Long-term coastal evolution modelling of longshore bars

An extended version of a numerical model introduced by Larson et al. (2013) to simulate long-term cross shore material exchange for the subaqueous portion of the profile has been developed. Efforts have focused on improving the model to better account for beach systems consisting of two bars (inner and outer bar), as well as simulating the feeder response over time of nearshore dredged material bars, intended to function as beach nourishment. The theory for the evolution of a single-bar to a two-bar system was modeled, considering an inner and an outer bar, where the outer bar is of primary interest with the purpose of predicting the behavior of placed dredged material. The cross-shore sediment transport rate is based on the evolution equation for the bar system response to the hydrodynamic forcing by reference to its equilibrium condition, where the change in the bar volume is based on a set of wave criteria, describing the onset of a new breaking zone when the outer bar forms. Empirical formulas are employed for the bar equilibrium volume and for coefficients determining the bar response rate. In this study, a description of the extended model and the results from the model component validation at two different sites in USA (Duck, North Carolina, and Cocoa Beach, Florida) are presented. Duck measurements have detected that some bars form in the nearshore and move all the way offshore (eventually deflating by non-breaking waves). At the same time, it was equally observed that a lot of inner bars formed in shallow water do not move offshore but remain as inner bars all the time. According to this, the developed model considers that the inner bar will not become the outer bar, but material previously dedicated to the inner bar will be available for the outer bar. Overall, the present study demonstrates the potential for using rather simple models, based on the definition of an equilibrium state that is compared to the current state and the magnitude of offshore wave forcing to drive the changes in the profile. The methodology employed here allowed to quantitatively reproduce the main trends in the subaqueous beach profile response in a long-term perspective as a function of the bar volumes disequilibrium, the magnitude of the incident wave height and the dimensionless fall velocity to move the sand with a time varying forcing