author(s):  
Asbury H. Sallenger ◽  
Robert A. Holman

Flow data were obtained in the surf zone across a barred profile during a storm. RMS cross-shore velocities due to waves in the infragravity band (wave periods greater than 20 s) had maxima in excess of 0.5 m/s over the bar crest. For comparison to measured spectra, synthetic spectra of cross-shore flow were computed using measured nearshore profiles. The synthetic spectra were calculated assuming a white runup spectrum of mode-4 edge waves of unit amplitude, although the results would be essentially the same for standing waves or any edge-wave mode above 2. The structure, in the infragravity band, of these synthetic spectra corresponded reasonably well with the structure of the measured spectra. Total variances of measured cross-shore flow within the infragravity band were nondimensionalized by dividing by total infragravity variances of synthetic spectra. These nondimensional variances were independent of distance offshore and increased with the square of the breaker height. Thus, cross-shore flow due to infragravity waves can be estimated with knowledge of the nearshore profile and incident wave conditions.


2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (10) ◽  
pp. 2183-2205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruno Castelle ◽  
Tim Scott ◽  
Rob Brander ◽  
Jak McCarroll ◽  
Arthur Robinet ◽  
...  

Abstract. The two primary causes of surf zone injuries (SZIs) worldwide, including fatal drowning and severe spinal injuries, are rip currents (rips) and shore-break waves. SZIs also result from surfing and bodyboarding activity. In this paper we address the primary environmental controls on SZIs along the high-energy meso–macro-tidal surf beach coast of southwestern France. A total of 2523 SZIs recorded by lifeguards over 186 sample days during the summers of 2007, 2009 and 2015 were combined with measured and/or hindcast weather, wave, tide, and beach morphology data. All SZIs occurred disproportionately on warm sunny days with low wind, likely because of increased beachgoer numbers and hazard exposure. Relationships were strongest for shore-break- and rip-related SZIs and weakest for surfing-related SZIs, the latter being also unaffected by tidal stage or range. Therefore, the analysis focused on bathers. More shore-break-related SZIs occur during shore-normal incident waves with average to below-average wave height (significant wave height, Hs = 0.75–1.5 m) and around higher water levels and large tide ranges when waves break on the steepest section of the beach. In contrast, more rip-related drownings occur near neap low tide, coinciding with maximised channel rip flow activity, under shore-normal incident waves with Hs >1.25 m and mean wave periods longer than 5 s. Additional drowning incidents occurred at spring high tide, presumably due to small-scale swash rips. The composite wave and tide parameters proposed by Scott et al. (2014) are key controlling factors determining SZI occurrence, although the risk ranges are not necessarily transferable to all sites. Summer beach and surf zone morphology is interannually highly variable, which is critical to SZI patterns. The upper beach slope can vary from 0.06 to 0.18 between summers, resulting in low and high shore-break-related SZIs, respectively. Summers with coast-wide highly (weakly) developed rip channels also result in widespread (scarce) rip-related drowning incidents. With life risk defined in terms of the number of people exposed to life threatening hazards at a beach, the ability of morphodynamic models to simulate primary beach morphology characteristics a few weeks or months in advance is therefore of paramount importance for predicting the primary surf zone life risks along this coast.


Author(s):  
Arthur Mouragues ◽  
Philippe Bonneton ◽  
Bruno Castelle ◽  
Vincent Marieu

We present field measurements of nearshore currents at a high-energy mesotidal beach with the presence of a 500-m headland and a submerged reef. Small changes in wave forcing and tide elevation were found to largely impact circulation patterns. In particular, under 4-m oblique wave conditions, our measurements indicate the presence of an intense low-frequency fluctuating deflection rip flowing against the headland and extending well beyond the surf zone. An XBeach model is further set up to hindcast such flow patterns.Recorded Presentation from the vICCE (YouTube Link): https://youtu.be/EiqnjBIkWJE


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (7) ◽  
pp. 2075-2091
Author(s):  
Elias de Korte ◽  
Bruno Castelle ◽  
Eric Tellier

Abstract. A Bayesian network (BN) approach is used to model and predict shore-break-related injuries and rip-current drowning incidents based on detailed environmental conditions (wave, tide, weather, beach morphology) on the high-energy Gironde coast, southwest France. Six years (2011–2017) of boreal summer (15 June–15 September) surf zone injuries (SZIs) were analysed, comprising 442 (fatal and non-fatal) drownings caused by rip currents and 715 injuries caused by shore-break waves. Environmental conditions at the time of the SZIs were used to train two separate Bayesian networks (BNs), one for rip-current drownings and the other one for shore-break wave injuries. Each BN included two so-called “hidden” exposure and hazard variables, which are not observed yet interact with several of the observed (environmental) variables, which in turn limit the number of BN edges. Both BNs were tested for varying complexity using K-fold cross-validation based on multiple performance metrics. Results show a poor to fair predictive ability of the models according to the different metrics. Shore-break-related injuries appear more predictable than rip-current drowning incidents using the selected predictors within a BN, as the shore-break BN systematically performed better than the rip-current BN. Sensitivity and scenario analyses were performed to address the influence of environmental data variables and their interactions on exposure, hazard and resulting life risk. Most of our findings are in line with earlier SZI and physical hazard-based work; that is, more SZIs are observed for warm sunny days with light winds; long-period waves, with specifically more shore-break-related injuries at high tide and for steep beach profiles; and more rip-current drownings near low tide with near-shore-normal wave incidence and strongly alongshore non-uniform surf zone morphology. The BNs also provided fresh insight, showing that rip-current drowning risk is approximately equally distributed between exposure (variance reduction Vr=14.4 %) and hazard (Vr=17.4 %), while exposure of water user to shore-break waves is much more important (Vr=23.5 %) than the hazard (Vr=10.9 %). Large surf is found to decrease beachgoer exposure to shore-break hazard, while this is not observed for rip currents. Rapid change in tide elevation during days with large tidal range was also found to result in more drowning incidents. We advocate that such BNs, providing a better understanding of hazard, exposure and life risk, can be developed to improve public safety awareness campaigns, in parallel with the development of more skilful risk predictors to anticipate high-life-risk days.


1985 ◽  
Vol 1985 (1) ◽  
pp. 379-383 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erich R. Gundlach ◽  
Timothy W. Kana ◽  
Paul D. Boehm

ABSTRACT The shoreline of a potential spill impact area can be divided into units, each with a specific geomorphology. As oil enters each unit, it will (to varying extents) evaporate, dissolve, interact with suspended particles and sink, biodegrade, photo-oxidize, be transported to the next unit, or strand on the shoreline. In the last case, oil will reenter the aquatic system after a given time and again be exposed to these same processes. For modeling purposes, the world's shorelines can be divided into sedimentary beaches and tectonic rocky coasts, varying in wave energy and tidal range. The size of beach sediments can range from very coarse grained (gravels) to very fine grained (silts and clays). Coarse-grained shorelines have higher incoming wave energy than fine-grained areas. Along all coasts, several partitioning components remain relatively constant for medium to light crude oils, e.g., evaporation (30 to 50 percent) and biodegradation/photo-oxidation (0 to 5 percent). Others may vary substantially. For instance, sedimentation may reach 10 to 20 percent in fine-grained estuaries, but only 0 to 2 percent along high energy coasts having very coarse-grained bottom sediments. Similarly, along sandy beaches the stranding of oil along the shoreline may reach 25 to 35 percent, as compared to only 1 to 2 percent along steep, rocky coasts. Dissolution, in general, does not vary so radically, being approximately 10 to 15 percent along high-energy rocky coasts, as compared to 5 to 10 percent in sheltered estuaries that do not have the mixing energy to drive additional oil into the water column.


2010 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 256-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas R. de Sieyes ◽  
Kevan M. Yamahara ◽  
Adina Paytan ◽  
Alexandria B. Boehm

Author(s):  
Caio Eadi Stringari ◽  
Hannah E. Power

Understanding swash zone dynamics is of crucial importance for coastal management as the swash motion, consisting of the uprush of the wave on the beach face and the subsequent downrush, is responsible for driving changes the beach morphology trough sediment exchanges between the sub-aerial and sub-aqueous beach. Improved understanding of the probabilistic characteristics of these motions has the potential to allow coastal engineers to develop improved sediment transport models which, in turn, can be further developed into coastal management tools. In this paper, novel descriptors of swash motions are obtained by combining field data and statistical modelling. Our results indicate that the probability distribution function (PDF) of shoreline height (p(ζ)) and trough-to-peak swash heights (p(ρ)) measured at a high energy, sandy beach were both inherently multimodal. Based on the observed multimodality of these PDFs, Gaussian Mixtures are shown to be the best method to statistically model them. Further, our results show that both offshore and surf zone dynamics are responsible for driving swash zone dynamics, which indicates unsaturated swash. The novel methods and results developed in this paper, both data collection and analysis, could aid coastal managers to develop improved swash zone models in the future.


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