NONUNIFORM ALONGSHORE SEDIMENT TRANSPORT INDUCED BY COASTLINE

CURVATURE
Alejandro Lpez-Ruiz (alopezruiz@ugr.es), Miguel Ortega-Snchez (miguelos@ugr.es), Asuncin Baquerizo
(abaqueri@ugr.es), David Navidad (dnavidad@ugr.es), Miguel . Losada (mlosada@ugr.es).
Instituto Interuniversitario de Investigacin del Sistema Tierra en Andaluca (IISTA), University of Granada, Spain
INTRODUCTION
The plan view of many sandy beaches is usually
rectilinear or slightly curved. When the beach changes its
orientation, as occurs at the tip of a spit (Figure 1a), this
frequently leads to the development of morphologies such
as shoreline undulations and sand waves (Lpez-Ruiz et
al., 2012). These morphologies can also appear on
erosional rectilinear coasts such as beaches adjacent to
channeled river mouths (Figure 1b). During last years
special attention has been paid to the instability
mechanism based on the coupling between littoral drift
and coastal morphology induced by high-angle waves
(originally developed by Ashton et al., 2001) to explain
such morphologies.

was applied to a straight stretch of coastline, followed by

a curved stretch of the same dimensions as the Doana
Spit front (Figure 1a). Despite simplifications, the
simulation of the shoreline evolution after five years of
wave climate simulation shows the formation of two largescale undulations with wavelengths and amplitudes
similar to the observations (Figure 2a).

Figure 2 Some final shorelines after five year of wave

climate simulation.

Figure 1 Aerial photographs of a) Doana spit (Southern

Spain) and b) Guadalfeo river mouth (Southern Spain).
Shoreline undulations (white dashed line) are present in
both photographs.
Petersen et al. (2008) studied the evolution of a
prograding spit front. The idealized case of a spit growing
without change of form under a constant wave forcing
was considered. They found in their experiments that as
the spit develops the shoreline obtains an undulating
character. Despite these numerical and experimental
results, the physical processes that can generate the
shoreline undulations have not been studied in detail.

Traditional one-line models do not generally include the

effect of the alongshore variation of the wave energy. In
our approach, both the alongshore gradient of the
curvature of the coastline and the wave energy are
included. With the modified alongshore sediment
transport equation obtained, the sediment conservation
equation leads to an equivalent diffusivity with one term
dependent on the shoreline and another dependent on
the energy gradient along the coast. More details in
Lpez-Ruiz et al. (2012). When the model is forced
without considering the alongshore energy gradient, the
shoreline undulations found in nature are not reproduced
by the model. Thus, both effects can be analyzed
separately and are crucial in the coastline evolution.

The objective of this work is analyze the importance of

the shoreline curvature and the alongshore wave energy
gradients in the coastline evolution. To achieve the
previous objective, a one-line type model to explain the
formation and evolution of shoreline undulations on the
transition from rectilinear to curvilinear coasts (Figure 1)
has been developed.

In the final paper, the modified alongshore sediment

transport equation, results of the one-line type model and
a complete discussion of the curvature and alongshore
wave energy gradient terms will be presented. Also,
complementary wave propagation results over a conic
bathymetry carried out with the DELFT-3D model will be
shown to confirm the wave behavior in the curvilinear
coast.

ONE-LINE TYPE MODEL

The one-line type model developed takes into account the
variation of the surf zone width stemming from the
convergence and divergence of the waves propagating
over a conical bathymetry with a small radius of
curvature. The model uses a modified alongshore
sediment transport expression that varies with the angle
formed by the wave crests and coastline as well as with
the surf zone width. To complement previous
experimental and numerical studies (Petersen et al.,
2008), this model focuses on the physical processes. It

REFERENCES
Ashton, A.; Murray, A. B.; Arnoult, O. (2001): Formation of
coastline features by large-scale instabilities induced by
highangle waves. Nature, Vol. 414, pp 296-300.
Lpez-Ruiz, A; Ortega-Snchez, M.; Baquerizo, A;
Losada, M. (2012): Short and medium-term evolution of
shoreline
undulation
on
curvilinear
coasts.
Geomorphology, doi: 10.1016/j.geomorph.2012.03.026
Petersen, D.; Deigaard, R.; Fredse, J. (2008): Modelling
the morphology of sandy spits. Coastal Engineering, Vol.
55, pp 671-684.