Edith L. Gallagher

Observations of sand bar evolution on a natural beach

Waves, currents, and the location of the seafloor were measured on a barred beach for about 2 months at nine locations along a cross-shore transect extending 255 m from 1 to 4 m water depth. The seafloor location was measured nearly continuously, even in the surf zone during storms, with sonar altimeters mounted on fixed frames. The crest of a sand bar initially located about 60 m from the shoreline moved 130 m offshore (primarily when the offshore significant wave height exceeded about 2 m), with 1.5 m of erosion near the initial location and 1 m of accretion at the final location. An energetics-type sediment transport model driven by locally measured near-bottom currents predicts the observed offshore bar migration, but not the slow onshore migration observed during low-energy wave conditions. The predicted offshore bar migration is driven primarily by cross-shore gradients in predicted suspended sediment transport associated with quasi-steady, near-bottom, offshore flows. These strong (>50 cm/s) currents, intensified near the bar crest by wave breaking, are predicted to cause erosion on the shoreward slope of the bar and deposition on the seaward side. The feedback amoung morphology, waves, circulation, and sediment transport thus forces offshore bar migration during storms.

Nearshore sandbar migration

Field observations suggest that onshore sandbar migration, observed when breaking-wave-driven mean flows are weak, may be related to the skewed fluid accelerations associated with the orbital velocities of nonlinear surface waves. Large accelerations (both increases and decreases in velocity magnitudes), previously suggested to increase sediment suspension, occur under the steep wave faces that immediately precede the maximum onshore-directed orbital velocities. Weaker accelerations occur under the gently sloping rear wave faces that precede the maximum offshore-directed velocities. The timing of strong accelerations relative to onshore flow is hypothesized to produce net onshore sediment transport. The observed acceleration skewness, a measure of the difference in the magnitudes of accelerations under the front and rear wave faces, is maximum near the sandbar crest. The corresponding cross-shore gradients of an acceleration-related onshore sediment transport would cause erosion offshore and accretion onshore of the bar crest, consistent with the observed onshore migration of the bar crest. Furthermore, the observations and numerical simulations of nonlinear shallow water waves show that the region of strongly skewed accelerations moves shoreward with the bar, suggesting that feedback between waves and evolving morphology can result in continuing onshore bar migration.

Spectral evolution of shoaling and breaking waves on a barred beach

Field observations and numerical model predictions are used to investigate the effects of nonlinear interactions, reflection, and dissipation on the evolution of surface gravity waves propagating across a barred beach. Nonlinear interactions resulted in a doubling of the number of wave crests when moderately energetic (about 0.8-m significant wave height), narrowband swell propagated without breaking across an 80-m-wide, nearly flat (2-m depth) section of beach between a small offshore sand bar and a steep (slope = 0.1) beach face, where the waves finally broke. These nonlinear energy transfers are accurately predicted by a model based on the nondissipative, unidirectional (i.e., reflection is neglected) Boussinesq equations. For a lower-energy (wave height about 0.4 m) bimodal wave field, high-frequency seas dissipated in the surf zone, but lower-frequency swell partially reflected from the steep beach face, resulting in significant cross-shore modulation of swell energy. The combined effects of reflection from the beach face and dissipation across the sand bar and near the shoreline are described well by a bore propagation model based on the nondispersive nonlinear shallow water equations. Boussinesq model predictions on the flat section (where dissipation is weak) are improved by decomposing the wave field into seaward and shoreward propagating components. In more energetic (wave heights greater than 1 m) conditions, reflection is negligible, and the region of significant dissipation can extend well seaward of the sand bar. Differences between observed decreases in spectral levels and Boussinesq model predictions of nonlinear energy transfers are used to infer the spectrum of breaking wave induced dissipation between adjacent measurement locations. The inferred dissipation rates typically increase with increasing frequency and are comparable in magnitude to the nonlinear energy transfer rates.

Surf zone surface retention on a rip‐channeled beach

The retention of floating matter within the surf zone on a rip-channeled beach is examined with a combination of detailed field observations obtained during the Rip Current Experiment and a three-dimensional (3-D) wave and flow model. The acoustic Doppler current profiler–observed hourly vertical cross-shore velocity structure variability over a period of 3 days with normally incident swell is well reproduced by the computations, although the strong vertical attenuation of the subsurface rip current velocities at the most offshore location outside the surf zone in 4 m water depth is not well predicted. Corresponding mean alongshore velocities are less well predicted with errors on the order of 10 cm/s for the most offshore sensors. Model calculations of very low frequency motions (VLFs) with O(10) min timescales typically explain over 60% of the observed variability, both inside and outside of the surf zone. The model calculations also match the mean rip-current surface flow field inferred from GPS-equipped drifter trajectories. Seeding the surf zone with a large number of equally spaced virtual drifters, the computed instantaneous surface velocity fields are used to calculate the hourly drifter trajectories. Collecting the hourly drifter exits, good agreement with the observed surf zone retention is obtained provided that both Stokes drift and VLF motions are accounted for in the modeling of the computed drifter trajectories. Without Stokes drift, the estimated number of virtual drifter exits is O(80)%, almost an order of magnitude larger than the O(20)% of observed exits during the drifter deployments. Conversely, when excluding the VLF motions instead, the number of calculated drifter exits is less than 5%, thus significantly underestimating the number of observed exits.

Performance of a sonar altimeter in the nearshore

Abstract A 1 MHz sonar altimeter with automatic gain control is shown to provide accurate estimates of the distance between the instrument and the seafloor. Laboratory experiments indicate that distance estimates degrade slightly when the bottom is rough or sloped and when sediment is suspended in the water column. Results from field tests, both within and seaward of the surf zone, show some degradation owing to a combination of suspended sediment and bubbles, bed undulations, and perhaps the dynamic nature of the sand bottom under waves. Seaward of the surf zone the bottom can be located within ±2 cm nearly continuously, whereas inside the surf zone the bottom can be located only intermittently and the accuracy decreases to ±3 cm. A 300 m long cross-shore transect of 16 altimeters was deployed from the shoreline to about 4 m depth for 3 months in summer-fall 1994 near Duck, NC. Results show that the altimeters are robust and can usually provide estimates of the seafloor position every few minutes even in the surf zone during large storms.

Observations and modeling of steep-beach grain-size variability

Novel observations of surface grain-size distributions are used in combination with intra-wave modeling to examine the processes responsible for the sorting of sediment grains on a relatively steep beach (slope?=?1:7.5). The field observations of the mean grain size collected with a digital camera system at consecutive low and high tides for a 2 week period show significant temporal and spatial variation. This variation is reproduced by the modeling approach when the surf zone flow-circulation is relatively weak, showing coarse grain sizes at the location of the shore break and finer sediment onshore and offshore of the shore break. The model results suggest that grain size sorting is dominated by the wave-breaking-related suspended sediment transport which removes finer sediment from the shore break and transports it both on-shore and offshore. The transport capacity of wave-breaking-related suspended sediment is controlled by the sediment response time scale in the advection-diffusion equation, where small (large) values promote onshore (offshore) transport. Comparisons with the observed beach profile evolution suggest a relatively short time scale for the suspended sediment response which could be explained by the vigorous breaking of the waves at the shore break.

A note on megaripples in the surf zone: evidence for their relation to steady flow dunes

Megaripples in the combined flow environment of the nearshore are proposed to behave like dunes or large ripples in rivers, tidal estuaries, and deserts. Their profile basically is symmetric and thus significantly different from the traditional asymmetric triangular features observed in steady flows. Similarly their planform often exhibits little directionality, unlike crescentic or lunate steady flow dunes that point in the downstream direction. These characteristics are the result of complex combined flows in the nearshore, including oscillatory flows, wave skewness, and steady currents (undertow, rips and alongshore flows). Recent observations of megaripples in the nearshore suggest that they occur frequently. However, they are rarely considered in studies of flow resistance or sediment transport. In addition, megaripples are thought to be the source of hummocky cross-stratification in sedimentary sequences and are generally attributed to storm waves on inner continental shelves. However, observations show that they also exist inside the surf zone and under lower-energy conditions. A better understanding of their dynamics and thus their occurrence and characteristics would improve the understanding of nearshore wave and circulation dynamics, sediment transport, large-scale morphodynamics, and the resulting sedimentary sequences. It is hypothesized that megaripples in the nearshore are dynamically similar to steady flow features, which are observed in rivers, estuaries and deserts and have been studied in much more detail.

Asphalt Concrete Surfaces Macrotexture Determination From Still Images

Road surface macrotexture is identified as one of the factors contributing to the surfaces skid resistance. Existing methods of quantifying the surface macrotexture, such as the sand patch test and the laser profilometer test, are either expensive or intrusive, requiring traffic control. High-resolution cameras have made it possible to acquire good quality images from roads for the automated analysis of texture depth. In this paper, a granulometric method based on image processing is proposed to estimate road surface texture coarseness distribution from their edge profiles. More than 1300 images were acquired from two different sites, extending to a total of 2.96 km. The images were acquired using camera orientations of 60° and 90°. The road surface is modeled as a texture of particles, and the size distribution of these particles is obtained from chord lengths across edge boundaries. The mean size from each distribution is compared with the sensor measured texture depth obtained using a laser profilometer. By tuning the edge detector parameters, a coefficient of determination of up to R2 = 0.94 between the proposed method and the laser profilometer method was obtained. The high correlation is also confirmed by robust calibration parameters that enable the method to be used for unseen data after the method has been calibrated over road surface data with similar surface characteristics and under similar imaging conditions.

Evolution of the Nearshore Bed Envelope

The temporal growth of the envelope of bed motion owing to the migration of bedforms, which can be considered a proxy for maximum object burial depth, is examined using five different data sets. These data sets support the hypothesis that the envelope of bed motion will grow as an exponential taper, quickly at first, tapering off and approaching an asymptotic value. This growth is largest and fastest in the surf zone where wave and current flows are strong. Within the surf zone, envelopes owing solely to the migration of megaripples (bedforms with heights from 20 to 40 cm and lengths from 1 to 5 m) grow for about 8 d and reach an asymptote of about 40 cm. When wave energy becomes larger ( 1 m), bed envelopes are dominated by migrating sand bars and approach an asymptote of 3-4 m, but only after 2-12 years (depending on the beach). In addition, the frequency of object burial (the percentage of time that an object would be buried by the crests of migrating bedforms) is highest in the surf zone and grows rapidly with time.

Predictions of Bedforms in Tidal Inlets and River Mouths

Abstract : The long term objective of the proposed study is to model and measure bedforms in tidal inlets and river mouths. We use an existing self-organization model to predict multiple scales of bedforms and we will make measurements of bedforms within combined flow environments (May 2012). The model s predictive skill will then be evaluated. This grant was for 1 year only and included funds to begin model development, to interact with the CSDMS group, and to participate in an ONR program review (June 2010). These activities have all been completed and a follow-on ONR grant has been awarded.