Understanding long-term sandbar dynamics can be crucial for informed coastal zone management, but is often hampered by data availability. To increase the number of sandbar observations available from bathymetric surveys, this study proposes and evaluates a method to manually extract the sandbar location using freely available satellite imagery for the case study of Anmok beach in South Korea. Validation of the satellite extracted sandbar locations against 9 in-situ measurements shows good agreement with errors well within the pixel resolution of the satellite imagery (i.e. 30 m for Landsat missions). The applicability of the method is constrained to locations where (1) the cross-shore crescentic length scales are larger than the image resolution, (2) frequent wave breaking and clouds are absent and (3) the water clarity is sufficient to enable the manual extraction of the sandbar crest line. Using the additional sandbar observations from the satellite imagery significantly increases the temporal extent and resolution of the dataset for Anmok beach. This allows the study of sandbar characteristics, dynamics and impacts of human interventions to an extent that would not have been possible without the satellite imagery. Within the study period 1990–2017 it is found that the sandbar maintains a persistent crescentic pattern that is only altered during prolonged and very intense storm conditions. The cumulative alongshore migration of the sandbars is investigated and found to be in the order of hundreds of meters over the 27 years study period. Comparing the sandbar characteristics prior and after the construction of Gangneung port shows that both the amplitudes and wavelengths of the sandbar crescents near the port have decreased after its construction.@en

Nearshore sandbar patterns can affect the hydrodynamics and, as a result, the beach morphodynamics in the nearshore zone. Hence, spatial and temporal variability in the sandbars can influence beach accretion and erosion. Understanding the variability of the sandbar system can therefore be crucial for informed coastal zone management. So far, the methods to study sandbar dynamics mainly include datasets of video observations or occasional bathymetric surveys. However, at most locations around the world, these types of data are not or only scarcely available. In this paper we present an alternative method to analyze long-term sandbar variability by means of freely available satellite imagery. These images are globally available since the 1980’s and, thus, have the potential to be applicable at any location in the world. Here, we will illustrate the methodology by means of a case study at Anmok beach at the South Korean East coast.@en

In process-based numerical models, reducing the amount of input parameters, known as input reduction (IR), is often required to reduce the computational effort of these models and to enable long-term, ensemble predictions. Currently, a comprehensive performance assessment of IR-methods is lacking, which hampers guidance on selecting suitable methods and settings in practice. In this study, we investigated the performance of 10 IR-methods and 36 subvariants for wave climate reduction to model the inter-annual evolution of nearshore bars. The performance of reduced wave climates is evaluated by means of a brute force simulation based on the full climate. Additionally, we tested how the performance is affected by the number of wave conditions, sequencing, and duration of the reduced wave climate. We found that the Sediment Transport Bins method is the most promising method. Furthermore, we found that the resolution in directional space is more important for the performance than the resolution in wave height. The results show that a reduced wave climate with fewer conditions applied on a smaller timescale performs better in terms of morphology than a climate with more conditions applied on a longer timescale. The findings of this study can be applied as initial guidelines for selecting input reduction methods at other locations, in other models, or for other domains.@en

Namhangjin beach is protected by multiple submerged breakwaters (SBWs) which were built to protect the ~4 km long sandy beach. A coastline model (UNIBEST) was used to investigate the long term effect of the SBW structures on the beach. The model computes long-term shoreline changes due to coastal structures as a result of the strong longshore sediment transport gradients at the structures. Bathymetry data of the shoreface and nearshore profiles were obtained from a field survey, while wave conditions from offshore WAM hindcast (Wave Modeling Group) were transformed towards the nearshore with the Delft3D+SWAN modelling system. Local wave sheltering by the SBWs was included in the wave model. A situation with and without the SBWs was modelled. A rapid adjustment of the shoreline was observed in the model as a result of the wave conditions in the first two years. After that, the shoreline shape stabilized without significant changes both for the situation with and without SBWs. A smooth curved coastline shape was obtained in the model without SBWs, while the model with SBWs shows a similar overall shoreline shape with undulations of the shoreline shape behind the breakwaters. A similar undulating shoreline was observed in the Sept-2013 imagery at Namhangjin beach. The local accretion behind the SBWs may induce some erosion in the lee area of the SBWs, causing distortions of the shoreline shape. Most sediment accreted at the first SBW (i.e. the northern most SBW where alongshore transport from the North was trapped), while the coastline change rate gradually decreased towards the South. The effectiveness of the SBWs at the considered shoreline section for maintaining the shoreline is somewhat ambiguous as local areas with accretion or erosion are present with respect to the situation without the breakwaters. The results show that multiple SBWs need to be carefully designed to protect beaches as local distortions of the shoreline shape may be present directly downdrift from the structures.@en