Detecting Sand Waves through Remote Sensing

Sand waves can have a significant impact on offshore activities, and with the global push for sustainability and more renewable energy sources, these negative impacts will become more prevalent. Sand waves in the North Sea have a height up to a couple of meters and a wavelength between 100 and 1000 meters. The migration or change in asymmetry of...

Simulating dune growth at a mega nourishment

Global identification and characterization of drivers of shoreline evolution: A novel method using Satellite Derived Shorelines and spatiotemporal characteristics

Since early history, humans have been attracted to coastal areas. This can be related to the economic benefits of these areas due to access of ocean navigation, coastal fisheries, tourism and recreation (Seas and Plans, 2011). Around 40% of the world’s population lives within 100 km of the coast (Seas and Plans, 2011). People are drawn to sandy...

The application of a continuous nourishment on wave and tide-dominated systems

The Sandwindmill system could decarbonize the Dutch coastal protection whilst harmonizing with the building with nature approach. The system consists of a pipeline connecting an offshore borrow location to a nearshore area, where the mined sediment is discharged. The equipment is powered by wind turbines. As long as the wind blows sufficiently,...

Global shoreline forecasting with a clustering approach

Coastal areas around the world have always been densely populated areas. However, sea-level-rise and an increase in single extreme events due to climate change, threaten the coastal areas and their inhabitants. Governmental organizations, coastal managers and various private parties thrive for better insights into long-term shoreline behavior...

Modeling Sand Wave Field Dynamics in the North Sea using Delft3D Flexible Mesh

Offshore wind farms are being built at an unprecedented pace in the North Sea. The Dutch government is aiming for a CO2 neutral energy supply by 2050 and vast cost reductions have turned (offshore) wind energy into a worthy competitor for other (green) energy sources. Most of the planned wind farms in the Dutch North Sea are located in areas...

Deriving Beach Grain Size from Satellite Imagery: A multimethod approach for deriving intertidal beach slopes and sediment grain sizes for different coastal environments

The world's coasts are at risk: an estimated 24% of the world's beaches are eroding. Extreme events such as storms continuously threaten the coastal region and pose a serious risk of coastal flooding. Under the influence of climate change, the seaward pressures are only expected to increase. Sea level rise is accelerating, storm intensities and...

Multi-case Evaluation of Empirical Methods for Satellite-Derived Bathymetry

Research on the physical, ecological and environmental processes in the coastal zone often rely on the availability of accurate bathymetric information. The traditional method to acquire these data is by conducting depth soundings from a vessel, which is a very accurate way for measuring bottom elevations in all kinds of water, but has as a...

Planetary-scale classification of natural and human-induced sandy shoreline evolution: A semi-automated method that employs Machine Learning and Satellite Derived Shorelines over the past decades

Today's coastal zones are densely inhabited as the majority of the world's population lives in these attractive areas. The shorelines in coastal zones are shaped by complex spatial and temporal variable interactions between natural forcings like changes in mean sea-level, tides, wave and wind conditions, and storm surges. Besides, natural...

The evaluation of large-scale nourishment strategies for Duval County, Florida

The coastline of the United States has been threatened by significant erosion for the past decades. A study in 2000 predicted that 25% of the houses located within 150 meters of the shoreline will be destroyed by erosion in 2060. The east coast of the US experiences an average erosion rate of roughly one meter per year. Moreover, the Atlantic...

Predicting the dune growth at a mega nourishment: By using a process based Integrated Hydro- Aeolian- Morphodynamic model.

The Sand Engine was constructed in 2011 with the main goal to enhance the natural dune growth. It is the first mega nourishment in the world comprising of 21.5 Mm³ of sediment. There is a large difference between the predictions of the dune growth (25 ha in 20 years) and the actual measurements (1 ha in 4 years). Therefore a more...

Modelling climate change-related feedbacks between seagrasses and suspended sediment in the Rødsand lagoon (Denmark)

Seagrass meadows are essential and valuable to many shallow coastal ecosystems, due to the many important ecosystem services they provide. The interaction of feedbacks between hydrodynamics, sediment dynamics, and eelgrass can be described with a feedback loop. At locations where eelgrass is present, it favours its growth by modifying the local...