Data-based approaches to analysing and modelling beach morphological changes at Duck, North Carolina.

In this study, the ability of two data-based approaches in analysing and modelling beach morphology and wave data at Duck, North Carolina, USA, was investigated. Dynamic Harmonic Regression (DHR) was used to analyse bed elevation and wave height time series in order to identify the long-term trends and dominant periodic components characterising the morphological changes and wave climate at Duck. A linear Transfer Function (TF) modelling approach was used to relate bed elevation time series to nearshore wave height time series with the aim of investigating the suitability of such a simple model in predicting the longer-term morphological changes. The DHR analysis showed multi-scale variability of the beach profile and was in good agreement with observations made in previous studies. The linear TF model showed limited capability with only a small proportion of the data being described by the model