Modeling Multi-Fraction Coastal Aeolian Sediment Transport With Horizontal and Vertical Grain-Size Variability

Grain size affects the rates of aeolian sediment transport on beaches. Sediment in coastal environments typically consists of multiple grain-size fractions and exhibits spatiotemporal variations. Still, conceptual and numerical aeolian transport models are simplified and often only include a single fraction that is constant over the model...

Factors regulating sediment fluxes over an engineered foredune and adjacent dune slack

This study aims to identify and understand the annual scale sediment transport patterns in a fully engineered dune-dune slack system that was created from seabed sediments for grey dune and moist dune slack habitat creation at the Delfland coast (the Netherlands). The annual morphological development was analysed using LiDAR elevation data....

Numerical Modelling of Aeolian Sediment Transport, Vegetation Growth and Blowout Formation in Coastal Dunes

Coastal dunes are dominant features along much of the world’s sandy coastlines serving as the first line of protection against coastal flooding. Besides this primary purpose, the coastal dunes also provide a variety of other functions such as the supply of drinking water, nature conservation and recreational areas. With the secondary functions...

Marine and aeolian sediment transport at the Hondsbossche Dunes: Analysing and modelling the contribution of marine processes to beach and dune evolution

The Hondsbossche Dunes is a seven-kilometre-long dune, beach and shoreface nourishment that serves as a primary flood defence since 2015. In addition to its protective function, the Hondsbossche Dunes stimulate ecological habitat development in the coastal area, in line with Ecoshape's 'Building with Nature'-approach. Its morphologic development...

Simulating spatiotemporal aeolian sediment supply at a mega nourishment

Mega nourishments are a novel approach to stimulating coastal safety and resilience. Mega nourishments are intended to spread along the coast on a decadal time scale by natural sediment transport processes with a minimum of intrusion into the natural coastal system. The supratidal morphodynamic behaviour of mega nourishments is not well...

Exploring marine and aeolian controls on coastal foredune growth using a coupled numerical model

Coastal landscape change represents aggregated sediment transport gradients from spatially and temporally variable marine and aeolian forces. Numerous tools exist that independently simulate subaqueous and subaerial coastal profile change in response to these physical forces on a range of time scales. In this capacity, coastal foredunes have...

The effects of climate change on coastal management in the Hondsbossche Dunes: Analysis and modeling of aeolian sediment transport and dune growth

In 2003, it was established that the sea dike between Petten and Camperduin was insufficiently safe.<br/>To ensure the safety of the hinterland against flooding, this part of the Dutch sea defence system needed to be strengthened.<br/>During the design process, the most favourable variant was to construct a dune and beach system in front of the...

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...

Coastal dune behavior and the role of sediment supply in the aeolian system

This thesis explores the nature of coastal dune behavior and the role of sediment supply in the aeolian system. The first part of the thesis conducts a data analysis based on the Dutch JARKUS dataset, which provides yearly measured profiles along the Dutch coast. A series of parameters derived from the profile measurements have been used to...

Aeolian Sediment Transport at the Hondsbossche Dunes

In 2014-2015 the coastal stretch between Petten and Camperduin was strengthened by using 35 million m3 of sand. At the seaward side of the Hondbossche & Pettermer sea defence a beach and dune system was built which is called the ‘Hondsbossche Dunes’. The old sea dike has disappeared behind the new dunes and is no longer an active part of the...

Towards a coupled morphodynamic model of the nearshore zone and the beach at the Sand Engine: Combining waves, tide, morphodynamics and aeolian sediment transport into a process-based model

Morphodynamic models are widespread in coastal engineering practice and indispensable to predict the effectiveness of (large-scale) sandy interventions. These models enable quantification of the effects on enhanced safety against flooding and on environmental impact over time, based on physical processes such as hydrodynamics and sediment...

Aeolian Sediment Availability and Transport

This thesis explores the nature of aeolian sediment availability and its influence on aeolian sediment transport. The aim is to improve large scale and long term aeolian sediment transport estimates in (nourished) coastal environments. The generally poor performance of aeolian sediment transport models with respect to measurements in coastal...

Integrated modelling of the morphological evolution of the sand engine mega-nourishment

This study presents some recent developments in coastal morphological modeling focusing on flexible meshes, flexible coupling between models operating at different time scales, and a recently developed morphodynamic model for the intertidal and dry beach. This integrated modeling approach is applied to the Sand Engine mega nourishment in The...