Jon K. Miller

AN ENGINEERING SCALE MODEL FOR PREDICTING THE SHORELINE RESPONSE TO VARIATIONS IN WAVES AND WATER LEVELS

An alternative approach for simulating shoreline changes due to variations in waves and water levels over the timescales of engineering relevance has been developed, calibrated and evaluated using historical shoreline data from 13 sites within the United States and Australia. The Engineering Scale Shoreline Model (ESlMod), is an equilibrium based model in which the shoreline continuously evolves towards an equilibrium position determined by the dynamic local conditions. The rate at which the equilibrium position is approached is a function of the degree of disequilibrium and a coefficient which can either be treated as a calibration constant or parameterized in terms of the local conditions. Both approaches are considered here. Initial results are positive, as an overall average normalized mean square error of 0.653 has been calculated for the over two thousand simulations performed thus far.