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BOB - 2009

Dune overwash and breaching

Summary:

Disaster due to storm surge and waves in the era of global warming and accelerated sea level rise are the major threats to coastal nations such as the U.S., Japan, the Netherlands, Italy and Portugal. Dunes and beaches have been successful coastal protectors for centuries due to their ability to defend to storm impact. However, storm-driven surge, wind and waves can cause severe dune erosion with significant morphology changes, damages to infrastructures and loss of human lives. This project intends to perform large-scale physical model experiments in order to improve the understanding of dune erosion processes during storm surges. In particular, the attention of the project is focused on dune erosion processes in the collision regime, overwash regime and breaching (Sallenger et al. 2003). Although qualitative observations of the overwash processes and breaching related coastal hazards have long been discussed in coastal engineering literature, relatively few laboratory studies have been conducted and comprehensive physical and field data sets are still lacking. In this path, the data set obtained in this project is extremely useful for practical applications, theoretical studies, validation and improvements of numerical models.
 
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Related Publications:

  • Donnelly, C., Wamsley, T.V., Kraus, N.C., Larson, M., and Hanson, H. (2006). “Morphologic classification of coastal overwash”. Proceedings of the 30th International Conference of Coastal Engineering, ASCE, 3, 2805-2817.
  • Jimenez, J.A., Sallenger, A.H. and Fauver, L. (2006). “Sediment transport and barrier island changes during massive overwash events”. Proceedings of the 30th International Conference of Coastal Engineering, ASCE, 3, 2870-2879.
  • van Thiel de Vries J.S.M., Clarke, L.B., Aarninkhof, S.G.J., Coeveld E.M., Holman, R.A., Palmsten M.L., Reniers, A.J.H.M., Stive, M.J.F., Uijttewaal, W.S.J. (2007). “Interaction of dune face and swash zone”. Proceedings of Coastal Sediments 2007.
  • Wamsley, T.V., Kraus, N.C., Larson, M., Hanson, H., and Connell, K.J. (2006). “Coastal barrier breaching: comparisons of physical and numerical models”. Proceedings of the 30th International Conference of Coastal Engineering, ASCE, 3, 2818-2830.