Omar Quetzalcóatl Gutiérrez

Brazilian Coastal Processes: Wind, Wave Climate and Sea Level

The coast of Brazil has substantial physical and environmental diversity, constituting a constant challenge for coastal management. This diversity is characterized by heterogeneity regarding the morphology of the coast and its hydrodynamic components, such as waves, tides, sea level changes and atmospheric pressure gradients. In this chapter an historical review regarding the existing observed data is presented.

A METHODOLOGY TO STUDY BEACH MORPHODYNAMICS BASED ON SELF-ORGANIZING MAPS AND DIGITAL IMAGES

The use of digital images (DI) to study the beach morphology has become an important tool in recent years, as it is easier to obtain high resolution information for large areas and over longer periods of time. Measuring a large set of DI however is not a simple task. A methodology to classify beach DI based on Self-Organizing Maps has therefore been developed, which required several experiments to find the most adequate variables and metrics for the training process. The methodology has three parts, a preparation of DI, the SOM training and the reconstruction of evolution series. The preparation deals with the effect of tides and variations of light due to the meteorological conditions and time of day. The training of SOM is done using correlation such as metric and the processed DI. The methodology is applied to classify DI from Barceloneta Beach using the coastline position.

Estimating Flooding Level Through the Brazilian Coast Using Reanalysis Data

ABSTRACT Gomes da Silva, P.; Dalinghaus, C.; González, M., Gutiérrez, O., Espejo, A., Abascal, A.J., and Klein, A.H.F., 2016. Estimating flooding level through the Brazilian coast using reanalysis data. In: Vila-Concejo, A.; Bruce, E.; Kennedy, D.M., and McCarroll, R.J. (eds.), Proceedings of the 14th International Coastal Symposium (Sydney, Australia). Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue, No. 75, pp. 1092 - 1096. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. This paper presents an estimative of coastal flooding level values distribution along the Brazilian coast by using reanalysis data and by simulating wave propagation with Snell approximation. The coast was divided into 24 zones and flooding levels series were calculated for each one. Mean and extreme distribution show higher flooding levels occurring in northern coast (3 m higher than beaches in central coast) followed by the southern coast (1 m higher than central coast). High values obtained on north region were associated with greater tidal elevations (maximum values > 3 m) while higher values in south were related to greater wave heights and higher storm surge elevations (∼2 m and >7 m respectively). A comparison between beach types were also conducted and demonstrate higher values of flooding levels during reflective conditions (0.3 m higher for a specific beach condition), as a result of the runup model applied. Although simplifications were used to calculate this large scale variation of the flooding level along the coast, the results partially presented here can be of large usefulness in pre-design phases of coastal projects and in preliminary risk analysis.