Search

Purpose: Coastal flooding has disastrous consequences on people, infrastructure, properties and the environment. Increasing flood risk as a result of global climate change is a significant concern both within the UK and globally. To counter any potential increase in future flooding, a range of potential management options are being considered. This study aims to explore future coastal management practice for flood alleviation, incorporating the influence of climate change. Design/methodology/approach: The Taf estuary in South West Wales, a macro-tidal estuary which has a history of coastal flooding, was chosen as the case study in this paper to investigate the impact of coastal management interventions such as construction of hard defences, managed realignment or altering land use of affiliated ecosystems such as salt marshes on the complex hydrodynamics and hence flooding of the surrounding areas of the estuary. The study was carried out using a numerical hydrodynamic model of the Taf estuary, developed using the process-based Delft3D modelling software. Findings: The role of the selected management interventions on coastal flooding was investigated using an extreme storm condition, both with and without the impact of future sea level rise. The results highlight the scale of the effect of sea level rise, with the selected management interventions revealing that minimising the increase in flooding in future requires careful consideration of the available options. Originality/value: This paper explores the highlighted role of coastal management practice in future with the influence of climate change to study how effective alternative methods can be for flood alleviation.

Over recent years, there has been a clear increase in the frequency of reported flooding events around the world. Gabion structures offer one means of flood mitigation in dam spillways. These types of structures provide an additional challenge to the computational modeller in that flow through the porous gabions must be simulated. We have used a computational model to investigate the flow over gabion stepped spillways. The model was first validated against published experimental results. Then, gabion stepped spillways with four different step geometries were tested under the same conditions in order to facilitate inter-comparisons and to choose the best option in terms of energy dissipation. The results show that normal gabion steps can dissipate more energy than overlap, inclined, and pooled steps. An intensive set of tests with varying slope, stone size, and porosity were undertaken. The location of the inception point and the water depth at this point obtained from this study were compared with those from existing formulae. Two new empirical equations have been derived, on the basis of a regression analysis, to provide improved results for gabion stepped spillways.

This paper reviews and discusses the current research status, trends, and future needs in the field of beach morphodynamics under the influence of storm sequences. The paper reviews how the three main research methods, field investigations, numerical modelling, and physical modelling, have been used to study beach morphodynamics during storm sequences. Available quantitative definitions of storm sequences at different sites are presented and discussed. It is shown that the definition of storm sequences is site-specific and requires knowledge of the storm climate, beach characteristics, and the temporal scale of beach recovery. Subsequently, the paper brings together currently available approaches aimed at describing the effect of storm sequences on beach erosion in a general way. The importance of storm chronology and the effects of an extreme storm within a sequence of storms are highlighted. Following that, the more poorly studied aspect of beach recovery in between storms within a sequence is discussed. Three indicators for defining beach recovery, namely the shoreline location, sediment volumes, and the beach state, are identified and compared. Finally, important research needs, including the need for detailed physical modelling, are identified.

AbstractMany researchers have analysed the effect of wind on fjord dynamics by using two-dimensional numerical models. This paper investigates the wind and tidal forcing effects on the strong stratification and circulation by application of the three-dimensional model TELEMAC-3D. The capability of the model to reproduce the physical processes has been investigated by applying it to Sermilik Fjord, Greenland. This study shows that the major changes in the fjord dynamics are wind induced. Any changes in the wind speed have an instant impact on the water surface velocities. Also, the diffusively driven circulation produced by the horizontal pressure gradients at coast plays an important role in fjord dynamics. After calibration, the tidal model produced matching results with the measured wave height. The tidal analysis shows that the strength and direction of the tidal currents are sensitive to any changes in the width and shape of the domain. The effect of the tidal propagation on the salinity profile has been shown to play an important role, with salinity picks being 5–6 h behind the tidal flood and ebb picks, along the wind forcing, on the fjord circulation. TELEMAC-3D is a suitable model to simulate accurately such complicated dynamics as in presented case study.

This paper describes an investigation of the generation of desired sea states in a numerical wave model. Bimodal sea states containing energetic swell components can be coastal hazards along coastlines exposed to large oceanic fetches. Investigating the effects of long-period bimodal seas requires large computational domains and increased running time to ensure the development of the desired sea state. Long computational runs can cause mass stability issues due to the Stokes drift and wave reflection, which in turn affect results through the variation of the water level. A numerical wave flume, NEWRANS, was used to investigate two wave generation methods: the wave paddle method, allowing for a smaller domain; and the internal mass source function method, providing an open boundary allowing reflected waves to leave the domain. The two wave generation methods were validated against experimental data by comparing the wave generation accuracy and the variance of mass in the model during simulations. Results show that the wave paddle method not only accurately generates the desired sea state but also provides a more stable simulation, in which mass fluctuation has less of an effect on the water depth during the long-duration simulations. As a result, it is suggested that the wave paddle method with active wave absorption is preferable to the internal wave maker option when investigating intermediate-depth long-period bimodal seas for long-duration simulations.

In this study the medium-term response of beach profiles was investigated at two sites: a gently sloping sandy beach and a steeper mixed sand and gravel beach. The former is the Duck site in North Carolina, on the east coast of the USA, which is exposed to Atlantic Ocean swells and storm waves, and the latter is the Milford-on-Sea site at Christchurch Bay, on the south coast of England, which is partially sheltered from Atlantic swells but has a directionally bimodal wave exposure. The data sets comprise detailed bathymetric surveys of beach profiles covering a period of more than 25 years for the Duck site and over 18 years for the Milford-on-Sea site. The structure of the data sets and the data-driven methods are described. Canonical correlation analysis (CCA) was used to find linkages between the wave characteristics and beach profiles. The sensitivity of the linkages was investigated by deploying a wave height threshold to filter out the smaller waves incrementally. The results of the analysis indicate that, for the gently sloping sandy beach, waves of all heights are important to the morphological response. For the mixed sand and gravel beach, filtering the smaller waves improves the statistical fit and it suggests that low-height waves do not play a primary role in the medium-term morphological response, which is primarily driven by the intermittent larger storm waves.

To allow for effective and sustainable coastal management and planning it is important to have the tools available to estimate extreme beach erosion levels. This paper, therefore, presents an evaluation of methods available for quantifying extreme beach erosion. Previous common practice is the use of a single benchmark (1 in $$N$$Nyear) event to estimate the corresponding extreme erosion level. The limitations of this approach led to the development of more sophisticated temporal simulation frameworks providing robust statistical quantification of extreme beach erosion. These developments have resulted in a number of follow on studies to progress the methodology in line with a range of coastal morphodynamic modelling approaches. The discussion presented here, begins with basic empirical techniques and progresses up to those conducted using the most up-to-date morphodynamic models. Each methodology is applied to Narrabeen Beach, NSW, Australia, to compare and assess their suitability. The development of these methodologies is a relatively new topic, meaning that there is much scope for further progression. Although the use of state-of-the-art morphodynamic models is shown to give a good representation of erosion volumes, their impracticalities seem to outweigh the benefits. Incorporation of more realistic estimations of the storm and wave climate and the requirement for global evaluation are identified as central to further development.

The effects of wave steepness and wave breaking on the stability of wave-dissipating blocks placed on caisson breakwaters are examined by hydraulic experiments under conditions with and without wave breaking. It is confirmed that there is a clear dependence of the block stability on the wave steepness through the wave-breaking type, such as plunging and spilling breakers. The stability parameter in the spilling breaker case is larger than that in the plunging breaker case. For non-breaking wave conditions, there is no effect of the wave steepness. An empirical stability formula is proposed taking into account the effects of the wave steepness and the wave-breaking type. Finally, by using the stability formula, failure probabilities of the wave-dissipating blocks having a nominal diameter are evaluated by the first-order reliability method of the Level II reliability analysis.

Crown heights of seawalls should be designed to suppress overtopping discharge to a permissible level. The permissible level is determined from viewpoints of the structure types of coastal seawalls and hinterland use. It is usually difficult to design the crown heights of seawalls, especially in the present time where climate change due to global warming is expected. This study analyzes climate change effects such as sea level rise (SLR) and increase of waves and surges on the failure probability of seawalls under various conditions of crown height, toe depth and slope by using a Level III reliability analysis. It was found that the difference of SLR trends (fast, medium or low) has less impact on overtopping rates than the differences in wave height change for a seawall at a target location.