Simulating surface soil moisture on sandy beaches

Hallin, E.C.; van IJzendoorn, Christa; Homberger, Jan Markus; de Vries, S.

doi:10.1016/j.coastaleng.2023.104376

Simulating surface soil moisture on sandy beaches

Title

Simulating surface soil moisture on sandy beaches

Author

Hallin, E.C. (TU Delft Coastal Engineering; Lund University)
van IJzendoorn, Christa (TU Delft Coastal Engineering)
Homberger, Jan Markus (Wageningen University & Research)
de Vries, S. (TU Delft Coastal Engineering)

Date

2023

Abstract

A model that simulates surface moisture content on sandy beaches for aeolian transport applications is developed and integrated into the aeolian transport model AeoLiS. The moisture content of a thin surface layer (≈2 mm thickness) is computed as a function of wave runup, precipitation, evaporation, percolation, and capillary rise from the groundwater table. The groundwater table is simulated using a modified Boussinesq equation accounting for the overheight due to wave runup. The surface moisture due to capillary rise is simulated with an experimentally determined soil water retention (SWR) curve of the “van Genuchten” type. Hysteresis is accounted for by differentiating between SWR curves for drying and wetting conditions. The model is tested against a data set of 221 point observations of surface moisture from Noordwijk beach in the Netherlands. The measured surface moisture within the study area displays large spatial and temporal variability. The model results display an expected cross-shore gradient of moisture content, but also a large scatter when compared to the data. The scatter may partly be explained by local variability of hydraulic properties that are not accounted for within the model. Despite the scatter, the proposed surface moisture model is a starting point to integrate the transport limiting effect of surface moisture into meso-scale aeolian transport models. To facilitate model setup and the use of this surface moisture model, the soil water retention data from 10 beaches with variable grain size characteristics are provided in this study. Future studies may focus on additional model validation against data sets with variable meteorological conditions and simultaneous moisture and aeolian transport observations.

Subject

Aeolian transport
Beach groundwater
Soil moisture
Soil water retention

To reference this document use:

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:8a0f3d9a-8f41-4e63-aa4a-2b49878dc6ca

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coastaleng.2023.104376

ISSN

0378-3839

Source

Coastal Engineering, 185

Part of collection

Institutional Repository