Dynamique de la zone de swash : influence de la marée et de la morphologie sur les paramètres du run-up

The impact of tide and morphology on run-up parameters in dissipative conditions is assessed, using high-frequency video observations. The infragravity run-up is dominant and shows variations of about 60% during an entire tidal cycle. This behavior cannot be explained by the evolution of offshore wave conditions. Wave conditions in the surf zone and the beach slope are tidally modulated and significantly correlated to the runup. The role of the shape of the beach profile is also investigated

Field Observations of Alongshore Runup Variability Under Dissipative Conditions in the Presence of a Shoreline Sandwave

The article of record as published may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2018JC014109Video measurements of runup were collected at low tide along several profiles covering an alongshore distance of 500 m. The morphology displayed a complex shape with a shoreline sandwave in the lower beach face of about 250 m long mirrored in the inner sandbar. Wave conditions were stationary and moderate (offshore height of 2 m and peak period of nearly 13 s) but yet dissipative. Runup energy was dominated by infragravity frequencies. Alongshore variations in runup (by a factor up to 3) observed both in the incident and infragravity bands were much higher than reported previously (e.g., Guedes et al., 2012, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.csr.2012.08.022; Ruggiero et al., 2004, https://doi.org/10.1029/2003JC002160) while the alongshore variations in other environmental parameters (e.g., foreshore beach slope) appear to be much lower. Our data suggest that the beach morphology in the inner surf zone plays a crucial role by inducing rapid and significant modification in the incident wave pattern and the alongshore coherence length scales were consistent with the typical alongshore length scale of the morphology.French DGA (ECORS project

Beach response to a sequence of extreme storms

A sequence of daily beach surveys acquired over one month covering an area larger than 100,000 m2, was analyzed to study morphological changes resulting from a cluster of storms. The beach response was highly variable in both the cross- and alongshore. A cumulative storm effect was not observed, despite one storm being characterized by a 10-year return period that had significant wave height (Hs) of 8.1 m and a peak wave period (Tp) of 17 s. Instead, storms that can potentially cause significant erosion in terms of Hs had a limited effect on the morphology because the large wave height was coupled to either neap tides, normally-incident short-waves (f > 0.04 Hz), or low levels of infragravity (0.004 < f < 0.04 Hz) energy. Multiple linear regression analysis shows that volumetric changes in the upper part of the beachface are explained by offshore wave characteristics (period, height and direction), tidal range or by infragravity energy in the inner surf zone (assessed using pressure and velocity measurements). The results indicate that it is not possible to scale-up single-storm erosion studies into predictions of cluster-storm erosion