ShoreScape: A landscape approach to the natural adaptation of urbanized sandy shores

Sandy shores around the world suffer from coastal erosion due to land subsidence, a lack of sediment input and sea level rise. This often leads to the construction of hard structures, such as sea walls and breakwaters, that consolidate the coastal zone but disrupt the dynamic system of coastal deltas. To compensate for coastal erosion in a more...

On the redistribution and sorting of sand at nourishments: Field evidence and modelling of transport processes and bed composition change

Increasingly large sand nourishments are used for the maintenance of sandy coasts around the world. There is, however, still very limited understanding of their behaviour (i.e. redistribution) and effects on the marine environment. This PhD thesis explores the morphological reshaping of shoreface nourishments (i.e. long bunds of sand placed at...

Impact of sand nourishments on hydrodynamics and swimmer safety

Artificial sand nourishments are a common measure to mitigate coastal erosion problems. Such nourishments can have an impact on currents and waves near the beach, especially when the nourishment has a large size. As nourished beaches often have a recreational function, these altered wave and current patterns may pose a threat to swimmers. This...

Alongshore variability of nourished and natural beaches

Alongshore variability in topography (i.e. height differences in bed level along the coast) can exist on both natural and nourished beaches. An important question prior to implementation of a nourishment project is how alongshore variability is going to evolve and, related to this variability, the effect of the project upon swimmer safety. In...

Modelling rhythmic morphology in the surf zone

Coastal erosion is increasingly being prevented by the application of shoreface nourishments. Although they are applied successfully, their development and their impact on the coastal system is still difficult to predict. Especially the effects of shoreface nourishments on the already existing rhythmic bed forms in the surf zone are unknown. The...

Nearshore Bathymetry derived from Video Imagery

Owing to the economic importance of seasonal fluctuations in beach width and the frequent implementation of local beach and shoreface nourishments, coastal managers and scientists increasingly demand coastal state information at smaller spatiotemporal scales. Advanced, automated video techniques provide the means to collect such high-resolution...