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The coastline of Hai Hau District, located on the northeast coast of Vietnam with about 30 km of shoreline, is chronically eroding. Previous studies have tried to highlight the main causes of the erosion along this coastline, and several hypotheses exist. To examine the hypothesis that gradients in the longshore sediment transport rate and cross-shore fine sediment lost offshore are the main causes generating the serius erosion at Hai Hau Beach, a newly developed numerical model of shoreline change based on the one-line theory was applied and compared with data. Sea dike segments, reinforced by stones and mortar, were modeled using a seawall boundary condition, and the sediment continuity equation was modified to take into account the offshore transport of fine-grained sediment. The simulated shorelines agreed well with the measured shorelines, both for the calibration and validation periods. The calculated sediment budget shows that the net sediment transport is in the southward direction and that a large amount of finegrained sediment is lost into deep water. These two sinks of sediment are believed to be the main causes of the serious erosion at Hai Hau Beach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The geomorphology and processes of land loss in the Pontchartrain Basin for the period 1990-2001 are mapped and the results of the classification presented. This data set is compared to an earlier classification, which covered the period 1932-1990 to determine the status and trends of wetland loss in the Pontchartrain Basin between 1932 and 2001. Results of the land loss classification indicate land loss rates have remained steady between the two periods (13 km2/y between 1932 and 1990 and 12 km2/y between 1990 and 2001). The geomorphology and processes of loss have shifted from primarily interior loss as a result of direct removal and submergence in the first period to primarily shoreline loss as a result of erosion in the second period. Three areas of concentrated land loss between 1990 and 2001 represent portions of the upper, middle, and lower basin. Land loss at all three locations shifts from interior to shoreline loss between the two periods. In the second period, interior loss through the process of submergence is still occurring but at much reduced rates at locations 1 and 2. Interior loss through the process of direct removal is only occurring at location 1 during the second period and accounts for less that 2% of the loss. At location 3, land loss is completely in the form of shoreline erosion during the second period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The indentation index, which is the ratio between the real length of a coast and its Euclidean length, is a parameter applied to characterize rock coasts and to study their evolution. Rather than subjectively selecting two or more sectors of a rock coast, the method proposed in this paper considers analyzing the indentation index on the same coastline previously split into several adjacent tracts with equal Euclidean length. By digitizing the coastline in a GIS environment, it becomes possible to test several Euclidean length values on the same coastline, obtaining a different spatial variability of the indentation index with each trial. The best length values that maximize the spatial variability of the indentation index are those that determine an indentation index pattern characterized by high variance and low spatial autocorrelation. The spatial distribution of the indentation index can eventually be analyzed considering known littoral forces acting on the studied coast. When more than one Euclidean length value is found to maximize the variability of indentation index within the same coast, it is likely that there are one or more littoral forces acting or interacting differently at different scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A ground-penetrating radar survey of a newly formed series of beach ridges along the southern Azerbaijan coast, Caspian Sea, illustrates rapid coastal response to the most recent sea level fall of 0.8 m in the Caspian Sea between 1995 and 1999. Effects of seasonal sea level fluctuations as well as individual storm occurrences can be linked to depositional beds on the ground-penetrating radar profiles. The beach ridge system is swash built and formed primarily under fair weather conditions. Ridge and swale topography can be related to seasonal sea level change. The rapid sea level change in the Caspian Sea combined with surface and subsurface data on coastal beach ridges provides a unique opportunity to observe and reconstruct coastal evolution at a resolution not possible along other oceanic coasts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dredged materials from maintenance and deepening of inlets on coastal barriers are typically transported for disposal in deep water or on land. An alternative is to treat dredged materials as a resource, placing them on the ebb-tidal delta or subtidal shoals at depths where they are retained within the long-shore transport system and can nourish eroding down-drift beaches. Deposition of sediments onto subtidal shoals may, however, bury and selectively kill populations of benthic invertebrates, or indirectly alter assemblages by modifying sediment characteristics. Core sampling of the eastern (control) and western (disturbed) sides of Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina, twice before and once 8 months after a large (660,000 m³) disposal revealed significant coarsening of sediments and associated changes to assemblages of benthic macroinvertebrates in response to the perturbation. Impacts to sediments and macroinvertebrates were closely correlated and, although greatest where sediment was directly deposited, extended over a wider (at least 1 km to the east) area than the deposition. Of the taxa comprising faunal assemblages, spionid polychaetes were most affected by the disposal, declining in abundance. These results, which tie the deposition and dispersal of coarse sediments on an ebb-tidal delta to changes in benthos, imply a biological cost that may be less than that of direct nourishment of biologically productive intertidal beaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]