Monitoring the Effects of Living Shoreline Structures and Bathymetry on Sediment Transport Caused by Boat Wakes
Abstract
Boating activity in the intracoastal waters creates a wave climate that causes marsh erosion and significantly affects the ecosystem, for example, leading to the deterioration of oyster reefs. A NOAA-funded field experiment at the Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve (GTMNERR) studies the effectiveness of living shorelines (soft wave-defense systems) in combating coastal erosion as well as in facilitating the regrowth of oyster reefs. The defense system is composed of breakwalls built of tree branches, protecting oyster gabions. The experiment, now in its third year, uses acoustic instrumentation to monitor wave activity and sediment transport, while bathymetry, marsh edge evolution, and oyster growth have been measured periodically at six different sites along the Tolomato River in an effort to assess the effectiveness of the breakwalls. We present observations of ship wave transformation and propagation through breakwalls, as well as estimates of wave statistics, sediment transport rates, and bathymetric evolution. Numerical simulations, conducted using the FUNWAVE-TVD Boussinesq model, are presented briefly (a detailed account of the numerical modeling effort is given in a parallel presentation).
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AGUFMGC51N0967A
- Keywords:
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- 1620 Climate dynamics;
- GLOBAL CHANGEDE: 1630 Impacts of global change;
- GLOBAL CHANGEDE: 4323 Human impact;
- NATURAL HAZARDSDE: 4217 Coastal processes;
- OCEANOGRAPHY: GENERAL