Modelling multi-decadal shoreline variability and evolution

Abstract

A robust and practical methodology for predicting future shoreline behaviour along sandy coastlines would be valuable to a broad range of coastal engineering applications. Present approaches for predicting shoreline evolution range from simple linear trend models, which cannot predict observed complex behaviour, to coupled hydrodynamic / sediment transport models, with seasonal to multi-year forecasting generally beyond present model capabilities. In this work a simple empirical shoreline variability model, ShoreFor (Shoreline Forecast), is investigated using a multi-decadal dataset to assess model performance at daily to decadal timescales. Model performance is assessed at five alongshore l..