Author(s): M. De La Torre; M. I. Vousdoukas; S. Schimmels; H. Fernandez; T. Kirupakaramoorthy
Linked Author(s): Adriana Mercedes Bravo de la Torre, Stefan Schimmels
Keywords: Beach erosion; Beach recovery; Beach slope; Beach profile evolution; Coastal morphodynamics
Abstract: The present contribution discusses large-scale physical experiments, whose objective is to investigate the effect of the initial morphology on the sandy beach profile morphological response to erosive or accretive wave conditions. Selected wave conditions were applied to different initial beach profiles and the final morphology was evaluated by comparing parameters such as the profile shape, the beach-face slope, as well as the number and positions of the nearshore bars. In addition, the sensitivity of the beach profile evolution to small variations in the wave forcing, as well as to spectral vs monochromatic waves has been studied. Five different wave conditions have been tested, from strongly accretive to strongly erosive, in 20 different tests with average duration of 56 min each. The combination among these resulted in 30 pairs of tests with the same wave forcing and small to substantial differences in the initial topography. Comparisons showed that the wave forcing had a substantial effect on the beach-face slope mainly for surf similarity parameter values lower thanξ 100 (BIAS<0. 02). In all the other cases the beach-face slope BIAS exceeded 0. 05. Comparisons of the profiles showed that the vertical elevation RMS errors ranged from 0. 06 m Year: 2014