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Equilibrium modeling of the beach profile on a macrotidal embayed low tide terrace beach

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Abstract

Eleven-year long time series of monthly beach profile surveys and hourly incident wave conditions are analyzed for a macrotidal Low Tide Terrace beach. The lower intertidal zone of the beach has a pluriannual cycle, whereas the upper beach profile has a predominantly seasonal cycle. An equilibrium model is applied to study the variation of the contour elevation positions in the intertidal zone as a function of the wave energy, wave power, and water level. When forcing the model with wave energy, the predictive ability of the equilibrium model is around 60% in the upper intertidal zone but decreases to 40% in the lower intertidal zone. Using wave power increases the predictive ability up to 70% in both the upper and lower intertidal zones. However, changes around the inflection point are not well predicted. The equilibrium model is then extended to take into account the effects of the tide level. The initial results do not show an increase in the predictive capacity of the model, but do allow the model free parameters to represent more accurately the values expected in a macrotidal environment. This allows comparing the empirical model calibration in different tidal environment. The interpretation of the model free parameter variation across the intertidal zone highlights the behavior of the different zones along the intertidal beach profile. This contributes to a global interpretation of the four model parameters for beaches with different tidal ranges, and therefore to a global model applicable at a wide variety sites.

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Funding

This work was supported by the Labex-MER funded by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche under the program Investissements d’avenir with the reference ANR-10-LABX-19-01, the lab Géosciences Océan UMR6538 and the Pôle Image of IUEM. The long-term measurements were successively supported by the ANR COCORISCO (2010-CEPL-001-01), the SOERE trait de cte and the NSO Dynalit in the frame of the IR ILICO.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Geoscience Ocean - UMR 6538, Université de Bretagne Occidentale, Brest, France

    Clara Lemos, France Floc’h, Nicolas Le Dantec, Klervi Hamon & Christophe Delacourt

  2. Institut Universitaire Européen de la Mer, rue Dumont d’Urville, 29280, Plouzané, France

    Clara Lemos, France Floc’h, Nicolas Le Dantec, Klervi Hamon, Véronique Cuq, Serge Suanez & Christophe Delacourt

  3. Saint-Venant Laboratory for Hydraulics (ENPC, EDF R&D, Cerema), Université Paris-Est, Margny-Les-Compiègne, France

    Marissa Yates

  4. Cerema, Technical Departement of Water, Sea and Rivers, 29280, Plouzané, France

    Marissa Yates & Nicolas Le Dantec

  5. EPOC - OASU, URM 5805, Site de Talence, Université Bordeaux 1, Talence, France

    Vincent Marieu

  6. CNRS, UMR LETG 6554, Université de Bretagne Occidentale, Brest, France

    Véronique Cuq & Serge Suanez

Authors
  1. Clara Lemos
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  2. France Floc’h
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  3. Marissa Yates
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  4. Nicolas Le Dantec
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  5. Vincent Marieu
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  6. Klervi Hamon
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  7. Véronique Cuq
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  8. Serge Suanez
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  9. Christophe Delacourt
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to France Floc’h.

Additional information

Responsible Editor: Aart Kroon

This article is part of the Topical Collection on the 8th International conference on Coastal Dynamics, Helsingør, Denmark, 12–16 June 2017

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Lemos, C., Floc’h, F., Yates, M. et al. Equilibrium modeling of the beach profile on a macrotidal embayed low tide terrace beach. Ocean Dynamics 68, 1207–1220 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10236-018-1185-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10236-018-1185-1

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